Writings

[6971]

I send you a very accurate map of Dar Nuba that I and my companions drew as a result of my major exploration carried out with great diligence and indescribable fatigue and sufferings throughout these mountains last June, to take the necessary measures to abolish the sordid slave trade, which every year decimates the wretched population, and to establish our holy faith in the area. When I am better, I will write the most interesting report on all this and will send it to you as soon as possible, when I have finished other urgent tasks. In Delen, a church has been built which is twice the size of the houses of the chiefs, cogiurs and sultans of Dar Nuba and is thus the wonder of the region. On the feast of Corpus Domini, I celebrated a pontifical Mass, solemnly conferred baptism on eight or nine adults and confirmed about 40 Catholics.

[6972]

At the insistent request of Fr Giovanni Losi, the acting Superior of this Mission – who has compiled a dictionary with over 3,000 words of the difficult Nuba language, which is completely unknown to scholars, has translated the prayers of the Church into Nuba and put together a Nuba catechism – I have appointed as Superior of the mission Fr Luigi Bonomi, who in 1879 withdrew from it to represent me in Khartoum during my absence from the Vicariate. This is because Fr Losi told me that Fr Bonomi is the man most able to invigorate this Mission and triumph over all the difficulties: and this is true. When Fr Losi told him the news, he answered: “It is enough for me that Monsignor desires and wants this, and I am quite delighted, since I want to do nothing but the will of my Superiors”.

[6973]

As for the abolition of the slave trade among the Nuba, His Excellency Rauf Pasha, Governor General of the Sudan, has adopted my advice to the letter: and within a year or less the total abolition of slavery in Nuba will be a fait accompli. It goes without saying how happy and enthusiastic the chiefs of this people are, for since my visit not a single son, daughter, cow or goat has been stolen; and they unanimously recognise that it was the Catholic Church which liberated them; especially as they saw the herds of the Baqqarah brigands being confiscated, exactly as I had promised them categorically. This will make our apostolate among these people less difficult. Rauf Pasha has also adopted my suggestion of dividing the jurisdiction of Kordofan (where the governor, employees and potentates are all thieves and perpetrators and accomplices in the Nuba slave trade; about which I conferred with His Excellency, also concerning the remedy to be applied, although it is a most difficult task) to form a special separate province from Birket-Koli to Bahar el Arab, to be entrusted to a European who is neither a thief nor a crook. And this too will be accomplished within a year, because at this very moment the Grand Pasha is searching Egypt for a suitable candidate and has informed His Highness the Khedive, who sincerely wants to put an end to the slave trade that continues with Abyssinia, on the borders of Darfur and in a number of other parts of the vast Egyptian monarchy, towards the Equator.

[6974]

In my small way, by dint of talking and writing, I have managed deeply to convince His Excellency the Governor General (I had already spoken of this categorically to the Khedive in Cairo, who answered me in the nicest possible words) of the usefulness and necessity of a railway to connect the Red Sea with the Nile at Khartoum. Apart from immense material benefits, it would bring great advantages for the Catholic Missions and for putting a definitive end to the horrendous scourge of the slave trade in Central Africa. The fact is that yesterday the Governor General came to see me and I saw that he was enthusiastic about the railway between the Red Sea and the Nile at Cairo; he told me that he had written to the Diwan in Cairo (which is against it for political reasons) and that he will not let the matter drop until he obtains their approval; and he will.

[6975]

The French Consul is also quite convinced, and he promised me to take it up with Paris to exert pressure in Egypt for this purpose. (If he does not die, since for a number of days I have been sending him the Sisters to nurse him as he has one of those most ferocious bouts of Sudanese fevers). In the meantime, Rauf Pasha is preparing a substantial sum of money to start building the railway.

[6976]

At the bottom of my map of Dar Nuba, Your Eminence will find Bahar el Arab. Well, since September last year (when I was in Rome and I read in Missions Catholiques that the northern confines of Mgr Lavigerie’s missions are Bahar el Arab, as that prelate wrote) Bahar el Arab has been a great heartache for me, and I shall not be rid of it until I die or until the Sacred Congregation takes other more appropriate and necessary decisions. To the south of Bahar el Arab there are huge populations extending as far as Lake Albert and the Equator that speak or understand two languages. With immense effort and study over several years, we have been able to produce for them a dictionary, a grammar, a catechism and other works already published (and the remainder of which I will publish) which constitute the necessary and sufficient elements and material to establish the faith in these regions, especially since these parts are under the Egyptian Crown, which looks so favourably upon the Catholic Missions in Central Africa. But I trust in the sweetest Heart of Jesus, and in the wisdom, love and justice of the Holy See to put all this right.

[6977]

Another heartache came to me today from Verona, related to the absolute divergence of opinion between me and my benefactor, the Eminent Cardinal of Verona, as regards a Christian virgin, that is, about the vocation of a certain Virginia Mansur, whom His Eminence has virtually buried, whereas I want to exalt her even above the treetops. But this ache is beginning to fade, because it seems that Cardinal di Canossa has referred to Your Eminence on this; indeed, this is a great consolation to me (because in Rome, justice will be done). As things stand, my dear Rector, Fr Sembianti, received Your Eminence’s order to forbid Virginia from going to Africa for the time being, a very wise order, which to me is most venerable and just, and will be promptly obeyed.

