(ANS – Bandel) – About 4000 people gathered together on Tuesday 27 September at Bandel to take part in the funeral of the Salesian missionary Fr Luigi Gobetti. He died at 91 years of age on 22 September, after devoting  75 years of his life to the poor of India.

Born in 1921 at Tarcento, in the north of Italy, Fruigi arrived in India in 1936 while still a cleric. During the second world war he was  interned in the Dehra Dun prison camp, while in the meantime continuing his studies and making his perpetual profession in 1943. He was ordained priest on 23 March 1945, and at the end of the war he was assigned to the Salesian youth centre at Krishnagar, where he was catechist.

In those years he worked very closely with Bishop  Louis L.R. Morrow, then Bishop of Krishnagar, in the founding of the Congregation of the Catechist Sisters of Mary the Immaculate Help of Christians (SMI), which in 1992 became the  17th  group of the Salesian Family. “My alter ego” the Bishop called him.

Later he was Vicar General of the diocese of Krishnagar and then collaborated in the Calcutta diocese. In 1971 he helped hundreds of displaced people fleeing from the was of independence of Bangladesh and settling in the Nadia and Hooghly Districts of Bengal, providing small plots of land and houses at low prices.

As parish priest and Rector of the Sanctuary of Bandel he encouraged Catholic families to settle in the area and at the same time strengthening them in their Christian identity in an area that was mainly Hindu.

A prolific writer and editor of the religious magazine “Our Lady of Bandel” Fr Gobetti was also given recognition by the Indian Catholic Press Association in 2004 for his contribution to the promotion of Christian literature.

Recognising his contribution to Italian cultural relations,  in 2007 the Italian Government  conferred on him the “Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana”.

An account of his long life as a missionary can also be found in a documentary “Mosaic of a Missionary”, made in 2005 by the “Nitika Don Bosco” Centre on the occasion of the 60th   anniversary of his ordination. “He gave his life for the good and the well-being of the people of Bengal. When he chose to become an Indian citizen he did so as St Paul says  to become all things to all” (1 Cor 9, 22),  the documentary says.

Published 29/09/2011