Media Release

Mumbai, Apr 21: The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF), the Mumbai based activist community organization has expressed Indian Christians' grief at the death of Pope Francis which came as he was recuperating.

On receiving the news, Joseph Dias, the CSF founder and general secretary said "Pope Francis will mostly be remembered for sensitising the Church to the LGBTQ+ community. In a great way, he helped bring sexual minorities into the Catholic mainstream by his sympathy towards them.

"The Holy Father's love for the poor, refugees and down-trodden exceeded his predecessors. His outspokenness on world issues though controversial endeared Pope Francis to the underdogs of the day, especially in Palestine and Ukhraine. He did more to build inter-faith dialogue and harmony than any other pope, especially with Muslims & Hindus", said Joseph Dias while paying last tributes.

"The estimated 1.4 billion Catholics the world over will now have a new leader and Goa's Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferao will be one of the electors from India and it would not be surprising if he emerges as a dark horse. Cardinal Neri is also president of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences and after all, Pope Francis was the first from Latin America. A Cardinal from Asia now will give representation to the region which has contributed much to the global Catholic church. Other possibilities from India are Cardinal Baselios Cleemis of Trivandrum, Cardinal George Koovakad of Koovakad and Cardinal Anthony Poola of Hyderabad, who was also the first Dalit archbishop. We call upon all Catholics to pray for them and for God's will to be done", Joseph Dias added.