In Pace Christi

Cirillo was born on 5 February 1923 in the small town of Vigasio in the province and diocese of Verona. Economic difficulties as well as a great desire to provide the boy (and his brother Livio) with a sound Christian education, moved their parents to enrol them in the Veronese Institute founded by Don Mazza.

In 1942, the two brothers asked to be admitted to the Congregation of the Sons of the Sacred Heart for the missions of central Africa. Having completed the novitiate at Florence, young Cirillo was granted the privilege of studying theology at the Pontifical Urbanian University of Propaganda Fide. Having taken perpetual vows in 1946, he was ordained priest in June 1947.

While still a student, Cirillo had already shown a propensity for writing and a love for books and magazines and so his superiors placed him in charge (1947-1953) of the two tottering and neglected Comboni magazines La Nigrizia and Il Piccolo Missionario, which were edited at the Verona Mother House. That time marked the beginning of his career as a writer, photographer, radio programmer and publicist, a career which would last for almost 55 years.

After his work as editor of Nigrizia and having exercised many pastoral commitments, he was sent to South Sudan. There he spent eleven years filled with graces which enriched and matured his missionary vocation. He worked in the missions of Mupoi, Yambio and Tombura, without ever going on home leave to Italy, on account of the tense political situation. However, he never neglected his professional talents but put them to good use in a variety of ways.

In 1964, the Islamic government of Sudan decreed the immediate expulsion of the 300 Comboni Missionaries working in the country. This trial, which paralysed and destroyed the fruits of a century of apostolic endeavours, had one positive outcome as it allowed the Institute to fill a number of vacant posts throughout the world. It allowed the Institute to provide abundant personnel for the flourishing houses of formation in Italy and for many other missions in Africa and especially in South America, where it was possible to staff many missions recently opened in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador.

Fr. Cirillo returned to the Nigrizia office for some years before becoming secretary general of mission promotion (1969-1981). This was a very important post which meant he had to keep in touch with developments and intervene in the affairs of hundreds of missions and, at the same time, maintain contact with the central missionary institutions of the Holy See in Rome. He became very much involved in the publication of various formative booklets and made the first attempts to provide publicity material for the work of missionary animation of the missionary Institutes.

At that time he began his collaboration with Radio Vaticana, preparing missionary programmes in various languages, which were circulated between the radio stations and agencies. He also produced series of slides with sound accompaniment and about forty documentary films of good quality, illustrating the life of the missions in Africa and Latin America. All this work, which involved much travelling at short notice and much hard work, was carried out by Fr. Cirillo with the ease and strength of one moved by an interior calling as well as a brilliant and creative intelligence. He was not lucky with those who worked with him from time to time. All of them went their various ways and Fr. Cirillo was always left alone to do a job which seemed to grow around him like an avalanche. This solitude caused him to become closed in himself and to try to work alone.

Even though Radio Vaticana continued trying to recruit him, Fr. Cirillo placed himself in the hand of his superiors and in 1981 he left for Ecuador where he had heard he could work along his method. Mgr. Bartolucci needed an experienced director for his radio station but, unfortunately, he became ill and the project came to nothing. Fr. Cirillo settled at Quito, the capital of Ecuador, where he remained for almost 20 years: the rest of his life, in fact.

Fr. Cirillo worked for two years editing the Comboni magazine “Sin Fronteras” and on publications published by the same office. During that period he also began to publish scores of booklets in Spanish on the most varied of missionary themes: personalities, mission stories, missionary spirituality, culture, Bible stories, the lives of the saints and even games and witty jokes. In spite of economic and logistic difficulties, his publications amounted to over 200 titles with tens of thousand of copies printed and were sold throughout all of Latin America. All this amounted to very useful material in the hands of missionaries, vocations promoters, formators, parish priests and professors.

One day Cardinal Pablo Muñoz Vega of Quito asked Fr. Cirillo to become director of the “Radio Católica Nacional”. Fr. Cirillo declined the post of director but agreed to collaborate. His collaboration was both substantial and meaningful, completely centred on evangelisation. So it was that, for 19 years, Fr. Cirillo gave his contribution to the evangelisation of Ecuador and Latin America. He reached a point where he was broadcasting five programmes a day (not to mention other occasional contributions in the field of religious and missionary news) which he prepared in his large studio at the provincial house in Quito.

Among his daily programmes were: Saint of the Day, Messages of Faith, The Bible in the Land of Jesus, Modern Witnesses, Weekly Catholic Information, World Catholic Panorama, The Gospel for Feast-days, Missionary Interviews, and many others. A quarter of the radio programmes were produced by Fr. Cirillo himself. He then began to collaborate with Radio Maria, a new station which covered the whole of Ecuador and part of Peru and Colombia. This made him well known to millions of people and enabled him to reach peoples and places where nothing was known of religion or the missions.

Now over eighty years of age, during the last two or three years of his life he began to feel the weight of the years, his poor health and loneliness. He was very upset by the death of his brother Fr. Livio, the last of his family members to die. He even handed over to me his camera, which had accompanied him on so many journeys and adventures. He now seemed very weak and near his end, ready to leave everything. But what concerned him most of all was that his specific work as an evangeliser should continue.

Fr. Cirillo wrote: ”When I find myself at the microphone to broadcast my programmes, I often thank the Lord for having given me the radio, this wonderful means of communication which allows me to reach the hearts of so many thousand of people. I often meet them in various parts of the country and they express their thanks for the messages we offer them”.

On Sunday, 30 September 2007, having completed his last week of work, without bothering anyone he had come downstairs for breakfast and then gone back to his room. Later, at around 10 a.m. he was found dead, lying on the bed. Silently, alone and in peace, he had returned to the home of the Father.
(Fr. Alberto Doneda)
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 238 suppl. In Memoriam, aprile-luglio 2008, pp. 24-33.