The time when John Paul II bowed before Gandhi

GEROLAMO FAZZINI

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"... it was a nice surprise to read the testimony of experienced missionary Fr. Carlo Torriani published in the latest issue of PIME monthly Mondo e Missione (World and Mission). The piece, titled “Quando il Papa imparò da Gandhi”(When the Pope learnt from Ghandi) was about the first of John Paul II’s two trips to India.

“The visit Pope Wojtyla paid to India in February 1986 was an extraordinary event for India’s Christians and sparked contrasting reactions. It definitely gave Indian Christians of different denominations a sense of community but it also sparked opposition from the Hindu world which avoided dialogue,” Torriani wrote.

It was an intense trip with lots of different parts to it. “In the ten days he was there, Pope Wojtyla gave forty three speeches. In my view, however, the most important part of his visit was the long period of time he spent kneeling down in silence before Mahatma Gandhi’s mausoleum on his first day in New Delhi. All the speeches he gave in the various cities were prepared beforehand and to some extent taken as a given but there was something extraordinary about this gesture, about a Pope who kneels down before the tomb of a man - who was denied an audience with Pius XI in 1931- for more than five minutes breaking with protocol.”

The article published in Mondo e Missione magazine continues: “A Pope who silently acknowledges a mistake made by his predecessor, for political reasons, and makes amends. A Pope who does not preach but listens. As he himself apparently told journalists on the return flight: “I learnt a great deal from him and I am not ashamed to say it.” A Pope who does not teaches but learns or who teaches by learning.”

Fr. Torriani recalled that “on the return flight, Wojtyla praised Mahatma Gandhi when journalists asked him what his impressions were. “I think Gandhi is still alive. Not only is he still alive, he is still necessary to us, to our West. He was never a Christian and never claimed to be but I learn a great deal from him. Christians can learn how to be Christians from him. The fact I have quoted him in my homilies should tell you something.”

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