The Catholic bishops of India have made history by choosing the leaders of three different rites to head the national bishops' conference.Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, the Major Archbishop of the autonomous Syro-Malabar Church, was elected the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) at the weeklong biennial assembly attended by 150 Indian bishops at Jamshedpur in the eastern Jharkhand state.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, a Latin-rite prelate, was elected the first vice-president of the CBCI.
And Major Archbishop Baselios Cleemis, who heads the Syro Malankara Church, was selected as the second vice-president.
The Indian bishops' choices mark the first time that prelates of three different Catholic rites have shared the leadership of a national episcopal conference.There are 160 Catholic dioceses in India: 119 Latin, 25 Syro-Malabar, and 6 Syro-Malankara.
Altogether the country's Catholic population is about 16 million.
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