A Jesuit priest from Croatia, who worked with the poor in Sunderbans and in close association with Mother Teresa, is being remembered through photographs.
Father Ante Gabric spent five decades in India.
At the inauguration of a two-day exhibition in the city on Thursday, he was described as a “simple man” who would use public transport and carry his cycle on his back to cross streams.
Father Gabric passed away in 1988, exactly 50 years after he set foot in India from Croatia.
The exhibition, Ante Gabric -Where the Palms Bloom, on Thursday and Friday (9am to 6pm) at the Church of Christ the King is a collaboration between the Croatian Father Ante Gabric Foundation and the Archdiocese of Kolkata.
The exhibition will move to the Baruipur diocese on February 23-24 at Basanti) and on February 26-27 at Gosaba.
The exhibition is a collection of photographs by fellow Croatian, Zvonimir Atletic. He took the pictures when Father Gabric was working in the Sunderbans and some with Mother Teresa in Mother House.
Father Gabric’s work included setting up a “rice bank” that freed the poor from greedy moneylenders, little rural schools, craft schools and even hospitals.
He took care of widows who after their husband’s death were legally not eligible to inherit the joint assets acquired during their marriage and were harassed and even banned by their relatives and the community.
For them, he established a home and settled the parentless children in orphanages.
Father Gabric also helped build huts, embankments and roads in the mangrove delta.
“Fifty years spent in the service of people. Nothing for himself, all for others,” archbishop Thomas D’Souza said at the inauguration of the exhibition.
“Not many perhaps know him as a great missionary... this exhibition here will help people to get to know him better...” said the archbishop.
Reverend D’Souza said Father Gabric’s association with “Saint Teresa, dear Mother” was not accidental in Croatia and their work led to the formation of houses for the poor in India.
The superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Joseph said a prayer.
“He (Father Ante Gabric) has been a light to the diocese of Baruipur... His life merged with the life of another saint Mother Teresa,” she said.
Father Gabric worked in Basanti from 1947 to 61 and again from 1970 to 75.
He was in Kumrokhali from 1975 to 88 and with the help of Mother Teresa he opened a dispensary for abandoned children and a small school there, said Father Raphael Hyde, provincial, Calcutta Jesuits.
“His mode of conveyance was ordinary. A cycle or a bus. He would not take a car for himself. I think he broke his back trying to carry a cycle across a stream or a river... whatever he used to get he got for his people. He spent for his people. Not for himself,” said Father Hyde.
The work for the exhibition was set rolling after Father Dominic Gomes, the vicar general of the archdiocese of Kolkata, went to Croatia and collaborated with the foundation there.
“The foundation tries to work for the people, following in the footsteps of Father Ante Gabric ,” said Marina Vrecko, a co-founder. She along with another co-founder Violeta Orsulie are in the city for the exhibition.
