The express passenger service from Indore to Patna derailed near the northern city of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state at 3.10am local time, leaving 226 others injured.
Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the country's Catholic Bishops' Conference (CBCI), said: "We are very saddened by this tragic incident."
Emergency service workers worked through the night in using cranes and cutting torches to free people from the 14-coach train, now a wreckage of mangled metal.
Bishop Mascarenhas called upon the Indian government "to investigate thoroughly and immediately the cause of an accident of this magnitude and to take all measures that such tragedies never occur again."
Boasting the world's third largest railway network, train accidents are relatively common in India, however, Sunday's crash is one of its worst in at least five years.
The CBCI said it "offers its heartfelt condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives" and that it was praying for "complete and quick healing" for all those injured.
Approximately 15,000 people are killed every year in train accidents across the country, an Indian government report in 2012 said.
While railway authorities have ordered an investigation, the state's railways minister, Rajen Gohain, was quoted by the Indian Express newspaper as saying "There must be a fault in the track as 14 bogeys have derailed, and this happened despite regular checking of the tracks."