Millions flock to India's Goa for exposition of St. Xavier's relics

An exposition of the sacred relics of St. Francis Xavier, the famed 16th-century Jesuit missionary, has been held in the southwestern Indian city of Old Goa, in a once-in-a-decade event attracting millions of Catholics and tourists from across Hindu-majority India and other countries.The remains of Xavier, who was born in 1506 in what is now Spain and died in 1552 in China, lie in the former capital of the Portuguese Indies from where he departed for his missionary work in the Malay Archipelago and Japan.Christians account for only 2.3 percent of India's population, the last official census…READ FULL ARTICLE