Pope John Paul II, choosing his words carefully to avoid inflaming the passions of Hindu extremists protesting his visit to India, called on the Christian minority Sunday to spearhead efforts to lift this nation out of poverty and illiteracy.
The Pope`s remarks, delivered to a crowd of 20,000 at a mass in the capital`s Indira Gandhi Stadium, represented one of his strongest pleas yet for an orthodox ”theology of liberation,” which is taking root in Roman Catholic churches throughout the Third World.
This liberation requires a ”struggle against poverty,” the 65-year-old pontiff declared. ”And it requires all who belong to Christ to engage in persevering efforts to relieve the sufferings of the poor.”
India, despite great strides toward development since it gained independence nearly 40 years ago, is beset with economic, health and educational problems, along with sectarian strife.
The nation`s 12 million Catholics are less than 2 percent of India`s estimated population of 750 million, but the church long has sponsored a disproportionately large number of schools, hospitals and orphanages on the subcontinent.
The Pope urged a sustained commitment to those efforts, but he also pleaded with members of India`s other religious groups to join in the task of creating a ”civilization of love where the rich willingly share with the poor, where the poor can be free from hunger and want.”
Even so, John Paul asserted that Christianity, perhaps more than Hinduism or Islam, provides a strong foundation for humanitarian action and a theology that ”gives meaning to all human suffering.”
”Here in India,” he said, ”there are millions of poor people, and they share in the cross of Christ because Christ on the cross has taken to himself all the crosses of the world.
”Yet the cross of poverty, the cross of hunger and the cross of every other suffering can be transformed, for the cross of Christ has become a light in our world. It is a light of hope and salvation.”
The Pope`s visit, which began Saturday, has been denounced by Hindu militants who charge that he is trying to convert poor Hindus to Catholicism. As the mass ended, a man threw a firecracker about 20 yards from the Pope. The man, identified as Dominique Ouseph, 25, was arrested.
”It appears he was of unsound mind,” Deputy Police Commissioner Umesh Kumar Katna told the Associated Press. ”He said he did it just to draw the Pope`s attention.”
Vatican spokesman Joaquim Navarro said the Pope heard the explosion but did not turn to look. No one was injured.
Earlier Sunday, John Paul met with the Dalai Lama, the self-exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists. A spokesman for the Dalai Lama said the two met alone for about 20 minutes and agreed that all religions aim for the good of mankind and that spiritual development is as important as material progress.
Later, at a meeting with political, religious and cultural leaders, the Pope renewed his call for wider collaboration among India`s array of religions.
He also urged the safeguarding of ”the basic right to worship God according to the dictates of an upright conscience and to profess that faith externally,” a thinly veiled criticism of growing government restrictions on the activities of Christian missionaries in some parts of India.
