Pope sends telegram to Archdiocese of Goa
PANAJI
Pope Leo XIV on Monday sent a telegram to the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, in connection with the 400th anniversary of the arrival in India of the first Lithuanian Jesuit priest, Father Andrius Rudamina.
According to a report in the Vatican News, the Pope, in the message signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, sent his good wishes to everyone gathered at the Se Cathedral in Old Goa to commemorate the event.
He explained he is sharing in their thanksgiving to God for Fr Rudamina’s witness as a missionary and “whose solid Catholic faith can still be seen in present-day Lithuania.”
The Pope is praying that the celebration of the priest’s great generosity and courage in bringing the Gospel to all “will encourage many in our own times to respond with similar patience and ingenuity to the task of evangelisation.”
Building upon the foundations of Fr Rudamina’s “missionary zeal and impressive legacy of dialogue and cultural integration,” Pope Leo expressed his trust that the local churches in the Archdiocese will feel encouraged to cultivate ecumenical and interreligious dialogue that can serve for everyone as a model of fraternal harmony, reconciliation, and concord.
The telegram closed with the Pope extending his apostolic blessing on everyone celebrating this anniversary “as a pledge of joy and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ”,” stated thje Vatican News.
According to the news report, Fr Rudamina in 1625 had made the dangerous 6,000-mile journey across the world to India at the age of 29 together with 11 Portuguese confreres.
The priest spent the next year of his life in the country before contracting malaria and being transferred to China in 1626, where he died just 5 years later. In Lithuania, a memorial stone was set up in his honour in 2015.
