In Pace Christi

On the 21^st of October 2004, in his 92^nd year of life, Mgr. Armido Gasparini, former Apostolic Vicar of Awasa, passed away. He had spent 52 years in Eritrea and Ethiopia, his two countries of adoption and where he bore witness to his faith. With his death we have lost one of the most remarkable and outstanding figures of the Comboni Missionaries of our times. The intense apostolic activity of Mgr. Gasparini (known in the Vicariate of Awasa as Abuna Joseph) fills the last seven decades of the century that has just come to an end.

Becoming a Comboni Missionary
Born in Lizzano in Belvedere (Bologna), he was blessed with an exemplary and caring family. He attended grade school in his own town and showed a precocious intelligence. At the end of his grade school, he took a decision about his future life. The parish priest (it was 7 October 1927) concluded his letter of presentation to the superior of the minor seminary in Brescia with these words: “He shows a great inclination to the missionary life. This is the honest truth. Signed: Rev. Alfonso Montanari.”

The young Armido sailed through school with top grades and, on 12 September 1930, he was admitted to the novitiate of Venegono, where he took his first vows on 7 October 1932. As a scholastic in junior college he attended the diocesan seminary of Verona for three years and, starting in 1934, he studied theology at the Urbaniana University in Rome. During those four years, besides studying the required subjects, in his spare time he indulged in the personal hobby of learning various languages to be able to communicate and understand peoples and cultures. His talent for the study of languages remained one of his lifelong traits.

He was ordained in Rome on 16 April 1938 by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani. By October he was already in Gondar (Ethiopia) where Mgr. Pietro Villa, who had been his superior when he was studying in Rome, was Prefect Apostolic. In those busy and difficult years, due to the political situation and the war, as secretary to the Apostolic Prefect, he deepened his knowledge of Amharic (the national language of Ethiopia) and had contacts with the Orthodox clergy and monks. In 1940 he became superior of the community.

Gondar and the Italo-Ethiopian war
In 1936 the Sacred Congregation assigned to the Comboni Missionaries a territory in Ethiopia for their missionary work. Unfortunately their going to Ethiopia was linked to the invasion of the country by Mussolini’s armies. The occupation started in October 1935 and the annexing to the Italian empire was proclaimed on the 5^th of May of the following year. After the invasion, all non-Italian missionaries were expelled from the country to be substituted by Italians. On the 25^th of March 1937, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches created several Apostolic Prefectures, each one entrusted to a different Italian Institute. Gondar was given to the Comboni Missionaries, with Fr. Pietro Villa as its first Apostolic Prefect. The first group had already arrived in 1936, some of them as chaplains of the Italian army, but with enough freedom to dedicate themselves to evangelisation of the local population. In fact, within two years, nine mission stations were opened in such distant places as Azozo, Gorgora, Debre Tabor, Debre Markos, Addi Arkai, Sekota, Kerker, Metemma, Wembera… The last two were among the Gumuz, a tribe of Nilotic stock, for whose evangelisation the Comboni Missionaries showed particular interest from the very beginning.

First assignment
Fr. Gasparini was assigned to Ethiopia, most surely under the particular request of the Prefect Mgr. Pietro Villa who had been his superior in Rome while living in the small house near Fontana di Trevi and who knew well his many capacities. As a matter of fact, since he arrived in Ethiopia, he worked as Mgr. Villa’s secretary and strictest collaborator during the three years of their permanence in Gondar. He showed already a particular skill in establishing contacts with great variety of people and institutions: colonial authorities, Coptic Church, the monks… He was also charged with the task of opening a seminary, a task that further events did not allow him to accomplish. While in Gondar, he spent a month among the Gumuz, in the areas of Gubba and Wembera, to explore the possibility of opening a mission. Though a short time, it was enough for him to make notes on the Gumuz language for a grammar outline. He carried this grammar with him throughout his life to his different places of residence. It was found among his papers after his death. No surprise he was very happy when, it was more than 60 years later and the turn of the century, first the Comboni Sisters and soon after the Comboni Missionaries were once again able to establish a presence among the Gumuz. Among his many papers it was also found a diary with interesting details about those years in Gondar.

