India Hears Pope’s Birth Control Views

Pope John Paul II restated Roman Catholic doctrine on birth control and abortion here Sunday, firmly putting to rest fears among some of his more devout followers that he would soft-pedal the issue, a sensitive one in overpopulated India, where the government promotes family planning but where more Catholics than Hindus reportedly practice birth control.

Before the Pope left Rome on Jan. 31 for his 10-day “pilgrimage of peace” in India, a senior Catholic bishop here was quoted as hoping that John Paul would ignore the subject. In the past, the government has forced birth control measures on the populace, which has burgeoned from 480 million when Pope Paul VI visited Bombay in 1964 to almost 750 million today.

India still promotes all methods of birth control except forced sterilization, which the late Sanjay Gandhi, brother of the present prime minister, pushed to the point of political crisis for his mother, the since-assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

But despite polite efforts by Indian churchmen during the trip’s planning stages to persuade the Pope that the subject be avoided, John Paul repeated exactly what he has said on all of his other trips abroad.

“All human life is sacred from the moment of conception,” he told a Mass for about 200,000 in a Bombay park Sunday. “It is the task of all mankind to reject whatever wounds, weakens or destroys human life--whatever offends the dignity of any human being.”

And to emphasize his total and well-known condemnation of artificial methods of birth control, even in overpopulated countries, he cited modern India’s most heroic figure, Mohandas K. Gandhi.

“Suspension of procreation” cannot be achieved “by immoral and artificial checks . . . but by a life of discipline and self-control,” the Pope said, quoting the great Indian apostle of peace. “Moral results can only be produced by moral restraint.”

The pontiff faced inspirational competition when he arrived here Sunday morning. The influential Times of India gave its top story to the arrival of another spiritual man who through simple, non-sectarian, non-partisan action in the pattern of Mahatma Gandhi has galvanized millions of Indians and many of their political leaders of all parties into at least paying lip-service to national unity and environmental conservation.

Baba Amte, who leads a movement called “Knit India,” had walked 1,400 miles from the southern cape of the subcontinent and will more than double that distance before he completes his procession through all of India’s 22 states. He is fighting what the Times called the “unseen enemy of caste, creed, region, religion and language.” He is also planting trees along the way to stimulate ecological sensitivity among the masses.

The Pope received a shorter mention in an adjacent column of the newspaper, and, possibly due to competition from Baba Amte, the crowds that John Paul drew for his public appearances in Bombay were much smaller than the million-plus Indians who came out to see Paul VI 22 years ago.

Another noted spiritual figure in town was the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican church, Robert A.K. Runcie. Although he did not compete in public appearances, and thus could not have drawn crowds away from either the Roman pontiff or Baba Amte, Runcie did manage to extend what was intended to be a brief exchange of greetings with the Pope into a half-hour discussion.

“It went very well, it was very enjoyable,” Runcie said afterwards. “We talked of many things in a short time.”