Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Calcutta (Agenzia Fides) - A community mourns, but praises the Lord for the extraordinary life of Father Luigi Gobetti, Salesian missionary who died on Sept. 22, aged 91, in Bandel (Diocese of Calcutta), after 75 years of missionary work in West Bengal. Fr. Luigi was in the famous Marian Shrine of Bandel, where he spent the last 25 years of his life, as prior, pastor and administrator. Here, where he still loved to take care of the magazine of catechesis and liturgy, "Our Lady of Bandel", the funeral was celebrated today, 27 September, attended by a crowd of priests, religious and laity.
He was born in 1921 in Tarcento (in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Northern Italy), Fr. Luigi arrived in India in 1936 as a seminarian and he professed the Salesian vows in 1937. He was ordained a priest in 1945, he assisted the Bishop of Krishnagar, Mgr. Louis L.R. Morrow, in the birth of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate (SMI), in the role of Vicar General of the diocese and working, then, in the diocese of Calcutta.
His extraordinary and long-lived missionary life is now enclosed in a documentary made and published in 2005 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his ordination, and titled "Mosaic of a Missionary," and produced by the Centre "Nitika Don Bosco." "He gave his life for the good and welfare of the population of Bengal. When he chose to become a citizen of India he did it, as St. Paul says, to become all things to all men"(1 Cor 9, 22), the documentary says. The missionary received numerous national and international awards, and a special prize of the "Catholic Association of Bengal" for his outstanding contribution to the local church ministry. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 27/09/2011)
