Cardinal Poola, 1st Dalit cardinal, elected president of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India
February 07, 2026
Cardinal Anthony Poola of Hyderabad has been elected president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), the conference announced today.
Cardinal Poola succeeds Syro-Malabar Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Thrissur, the conference’s president since 2022.
“With his election as President of the CBCI, Cardinal Poola Anthony assumes leadership of the Catholic Church in India at a crucial moment, bringing with him decades of pastoral experience, administrative leadership, and a strong commitment to the Church’s mission in service of faith, justice, and human dignity,” the CBCI said in a statement.
Cardinal Poola is the Church’s first Dalit cardinal. The Dalits, once known as “untouchables,” were “historically marginalized in Hindu caste society,” Encyclopaedia Britannica notes. “Despite [legal] measures, the traditional divisions between caste groups persist in some levels of Indian society, making full emancipation of these groups slow to come about.”
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), which elected Cardinal Poola president, is the bishops’ conference of all of India’s bishops, whether Latin-rite (such as Cardinal Poola) or Eastern-rite (such as Archbishop Thazhath). It is distinct from the smaller Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), the bishops’ conference of India’s Latin-rite bishops.
With 1.42 billion people, India is the world’s most populous nation; it is 73% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 5% Christian, 3% ethnic religionist, and 2% Sikh.
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