Ethiopia was by then one of the five circumscriptions (thus is how they were called at that time) of the Comboni Missionaries’ Institute, with around 38 members. When in 1940 Fr. Giulio Rizzi, the major superior of the group and the representative of the Superior General, left the country, Fr. Gasparini was appointed to take his place at the very young age of 27. He would discharge this task for nineteen consecutive years, until his own departure from Ethiopia in 1959.

The presence of the Comboni Missionaries in Gondar, connected to the colonial period of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, became linked with the events of the war, which affected their presence there. A time would soon come when the Italian missionaries had to leave the country in the same fashion as the missionaries of other countries had done just a few years earlier. In June 1940 Italy and Germany declared war on England. The British army entered Ethiopia to reinstall on his throne the deposed emperor Haile Selassie, who had been in exile in England since 1936. When the British army in April 1941 arrived in Sekota, they found a Comboni community consisting of Fr. Emilio Ceccarini, Fr. Alfredo Delay and Br. Lamberto Agostini.

Ironically enough, in spite of the fact that the Sekota community had tried its best to keep its distance and independence from the Italian army of occupation, it was the one that suffered most of its consequences, due to the misunderstanding about the relationship between the missionaries and the military. “Is it fair that we, messengers of the Gospel, apostles of peace, are in this country mixed up with an army that, knowingly or not, has come to conquer a land which is not theirs?” writes Br. Agostini in one of his letters. It was precisely to show their severance from the Italian army that the missionaries’ residence had been built well away from and on the side of the small town that was opposite of that of the Italian garrison. Even so, it did not help.

When the British and Ethiopian armies were about to arrive, the missionaries were asked to take refuge in the fort together with the Italian garrison. By a regrettable misunderstanding, almost the entire garrison, about thirty soldiers in all, was slaughtered. Fr. Alfredo Delay was killed, while the other two members of the community, Fr. Ceccarini and Br. Agostini, were wounded, but managed to save their lives by lying among the dead soldiers, pretending to be dead, till the shooting was over.

In Asmara
Gondar was the last of the strongholds to fall to the British and Ethiopian armies, which entered the town in November 1941. Mgr. Villa and Fr. Gasparini were commissioned to negotiate the surrender on behalf of the Italian garrison. They hoped that the British would allow the missionaries to remain in Gondar, as Prince Asfa Wesen, the eldest son of the emperor, appeared to be well disposed towards them. The British, nevertheless, did not wish to allow “enemies” to remain on Ethiopian territory, as the war was not over yet.

Leaving aside the historical and military events in Eritrea, it suffices to say that the country eventually fell under the British administration (1941-1952). The Comboni Missionaries of Gondar were sent to Eritrea. They were lodged with the Capuchin Friars in Saganeiti, near Asmara, while Mgr. Villa and his secretary Fr. Gasparini were allowed to stay in Asmara with the Comboni Missionary Sisters (Pie Madri) who, in 1938, had opened a house in town.

At the end of the war most Comboni Missionaries returned to Italy and were assigned by the Superior General to other mission fields. Those who remained did so also through the request of the Congregation of the Oriental Churches, whose prefect was Cardinal Eugene Tisserant. He had written to Mgr. Luigi Marinoni, Apostolic Vicar of Eritrea, to allow the missionary group, uprooted by the war, to remain and work in Asmara.

The majority of the Comboni Missionaries were inclined not to tie themselves down in Asmara, as they preferred to regard their situation merely as provisional, since they were always hoping to be allowed to return to Gondar in Ethiopia. Fr. Gasparini and a few others began to cherish the idea of setting up a permanent residence in Asmara. Eventually other missionaries and the General Council itself, though somehow reluctantly, were won over to this idea. In fact, the Comboni Missionaries did not manage to go back to Ethiopia for about another twenty years.

