India a Low-Key Papal Pilgrimage

The briefing for Pope John Paul II's tour of a Calcutta home for the dying was chalked on a blackboard at the hospice's entrance. "Date: 3rd February. Admission: 2. Discharge: --. Death: 4." Inside, many of the 86 gravely ill patients peered attentively at the visitor, although few knew who he was. "I love you," the Pope murmured over and over as he moved between the cots, delivering a tin plate of food to one or trying to spoon-feed another. As he cradled patients in his arms and traced the sign of the Cross on their brows, he sometimes seemed at a loss for words. When a woman cried out in Bengali, he asked his guide, Mother Teresa, to translate. "She's saying she's very, very alone, and she's telling you, 'Come back again.' " The Pontiff, his eyes misting, grasped the woman's head and gently kissed her forehead. Emerging later into the teeming streets, he seemed emotionally drained. "I cannot fully answer all your questions," John Paul told the gathered crowd. "I cannot take away all your pain."

That moving visit to Mother Teresa's hospice in the Calcutta neighborhood of Kalighat was the high point of the first phase of the Pope's ten-day, 14- city tour of India, which ends this week. Although John Paul was treated with respect and courtesy at every turn, the reception was often unmistakably cool. Tight security measures cramped the Pontiff's usual hand-pressing style, but police cordons could not wholly explain the disappointing turnout at stops along his route. Indian political and non-Christian religious leaders sometimes strained to put a distance between themselves and the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church, whose travel plans had stirred an angry response from extremist members of the country's Hindu majority. Spectators offered little of the exuberant affection that has greeted the Pope on most of his 28 previous foreign pilgrimages.

The Pontiff, however, was braced for one of the greatest challenges of his seven-year papacy. India's Catholic population accounts for only 12 million, or just 1.7%, of the country's 746 million people. Moreover, in recent weeks conservative Hindus had been warning that the Pope planned to use his trip to convert 200,000 Hindus to Christianity. The agitation peaked on Jan. 12, when 22 Hindu organizations rallied 50,000 demonstrators in Trivandrum, India's southernmost city. Last week's protest activities were kept tightly in check by police.

Aware of these strains, John Paul selected "unity" as his central theme for the trip. After his plane touched down in New Delhi on Feb. 1, he quickly set the tone for his visit. "I can assure you," he said, "that the church is always desirous of offering her loyal and generous contribution to the unity and brotherhood of the nation." Only government officials, church leaders, reporters and security men heard the speech, since ordinary citizens were barred from the welcoming ceremony.

Elsewhere in New Delhi, the reception was tepid. The Pope's meeting with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi lasted just 20 minutes. Indian officials released little information about the meeting, which some observers interpreted as evidence that the government aimed to downplay the Pope's trip. John Paul's multireligious gathering at the Indira Gandhi stadium produced such lengthy oratory that by the time the Pope spoke, hundreds had already gone home.