In Pace Christi

The first of 8 children, Fr. Silvano Gottardi was born at Rovereto (TN) on 20 March, 1928. In 1941 he was already in the Comboni junior school in Trent. He joined the novitiate in Venegono on 11 September, 1945, took his first vows on 9 September, 1947, and, six years later, perpetual vows.
He went to Rome to study philosophy and obtained a bachelor’s degree. He studied at Propaganda and obtained a licentiate. He was ordained priest on 19 December, 1953.

In October, 1954, he was appointed to Sudan so Fr. Silvano went to Lebanon to study Arabic. He arrived in Sudan in 1955 and stayed there until 2005. His first appointment was to the diocese of Juba, first to the mission of Palotaka and then to Juba itself.
The mission of Juba was promising and Fr. Silvano was happy to place all his zeal at the service of the young Christian community: the schools of the mission were full; the catechumenates, both in the city and the surrounding villages were flourishing. However, this idyllic situation did not last long. In 1956, the Sudan, which had been a British colony, became independent. All the schools entrusted to the care of the missionaries by the British were nationalised. The work of the missionaries was confined to the churches and their grounds. Some missionaries were expelled, accused of illegal proselytising while, for those who remained, life was very hard. Fr. Silvano was also accused of proselytising, arrested, tried and expelled. Permission was later obtained for Fr. Silvano to remain in North Sudan.

He was assigned to the area of Khartoum North. In 1961 he was curate at Khartoum North and, in 1963, went to Port Sudan. The Christian community there was made up of a small number of Syrian and Greek merchant families and an ocean of Nubians and people from the South who worked as labourers at the port of the city on the Red Sea. For Fr. Silvano this was a peaceful and fruitful time from the pastoral point of view due also to the fact that there were none of the very strict laws he had found in Juba.

In 1970 he was transferred to Kadugli as superior and parish priest. among the Nuba population, especially because he had known them in Port Sudan and had established good relations with them, so much so that every year he could instruct and have about a hundred baptisms of children and adults.

At Kadugli he met a police official who had taught mathematics in the Comboni School in Port Sudan when Fr. Silvano was there as parish priest and teacher. This renewal of an old friendship opened many doors for the missionary: for example, he was allowed to circulate outside the city without any restrictions, while his predecessors had been forbidden to travel more than 20Km from the centre. He began to visit villages and to ‘look for’ Christians. Some of them, who had been baptised by him in Port Sudan, had returned home to Kadugli and now asked him to baptise and instruct their children. These people spoke of him to others and so the news spread like ripples in a pond.

Since he had obtained a diploma in “Clinical Leprology and Leprology Control” from the “ALERT” Institute of Addis Abeba in 1973, he was allowed to treat the many lepers of the area.

Using the same method, Fr. Silvano worked among the Nuba Sciatt, to the south of Kadugli where he found numerous lepers whom he tried to treat. Only two members of that tribe became Christian, Titus and Daniel: Titus was later killed for refusing to become a Moslem, while Daniel succeeded in fleeing the area with his family. The policy of the government during that period was that the Nuba Mountains region should be Moslem; to be known as a Christian was extremely dangerous.

Fr. Silvano, therefore, concentrated his pastoral work mostly where there were lepers: working for seven years in many Nuba villages, “while curing bodies he also brought salvation to souls”, as he used to say. By 1977, he had founded more than twenty Nuba Christian communities. He opened a special catechumenate, run by the Sisters, at Kadugli where he promoted the evangelisation of many girls.

In 1977, Fr. Silvano was sent to the mission of Abyei, abandoned in 1964 when all the missionaries were expelled from South Sudan. He arranged a residence as best he could at the only existing building that served as a chapel with a small sacristy and a small store. The sacristy, while maintaining its original function, became his room, while the little store was filled with the most unlikely but necessary items. He threw himself into the work of evangelisation of the Denka Ngok, working real miracles of conversion. He was continually visiting the villages to catechise and revive the faith of those who had forgotten it or who, out of convenience, allowed themselves to be known as Moslems.

In 1981 he was struck down by a violent attack of viral hepatitis. A small aircraft belonging to an international organisation took him immediately to Khartoum. After he recovered, Fr. Silvano returned to Abyei. Meanwhile the persecution and restrictions continued, so much so that, in 1990, he was prevented from staying at Abyei and moved to El Obeid.

In 1998, he was transferred to Mapuordit, in South Sudan, where he had always dreamed of returning. There, too, he continued to work with alacrity: visiting families, meeting catechumens and students of the school and, when the confreres accompanied him, visiting the communities of nearby villages. His physical strength was gradually diminishing and, in 2001, his health began to worsen.

In 2006 he was admitted to Verona with the sick confreres. He had to wait a long time before the Lord called him to himself on the day of his resurrection, Easter Sunday, 8 April, 2012. After the Mass celebrated in the chapel of the Mother House, the remains were taken to the parish church of Borgo Sacco (Rovereto) for the funeral and burial.
(Fr. Luciano Perina)
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 254 suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2013, pp. 1-10.