The Comboni College of Asmara
“Risen as if by magic through the important assistance of the Sacred Congregation of the Oriental Churches, it owes its beginning to the missionary priests gathered in Asmara after the forced exodus from Ethiopia” (Bulletin of the Congregation, n. 41).

Fr. Gasparini, Fr. Ugo Toninello, Fr. Valentino Sosio and many others, put themselves to work in building this large school, which opened its gates for the year 1947-1948. Thus the foundations of the future Comboni College of Asmara were laid. Besides the name, also the organization and the programmes were inspired by the Comboni College of Khartoum. It took the students from the first grade up to the twelfth. His main novelty, which reveals the farsighted views of Fr. Gasparini, was that the school programmes were in English, in spite of the fact that Asmara was by culture and tradition a typically Italian colonial town. It became a prestigious institution with the cooperation of the large community of the Comboni Missionaries involved in the teaching, while Fr. Gasparini, though not teaching, was responsible for its running.

When in 1959 Fr. Gasparini left Eritrea, the students numbered 1200. The Comboni College, from its beginning in 1947 to its nationalisation by the Derge regime in 1982, was well known for its high disciplinary, intellectual and moral standards. The most advanced students had access to the exams for a certificate recognized by the Oxford University. The students who attended the College were later able to play an important role in politics, administration and trade in Eritrea and in Ethiopia.

Fr. Gasparini was also the one who made possible the opening of the diocesan seminary of Catholic Coptic rite for the Eparchy of Asmara. Up to then Eritrea, and therefore Asmara, was of Latin Rite, but Rome intended to establish the Catholic Coptic rite. During the first five years of its existence, the seminary was situated on the premises of the Comboni College, which is the reason why the Congregation of the Oriental Churches financially supported the building of the College, till a proper seminary residence was built. The first rectors of the seminary of Catholic Coptic rite were the Comboni Missionaries, like Fr. Pio Ferrari, Fr. Silvio Mencarini, Fr. Emilio Ceccarini…

The legendary Comboni Br. Renato Laffranchi, assisted by the Italian engineer Aniello Raffone and local manpower, was responsible for the building of the College as well as of the seminary. Other Brothers were Br. Virginio Bortolo Sirena, working in the carpentry, and Br. Gian-Paolo Capuzzo, looking after the community house.

During all his years of activity in Asmara, Fr. Gasparini had the opportunity to improve his mastery of Amharic, Ge’ez and also Tigrigna, the other Semitic language spoken in Eritrea and in the Northern Ethiopian province of Tigray. His deep knowledge of the culture and the history of the country enabled him to write a History of Ethiopia in Amharic, which he presented to the emperor Haile Selassie I on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of his coronation (1931-1956). This “imperial” connection was the reason why, during the Derge regime, the circulation of this history could not be promoted.

Concerning the relationship with the Comboni Sisters, Fr. Gasparini encouraged Madre Carla Troenzi, Superior General of the Comboni Missionary Sisters, to be open and willing to accept Eritrean girls who might ask to join their Institute.

Called to Rome
Asmara at that time was part of the Curia District. The General Chapter of 1959 called Fr. Gasparini back to Rome. He left for Rome in 1960 to begin his service as General Procurator of the Comboni Missionaries. There he stayed for a period of 12 years, during which he worked tirelessly to help the confreres and to keep in touch with the Holy See, where he was held in great esteem. In June 1960 he was appointed consulter of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

It must be mentioned that during this time he also played an important role in managing the necessary and demanding paper work for the building of the General Curia in Via Luigi Lilio in Rome.

