Felix Anthony Machado

Felix Anthony Machado (born 6 June 1948) is an Indian prelate of the Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Vasai since 2009 to 2024. He spent a decade in the Roman Curia as under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Biography He was born on 6 June 1948 in Vasai, Maharashtra, India. He was ordained a priest on 30 October 1976 for the Diocese of Bombay.

He studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Lyon and lived in the ecumenical community of Taizé in France for seven years, spending one of those years as a volunteer in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. He then earned a master's degree in theology at Maryknoll Seminary in New York and a doctorate from Fordham University.

Machado served from 1999 to 2008 as under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In that position he helped organize the interreligious prayer service held in Assisi in 2002. He received his episcopal consecration on 8 March 2008 from Cardinal Oswald Gracias. When he first heard of the 2008 bombings in Mumbai, when the attackers were still unidentified, he said: "We do not have to be superficial by saying that it is all about religion. The situation is extremely complex. Sometimes these tragedies are given faces and names, but we have to go deeper in our analysis of the causes."

Pope Benedict transferred him to Vasai on 10 November 2009, and he was installed there on 19 December.

He chairs the Office for Interreligious Dialogue of the Federation of Asian (Catholic) Bishops' Conferences (FABC); and Office for Interreligious Dialogue of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI). He has developed a good working relationship with the Sikh community and advocates dialogue with Hindus to ease their concerns about conversions to Christianity.