Audience with the Pope
17th of January 1975
Following various encounters with church dignitaries—among them the Archbishops of Uppsala and Stockholm and of Autun, Bourgogne, and the Deans of Westminster and Edinburgh—a much more important interreligious event was now about to happen. Karmapa flew to Rome for an audience with the Pope scheduled in the Vatican. Pope Paul VI, known for his interest in other religions, welcomed Karmapa with a moving speech:
"Your Holiness,
We are happy today to welcome Your Holiness at our Apostolic Palace, and to express our gratitude for the desire you have expressed to come to visit us.
We are friends of all men of good will, especially of those who, like you, have conserved and promoted spiritual as well as moral values of humanity. (...) The second Vatican has expressed sincere admiration for Buddhism in its various forms and its contribution for the elevation of man. We have founded a secretariat to promote relationships and dialogue with non-Christian religions; and we are happy that in all parts of the world our sons and daughters of the Catholic Church are more and more open to friendly cooperation with them, for the promotion of peace and of spiritual and moral values among all mankind. Every moral and religious progress is a contribution to peace.
May we wish Your Holiness a very happy stay in Rome and a deeply satisfying visit to Saint Peter’s, which so many pilgrims from all over the world will visit during this Holy Year.
All of us are pilgrims to the Absolute and Eternal, who alone can fulfill the heart of man.
May our meeting today be an auspice of Peace for your country.
We wish Your Holiness and all your faithful an abundance of prosperity and peace."[1]
(Addition January 2025: As we learn on the Dhagpo Kagyu Ling website, “The possibility for such a meeting was hatched in the early 1970s, when the King of Sikkim, at the time an independent kingdom, invited the Pope’s foreign secretary and president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Archbishop Sergio Pignedoli, to meet the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa in Sikkim. As he was in India at the time, he accepted the invitation, met the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, and offered to facilitate an audience with the Pope should he travel to Europe. Archbishop Pignedoli, who was appointed Cardinal in 1973, was also present at the Vatican meeting.”)
After this impressive reception, the Karmapa, accompanied by Cardinal Pignedoli, guided by Archbishop Pignedoli, indeed did visit St. Peter’s Basilica. Immediately he was attracted by the design of the marble floor as it resembled Tibetan maṇḍalas.
The meeting with the Pope drew international attention and it was covered in newspapers all over the world the next day, including the New York Times:
"Pope Paul VI, who is addressed as “Your Holiness,” used the same form of address yesterday when he welcomed a Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Lama Gyalwa Karmapa, who visited the Vatican."[2]
Some time for shopping in Rome
Before he flew back to France, there was time left to visit Rome, where he visited an old acquaintance: Apa Pant, who had become Indian Ambassador to Italy, had met His Holiness in Gangtok in 1956 and had sent Sister Palmo to Karmapa in 1960. There was also time to do some shopping, which Karmapa used in his own inimitable way to benefit beings, as Erwan Temple recalls:
"Contessa Laura Albini invited Karmapa and his entourage to a really first-class shoe shop, a huge one. Karmapa sat down. The room was extremely high, and the shelves holding the shoes were made of really excellent wood. Karmapa was shown some samples; he refused and pointed with his finger to the cardboard boxes he wanted. He opened them, touched the shoes, sometimes breathed on them and gave them back. Before he finally chose a pair, he wanted to be shown many others. Later we understood that he asked for all these cardboard boxes in order to make a connection with the animals whose skin was used for the shoes.
After that Karmapa unexpectedly left on foot. Even though he was in Rome for the first time, he guided us, finally he turned off into a small road, and entered a bird shop. I don’t recall how many birds he bought, but it was as if he had a GPS in his head!"[3]
[1] Reprinted in Observatore Romano, January 18, 1975.
[2] New York Times, Jan. 18, 1975.
[3] Interview with Erwan Temple, Les Eyzies, 2013.
From: Radiant Compassion, Vol. 1. You are welcome to share the link of this page, but if you’d like to share the text, please ask for permission. Thank you!
© Gerd Bausch. All rights reserved, reproduction and repost only with written permission.
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