Back in Eritrea, meanwhile, Fr. Emilio Ceccarini, who had arrived in Asmara in 1959, had been nominated delegate superior of the Comboni group. He was supposed to replace Fr. Gasparini also in the direction of the Comboni College, but he preferred to accept the direction of the diocesan Catholic Coptic seminary. Paradoxically enough, the successor of Fr. Gasparini as director of the College was Fr. Pio Ferrari, an outstanding figure among the Comboni group, who also had most strongly cherished the idea of going back to Gondar, thus initially contrasting Fr. Gasparini’s plan to take up a permanent commitment in Asmara.

During his years in Rome, Fr. Gasparini remained affectively and effectively linked to Eritrea and Ethiopia. From his privileged post near the Vatican, he warmly welcomed the reopening of the community of Gondar in 1966, following the insistent invitations of Mgr. Asrate Mariam, Archbishop of Addis Ababa, giving to the idea as much moral and financial support as he could. The man in charge to reopen Gondar was, together with two other companions, none other than Fr. Pio Ferrari, now happy to see his old dream become a reality. The project of reopening the community of Gondar was not aimed at the town itself, which was strongly orthodox, but the evangelisation of the surrounding non-Christian areas, like the ethnic groups of the Gumuz and the Khemant. Several adverse circumstances prevented a development of this plan and the Comboni community’s activity remained limited to the town until its closure in 1980.

Among the Sidamo
Instead of Gondar, Providence was preparing a different very fruitful field of work for the Comboni Missionaries: the Sidamo area in the South of Ethiopia. It was in 1964, during the Vatican II, when Mgr. Giuseppe Moioli, then Apostolic Nuncio in Ethiopia, met the Superior General, Fr. Gaetano Briani, in St. Peter’s Square and asked him for missionaries to send to Ethiopia. Mgr. Moioli knew the Comboni Missionaries through his friendship with Fr. Ceccarini and the presence of Fr. Pietro Ravasio in the Nunciature. He had appealed to numerous other Institutes, but did not get a positive answer or things did not work out. His request to Fr. Briani got an immediate positive answer, since many Comboni Missionaries had recently been expelled from the Sudan and were anxious to be sent to other mission fields. The Institute was offered the Prefecture of Neghele Borana, which had been created in 1937 together with that of Gondar and entrusted then to the PIME. After their expulsion in 1941, the Prefecture remained under the administration of the Apostolic Vicar of Harar. When the Comboni Missionaries took over, the Prefecture continued to be dependent on the Vicariate of Harar. The first two missionaries sent to the new field were two veterans of the missions of Sudan, Fr. Bruno Lonfernini and Fr. Bruno Maccani. They arrived in the town of Awasa, capital of the region, in December 1964. They were soon joined by Fr. Emilio Ceccarini, who, as an expert in the Ethiopian language and culture, was appointed head of the group with the title of Vicar Delegate of the Apostolic Administrator of Neghele (who was the Apostolic Vicar of Harar).

The Vicariate of Awasa
In 1972 the wish of Fr. Gasparini to return to the mission field became a reality. The news went around that he was to be appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Ethiopia. This assumption did not materialise, but he was assigned by the Holy See to replace Fr. Ceccarini as the head of the Sidamo mission, not as Vicar Delegate of Neghele, but of Awasa, as the name of the Prefecture of Neghele was changed into the Prefecture of Awasa. So Mgr. Gasparini became the first Apostolic Prefect on his own full right. He arrived in 1973, the following year. Thirty years later, during Mgr. Gasparini’s funeral in Awasa, one of the speakers recalled his first arrival there and remarked about the happy coincidence of dates, pointing out that “the return of Mgr. Gasparini to Ethiopia took place exactly one hundred years after the return of Mgr. Daniel Comboni to the Sudan and of his famous homily in Khartoum (1873), when he affirmed: ‘I have left this place out of obedience, but my heart had remained here with you… Today, as I return to you, I have retaken my heart back’. These must have been the feelings of Mgr. Gasparini on his return to Ethiopia. He came, like Comboni, to stay till the very end of his life. In 1979 the Prefecture became a Vicariate Apostolic, and Mgr. Gasparini its first Vicar. He received the Episcopal ordination on the 27^th of May 1979 by the hands of Pope John Paul II.

