Pope John Paul II borrowed from the writings of two modern Indian cultural heroes to launch an assault Sunday against artificial birth control in this country, where abortions cost a few dollars and contraceptive devices are widely used.
Speaking at a mass in a sprawling park in the bustling business and industrial center of India, the pontiff quoted the Hindu mystic and political activist Mahatma Gandhi and Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore to buttress his plea for natural family planning in the world`s second most populous country. Gandhi, regarded as the ”father of the country” for his role in leading India to independence from British colonial rule in 1947, harbored ”certain similarities” with Catholic teaching on birth control, John Paul said to a crowd estimated at 100,000 gathered for the late afternoon religious ceremony.
”While he asserted that `the act of generation should be controlled for the ordered growth of the world,` ” the Pope said of Gandhi, ”he asked the question, `How is the suspension of procreation to be brought about?`
”The mahatma`s response to that question,” the pontiff said approvingly, was ” `not by immoral and artificial checks, but by a life of discipline and self-control. Moral results can be produced only by moral restraints.` ”
That posture, said the Pope, is ”the church`s profound conviction,”
too.
John Paul also pointed to the poetry of the 20th Century sage, Tagore, who contended that ”every baby that is born brings with it the message that God has not lost faith in mankind.”
Abortion and sterilization procedures have been widely available and encouraged by government officials in India, whose population of 750 million has put severe strains on social welfare resources. In large cities such as Bombay and Calcutta, abortions are performed for 70 rupees (about $6), and in rural areas birth control pills are dispensed as freely as sweets by a roadside vendor.
John Paul also met Sunday with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, spiritual leader of the world`s 65 million Anglicans.
Runcie told British reporters they had discussed women priests in the Church of England and possible Vatican recognition of Anglican clergy.
A Vatican official told United Press International that Runcie had wanted to discuss substantive ecumenical issues; but the Pope rejected the idea, saying Runcie should come to the Vatican for such a meeting.
The two church leaders had met twice before, in Ghana in 1980 and in Britain in 1982.
The pontiff concludes his 10-day pilgrimage to India on Monday with appearances here and in Poona, a stronghold of Hindu nationalism and the former headquarters of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the controversial guru recently deported from the United States.
