PM Narendra Modi meets Pope at Vatican, invites him to India

New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a one-on-one meeting with Pope Francis in Vatican City on Saturday. He invited him to India during his 20-minute long meeting.

"Had a very warm meeting with Pope Francis. I had the opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues with him and also invited him to visit India," said a tweet from PM Modi's personal account.

PM Narendra Modi and Pope Francis discussed several issues to make the planet better such as fighting climate change and removing poverty, sources said. 

"It may be recalled that the last Papal Visit happened in 1999 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and Pope John Paul II came to India. Now it is during PM Modi's Prime Ministerial term that the Pope has been invited to visit India," sources said.

Prime Minister Modi is on two-day visit to Italy to attend G20 Summit at the invitation of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

There was no set agenda for the talks with the Pope. "I believe tradition is not to have an agenda when you discuss issues with His Holiness. And I think we respect that. I'm sure the issues that will be covered would cover a range of areas of interests in terms of the general global perspectives and issues that are important to all of us," Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had said yesterday.

PM Modi will then head to Glasgow in the UK for the COP26 meeting at the invitation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.