Challenges and priorities
Mgr. Gasparini arrived in Ethiopia, needless to say, with much enthusiasm and many plans. Material means were not an obstacle in his way. Not everything went right from the beginning, as unforeseeable difficulties arose from various sides. Scarcely one year after his arrival, a Marxist revolution broke out. In its struggle for power, it dethroned the old Emperor Haile Selassie and established a Marxist-Leninist regime that lasted for 17 years. The entire way of life of the country underwent a complete transformation. At the same time, due to the diminishing number in vocations in Europe, the so far generous flow of personnel to Ethiopia from the Comboni Missionaries and the Comboni Missionary Sisters, which had allowed his predecessor Fr. Ceccarini to open nine mission stations in seven years, came to a sudden and almost total halt. Besides this, not a minor difficulty was the fact that some missionaries in the Prefecture did not take kindly the replacement of Fr. Ceccarini, who until then had led the group with his realistic common sense and dedication, by someone coming from Rome as “a reward for his services done somewhere else”.

There were real difficulties that had to be faced and Mgr Gasparini was certainly a man who did not shrink in front of them. During his 21 years as the head of the Church of Awasa, first as Prefect and later on as Vicar, the young Church developed and invigorated in extension and in internal organisation. The bishop moved along three lines that, little by little, emerged as three clear priorities.

The first was to move to other areas of the Vicariate. Since the majority of the parishes had been opened among the Sidamo, he aimed mainly at opening new ones among other ethnic groups. Thus one parish was opened among the Gedeo (Galcha), three among the Guggi Jam-Jam (Kilenso, Gosa and Soddo Abala), two among the Borana (Daddim and Dokole).

The second priority was the diversification of missionary personnel in the Vicariate. He perhaps made a virtue out of necessity. The fact that he could not rely on an increase in Comboni personnel, gave him the opportunity to put into practice the new trend brought about by Vatican II, namely by shifting from the so called “Ius Commisionis”, which implied that a particular mission territory was entrusted to a single missionary Institute, to a more diversification of missionary agents unified by the central figure of the bishop. Mgr. Gasparini made a great effort to find other Missionary Institutes, male and female, which would accept to work in the Vicariate. Quite a few responded to his appeal: the Holy Ghost Fathers, the Jesuits, the Salesians, the Apostles of Jesus, the Fidei Donum priests from the diocese of Bari (Italy), the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, the Medical Missionaries of Mary, the Medical Mission Sisters, the Daughters of Mercy and of the Cross, the Salesian Missionary Sisters…

The third priority was to develop the local pastoral agents. Along with this priority, he opened a seminary for the diocesan clergy: first the minor seminary in Awasa, which was soon followed by the major seminary in Addis Ababa, having the joy of imposing his hands on the first 7 diocesan priests. He also opened the Catechetical and Pastoral Centre of Dongora for the formation of catechists and lay leaders. It began to function in 1975 and since then hundreds of courses were imparted to different categories of local pastoral agents. In 1988 Mgr. Gasparini founded also, as a diocesan pious association, the Sisters Handmaids of the Church.

He fostered social development through a net of clinics, schools and home economics in the Vicariate. We can mention in this context the foundation of two major institutions: the Bushullo Hospital (1978), in the field of health, and the Senior High School of Awasa (1991), in the field of education. This list of exterior achievements of his apostolic accomplishments can hardly give the complete picture of the dedication with which Mgr. Gasparini committed himself to his missionary task, and even less gives a portrait of his personality.

