Pope stresses good will

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 6

Pope stresses good will

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi After a subdued welcome to India, Pope John Paul II turned the other cheek to militant Hindu demonstrators, saying his visit was a pilgrimage of good will. He kissed the ground when he arrived at New Delhi on Friday and walked shoeless before the memorial to India’s apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi. The police arrested 400 antiPope demonstrators in the Indian capital.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported 35 more arrests at Ranchi, in Bihar, the Pope’s first stop today after leaving the capital, and.a strike against the visit in another small town in the state.

Mainly school children lined routes the Pope took through the capital during a hectic opening day and tight security kept even them back from him. The crowds seemed thin even for a city where there are only 55,000 Catholics among the four million population. The security stopped several hundred zealots from blocking the Pope’s arrival motorcade as a protest against what they regard as a bid to convert Hindus to Christianity. The leader of the demonstrators, organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha (All-India Hindu Organisation), was Gopal Godse, brother of Nathuram Godse, who was hanged for killing Gandhi.

The Pope praised Gandhi in the most moving ceremony of the day when he placed a wreath and prayed at the spot

where the ashes of the Indian independence leader were entombed in 1948. “What a great man he was,” the Pope said. "My visit to India is a pilgrimage of good will.” During an arrival speech, Mass in a sports stadium, and address to the Church’s bishops the Pope emphasised the Catholic Church’s respect for India’s traditions and other religions. "It is my hope and prayer that the Republic of India will long shine among the nations of the world for its support of the ideals of religious and civil freedom that mark its independent character,” he said. Pope John Paul gave no indication of how the church in India would resolve a debate about its future structure — the main religious questionmark over the visit. India’s* native Catholic church, the "Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malibar,” which claims descent from the .Apostle Thomas in 52 A.D. and practises some local rituals, is clamouring for Independance from Rome. “Be assured that I shall do everything possible to ensure a just and fair settlement of the issue that will take into account all the pastoral exigencies of unity and truth,” the Pope told the country’s bishops.

During his 10-day tour the Pope will visit 14 cities in a country where the 12 million Catholics make up only 1.6 per cent of the population, even though the church in India is the largest in Asia after the Philippines.