The Church in India has mourned the death of Jesuit Father Abraham Adappur, a renowned thinker and writer who drafted Pope Paul VI’s address to India.
Father Adappur died December 3, the feast of St Francis Xavier, at Christ Hall, the headquarters of the Jesuits’ Kerala province in Kozhikode, a major town in the southern Indian state of Kerala. He was 97.
The body of the Kerala Jesuit province was kept at the Christ Hall for the public to pay their respects at 4 p.m. December 5. The funeral is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. on December 5 at the Christ King Church cemetery near Christ Hall.
“With the passing away of Father Abraham Adappur … the Catholic Church in India, especially in Kerala, has lost not just a Jesuit writer and intellectual, but the most seasoned voice of the Church that had the reputation of an authentic Christian thinker, theologian, speaker, and activist,” says Father E P Mathew, head of the Jesuits’ Kerala province.
Father M K George, Father Mathew’s predecessor, hails Father Adappur as “an amazing personality” who was “brilliant, courageous and ready to pay for his convictions.”
According to Father George, Father Adappur’s bold analysis and critique of Marxism was highly appreciated even when Marxism was at the heights of power and popularity.
“He studied, reflected, wrote and spoke on issues crucial to ordinary men and women. He remains one of the illumined witnesses to the tradition of intellectual dimension of the Jesuit Mission,” Father George told Matters India.
Father Mathew says Father Adappur’s death would create a deep void in the secular world that always turned to him to listen to “an authentic spirit” of the Church.
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