In order to describe briefly these years of grace it will be sufficient to quote a few passages from a personal letter Pope John Paul II wrote to Mgr. Gasparini on 12 March 1988, on the occasion of his 50^th anniversary of ordination: “Your merits and your work are well known to us. Through them you have shown your apostolic zeal and attachment to the people of Ethiopia. Thus, in Ethiopia you exercised in a worthy and consistent manner your priestly duties and have also worthily exercised your office as general procurator of the Comboni Missionaries here in Rome. We are truly impressed by how much, in these years, the name Catholic has spread under your guidance in the Church of Awasa and in the Sidamo region. Just to name a few facts: the concern that the sacred liturgy be celebrated in the languages of the various regions; the establishment and administration of various educational, health and evangelising structures; the organisation of bodies and other structures necessary for the teaching of catechism and for Catholic apostolate…”

His commitment and personality
The first thing we have to mention about Mgr. Gasparini is that he was a man of deep faith, expressed not so much in emotive speeches, but in the sober and serene way he used to face situations and problems. If he was rather restrained in manifesting his feelings of joy, scarcely ever showed signs of contrariety, frustration or anger even when confronted by the most distressing situations. In moments of distress his familiar and favourite expression was: “santa pazienza” (let us bear with patience). He was able to gloss over the everyday little annoyances, especially if these concerned him, in order to look ahead in a constructive way. He was very faithful to community prayer, which he liked to do together with the local people. He was also regular and faithful to his personal prayer, done in a habitual place in the cathedral church.

He always kept busy, dedicating his many physical, intellectual and spiritual energies first of all to his pastoral duties. He frequently visited even the most remote chapels of the Vicariate, not making any objection if he had to walk for hours under the scorching sun or to ride a horse to reach places where the car could not go. When in Awasa, he always made himself available for the celebration the Eucharist, even three times on a Sunday, and for confessions, either in the cathedral or in the nearby chapels.

Whenever he was a bit free from pastoral duties, Mgr. Gasparini devoted himself to the study of languages, an occupation that he saw closely related to his missionary work. Every evening, after supper, he scarcely had half an hour of fraternisation with the Comboni community. Afterwards, while everybody else retired for the night, he used to dedicate long hours to the study of the various languages and cultures of his Vicariate. The result was the preparation of a grammar and of a valuable dictionary of the Sidamo language, and the outline of a grammar of the Gedeo and Guggi languages. He was able to express himself with considerable fluency also in these three languages.

Mgr. Gasparini was a practical and concrete person, preferring to conduct things in a rather personal manner. He did not have particular likings for meetings, which, in his opinion, were to be as few as possible and as brief as possible. He usually provided his own solution to problems that he did not like to drag on at length by reaching and making his own decisions. This undoubtedly was a weak point that caused a few problems and misunderstandings between him and his strictest collaborators.

This was not the only weak point. Mgr. Gasparini did not enjoy chatting much and even less was he an eloquent speaker, able to inspire the masses or to communicate enthusiasm. Being shy by nature, he was very polite and kind, but rather dry and reserved in his conversation. He had difficulty to sit down and talk informally and freely with people, though at times he made an effort to try. His many contacts with people at high levels, like civil authorities and representatives of other Churches, had usually the character of “diplomatic relations”. That is why people may have felt respect, admiration or even veneration towards his person, but not much familiarity or deep friendship. This limitation, however, did not hide the richness of his feelings towards everyone, which he expressed in many ways and considerations, like writing personally to people on the occasion of their birthday or other events; in receiving and listening attentively and respectfully to any person of any condition and in acknowledging the small or not so small gifts or financial contributions. Mgr. Gasparini was very free and generous in the use of money to the point that someone would unduly profit from his generosity.

The years of retirement
On reaching the age of 75, Mgr. Gasparini promptly presented his letter of resignation as Apostolic Vicar, in compliance with the rule of the Catholic Church. But, seeing his good state of health and his physical and spiritual energies, the Holy See was not in a hurry to replace him. So he continued as shepherd of the Church of Awasa for six more years. In April 1994, at the age of 81, his resignation was finally accepted. On his retirement, he went to stay with the community of the Sisters Handmaids of the Church, whom he had founded. He lived in their house for another ten years, first in Awasa and later in Addis Ababa.

