Visa request of 2 Vatican officials rejected, alleges Cardinal Oswald Gracias

The Catholic church on Wednesday alleged that two key Vatican officials who were to address the 27th national assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) in Bengaluru had been denied visa.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, CCBI president, said the 140 bishops from across the world are attending the assembly that commenced on Tuesday. Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, President of Pontifical Mission Societies and Adjunct Secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, were key resource persons for the week-long conference.

CCBI is now planning to hold the session in which the two officials were scheduled to participate through video conferencing. Though the two officials had applied for visa in mid-December, their applications were kept pending till the last minute and rejected, a CCBI statement said.

Sources claimed that even after the intervention by Vatican's Secretary of State office the visa applications were kept pending.