ECCLESIA IN ASIA Calcutta remembers Father Gabric, apostle of the Sundarbans

An exhibition in India about the Croatian Jesuit who died in 1988 after living fifty years among the poor of West Bengal, and whose cause for beatification is ongoing. A figure associated with Mother Teresa because of her commitment to the least, the little ones and the widows.

Calcutta () – Calcutta has commemorated these days the life and work of a Jesuit missionary who came to India from Eastern Europe and who, like Mother Teresa, worked for a long time among the poor. Father Ante Gabric, born in Croatia in 1915, came to India at the age of 23 and lived there for half a century. For this reason he earned the nickname “the apostle of the Sundarbans”, the mangrove swamps of the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers in the Bay of Bengal.

The p. Gabric died on October 20, 1988 and was declared a servant of God by the diocese of Zagreb (Croatia), which began the process of his canonization. After Mother Teresa’s canonization in 2016, he is the second missionary to be honored for his connection to Calcutta and Bengal.

In these days the exhibition “Where the palm trees bloom” was installed in the Church of Christ the King, which is part of the initiatives of the cause of beatification of Father Ante. Organized in cooperation between the Croatian Father Ante Gabric Foundation, the Archdiocese of Calcutta and the Diocese of Baruipur, the exhibition features 40 photographs taken by Croatian photographer Zvonimir Atletic. The black and white photographs have already been exhibited in six Croatian cities in 2022. After Calcutta, the exhibition will move to the Diocese of Baruipur, where it will be exhibited in Basanti on February 23 and 24 and in Gosaba on February 26 and 27. February.

Also present at the inauguration in Calcutta, along with Archbishop Thomas D’Souza, were Sister Mary Joseph, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, and Father Raphael Hyde, Provincial of the Society of Jesus. The exhibition was directed by Violetta Orsulic and Marina Vrecko, president and member of the P. Gabric Foundation respectively, with technical support from Church Art.

Gabric entered the Society of Jesus in 1933 with the desire to serve in the missions of India. He was ordained a priest on November 21, 1943 at St. Mary’s Theological College in Kurseong, West Bengal. “From then on, Fr. Ante was a man of fire and a frontier, always finding new paths and opportunities to reach the unreachable in the Sundarbans,” wrote Nicolas Naskar, a catechist who had worked with him since his arrival in the region.

Father Gabric ministered in Basanti from 1947 to 1961 and again from 1970 to 1975. He was then in Kumrokhali from 1975 to 1988 and, with the help of Mother Teresa, opened a dispensary for abandoned children and a small school there. Among the works he founded in the Sundarbans was also a “rice bank” that released the poor from their debts to usurers. And also, small rural schools, vocational training centers and even hospitals. He cared for widows who after the death of their husbands could not legally inherit, and were harassed and even banished by their relatives and communities.

“Fifty years at the service of the people. Nothing for him, everything for others,” said Archbishop Thomas D’Souza at the opening of the exhibition. He added that the fact that he is associated with Mother Teresa is not a coincidence: his work led to the formation of homes for the poor in India. “He was a light for the diocese of Baruipur. His life merged with that of Mother Teresa”, confirmed Sister Mary Joseph.

Marina Vrecko, who knew him as a child, said: “The photos have given us the opportunity to visit Kolkata and the Sundarbans of the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition relives the time when Fr Gabric was a familiar face in the India”. “Older people still remember growing up hearing his stories. They remember him as a familiar figure who walked and cycled over rough terrain to reach people in need,” added Subrata Ganguly of Church Art.

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