The years of retirement was the time when the best of his personality came out and reached the highest point of maturity, showing the inner peace that had always distinguished him. God gave him the gift of being in full possession of his mental faculties until the very end of his life, which he dedicated mainly to prayer, to the consolidation of the Association of the Sisters Handmaids of the Church, to reading and to writing letters to his many friends. One of his favourite occupations, to keep his mind active, was to read the Bible in Hebrew, comparing it with the translations into the many languages he knew. He followed the events of the Vicariate of Awasa and of the Comboni Missionaries with interest, but without showing any particular anxiety in case things did not develop according to his likings. He showed joy when visited by confreres and other persons, being able to share his inner spiritual thoughts in a more spontaneous way than in previous years. He used to ask the blessing of the priests who visited him and, on his turn, he would bless them. He frequently expressed his joyful gratitude for the gift of longevity granted to him. “If we meet, it’s because we are still alive”, he used to joke when friends went to visit him.

His passing away
After a serious bronchitis during the month of August 2004, his health deteriorated steadily and rapidly. He realised that death was approaching and he accepted it with peace, only lamenting to be a burden to the Sisters who were taking care of him. He had made an agreement with Sr. Celinia Cominelli, the superior of the Sisters Handmaids of the Church, that she would honestly tell him when the moment of truth was about to arrive. So, then, when she told him “The hour has arrived, monsignor,” he made a sign of acquiescence and acceptance with his head, as by then he could no longer speak. It was just half an hour before his final departure. Fr. Mansueto Zorzato, who was assisting him on his deathbed, began the prayers of the dying. He read the final passages of the Passion from the Gospel of John. When he arrived at the words of Jesus ‘It is finished,’ Mgr. Gasparini stopped breathing. The time was 1:20 of the morning of 21^st October 2004.

In announcing his death, Fr. Teresino Serra, the Superior General of the Comboni Missionaries, wrote: “The Institute of the Comboni Missionaries thanks the Lord for the long and active missionary life granted to this exemplary confrere who has served the Church and the Mission with generous fidelity. It offers and invites others to offer memorial prayers so that the Lord of the harvest may grant to our dear bishop and confrere the reward reserved to the workers of the Gospel”.

The following day there was a solemn funeral mass in the cathedral of Addis Ababa, presided by the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See, Mgr. Ramiro Moliner, concelebrated by most of the bishops of Ethiopia and attended by the clergy and faithful of the city. After the Mass, the body was taken to Awasa where, on 23^rd of October, another solemn Eucharist was celebrated in the cathedral, presided by Mgr. Lorenzo Ceresoli, the successor of Mgr. Gasparini as Apostolic Vicar, and concelebrated by the majority of the priests of the Vicariate. The attendance of clergy and faithful was quite remarkable. According to the Ethiopian tradition, a tent was set up for mourning. This lasted for several days with people incessantly coming to extend their condolences to the representatives of the diocesan priests and to the Sisters Handmaids of the Church.

In his ‘last recommendations’, written on the 6^th of October, just 15 days before his death, Mgr. Gasparini expressed, in the sober and concise style of his and on a single page, the sentiments that mostly he had at heart. He thanked all his collaborators and recommended them to continue helping the poor. A special thought went to the Sisters Handmaids of the Church. He declared that he founded them ‘in the Vicariate of Awasa, but not just for the Vicariate of Awasa’. He also declared Sr. Celinia Cominelli to be the co-founder and administrator of the goods given to him for the Sisters. He even asked his successor, Mgr. Lorenzo Ceresoli, to bury him “wherever it is more convenient for everyone, but if possible to be buried in the parish grounds of Awasa or in the Sisters Handmaids’ compound”.

Mgr. Gasparini, Abuna Joseph for the faithful of his Vicariate, was buried in the compound of the cathedral of Awasa, the church he had built with the skills and dedication of the Comboni Brothers.
(P. Juan Antonio González Núñez, mccj)
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 226 suppl. In Memoriam, aprile 2005, pp. 54-68