As my friend @IBSA , I also liked the choice of a new pope. I was rooting for the Cardinal Scherer, but found sympathetic Cardinal Bergoglio (Francisco).
I found it very interesting figure of Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, from India. Any you can tell me something more about him?
GeoBR,
When the Portuguese arrived in india, they were amazed to find Christians in South India. Their ancestors had been converted by St Thomas (the doubting apostle Thomas) who somehow reached India. There was also a small community of Jews.
The christians were initially part of the Roman church but were cut off by the rise of Islam in the Middle East but carried on whit their liturgy as it had been. They used Syriac (a language from the time of Christ) in their Mass but otherwise were similar to Catholic. Eventually under pressure from the Portuguese they reunited with the Catholic church as the Syrio-Malabar Curch which still uses the old Syriac liturgy and vestments but achnowledges the Pope as head of Church.
Here (in English) is more info on this church
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are many other Catholics in India mainly in the south, in Goa (a former Portuguese colony), Mangalore, Tamil Nadu and Mumbai (Bombay = Bom Bahia) which has a indigineous Catholic population plus many migrants from the other places already mentioned.
My family is originally from Goa and we are often mistaken for Brazilian in Europe as we have a very Portuguese samily name.
Syd