[6978]

Indeed, as regards Virginia nothing should be done that is not defined and ordered by Your Eminence, the true interpreter of the divine will, after you have heard the two versions, that is, the one from Verona and the one from Central Africa, in order for justice, love and truth to triumph in their blessed and only refuge, which is papal Rome.

[6979]

Since the mail will be leaving soon, I cannot start writing to you on this subject, but I will do so with the next post on Saturday, in three days’ time, if God gives me strength and health, because I am still weak and can neither sleep nor eat.
After the first reasons I will be giving you, I would ask you, if you see fit, to write to Fr Sembianti telling him to order and to communicate to Virginia that she should stay in the convent at Verona as a postulant, which is the humblest position in the convent, until further orders from Your Eminence. The convent and the institution are mine, and thus Your Eminence is their master.
Your unworthy son,

+ Daniel Comboni.

[6980]

I send you a short piece of the brief Report on our exploration of Jebel Nuba written by Fr Vincenzo (who has reached Berber and is about to leave for Suakin. I also sent with him my manservant, Domenico Correia, who is going to Rome since he was dying here: he is used to serving great lords, riding in carriages, eating well and drinking even better; but here, he cannot adapt to accepting privations etc. I have taken the Tuscan Giuseppe in his place; he does ten times more for me than Domenico and is good, capable, diligent, hard-working and full of goodwill. Everyone is pleased with him: he needed to work; doing nothing in Cairo was killing him. Thanks be to Jesus). You can publish it in the next Annals. But I will write the long Report with the Map that has already been completed when I am better and have time, if I do not die. The layout etc. of the Annals is much better than before: this is due to your diligence and care, and I am most grateful.

[6981]

I am still very uncertain about the health of Fr Francesco Pimazzoni: Fr Arturo, several Sisters and others say that they are not at all happy about it. My God! What if I were to lose him? Ah, I trust in the Heart of Jesus that I won’t! But Jesus was the first to carry the cross, and all his followers will carry it. At night (I hardly sleep at all, though last night I slept for three and a half hours), I find much more pleasure in having toiled and suffered in the preceding 24 hours than when I used to come home from a grand aristocratic meal in London, Paris, Vienna or St Petersburg. Ah, Jesus is more gentle with his loved ones when he goes to find them among the thorns! Roses are for the world. I am sure that even poor Virginia, whom God has placed in my care until her fate is decided by Rome, is close to Jesus, from whom she willingly accepts suffering.

[6982]

Now I understand what good reason she had to cry at night and to suffer. She saw clearly (and I did not see this) that in the Institute, no one wanted to have anything to do with her. Right from May, she was no longer called to meetings with the others, and neither the Mother Superior nor you, my dear Rector, told her why. She wrote me a letter which is frank and true. When Sister Vittoria had read it, she said to me: “from the sentiments expressed in this letter you can see that she must be a good soul, full of self-denial and longing to be a religious”. She told me yesterday: “It really seems to me from this letter that she must be a sort of heroine”. You will be shaking your head, my dear Rector, saying that this is passion speaking.

[6983]

Not at all. No passion ever took root in my heart except my passion for Africa. If [there were] a spark of passion (something which is diametrically opposed to my character and my deep, long-standing and extraordinary vocation) it would not be for Virginia, a Sister who goes to confession; I would not have brought her to Verona, I would not have entrusted her to the very Sisters I founded to make them holy etc. Well, everything is possible in the small minds of peasants who get too big for their boots. I will be sending this letter of Virginia’s to His Eminence Cardinal Simeoni as soon as he writes to me about Virginia. I am so glad that God inspired our dear Cardinal Bishop of Verona to write to Propaganda. If this had not happened, Cardinal di Canossa, you, my dear Fr Sembianti, and I would have lived and died with our completely opposite opinions on Virginia.

[6984]

But now, by the grace of God, either I or you and His Eminence will have to change our opinion in accordance with what is decided by Rome; that blessed papal Rome which is the providential oasis, the refuge of truth and justice, which casts its light in the midst of the dark shadows that encumber the whole universe. You and the Cardinal of Verona are convinced that I act through passion as regards Virginia; whereas instead, it seems to me that there is no doubt that His Eminence and yourself, while guided by the Spirit of God and a truly holy purpose, are acting through passion, but in the opposite direction. And in the meantime, Virginia is the victim who suffers without a soul to bring her real comfort (because the Mother Superior is not at all outgoing) and in answer to Virginia’s question to her about what His Eminence had told Virginia, that he had learned from the Mother Superior (either directly or through the Rector) the real reason why she left the Congregation of St Joseph, the good Mother Superior said that she had never spoken of this to the Cardinal nor to anyone else. Since you wrote to me that the reason that drove her to leaving the Congregation was not a good one, there must be some truth in this, I mean in what the Mother Superior said, while on the other hand, I cannot imagine that His Eminence and yourself invented it.

[6985]

Furthermore, a year before Virginia left, she discussed it with the Sisters. Her three serious reasons were examined in Egypt, and a friar who is a Bishop told me that the reasons put forward were good ones, etc., and he is still alive. Virginia did not leave lightly, but after deep reflection and advice. But you do not believe me and neither does His Eminence, believing that it was all for passion, and you are mistaken. She invokes and receives her only comfort from God, and from myself who, as I was asked a thousand times by my holy Provincial, her Superior and Mother, write to her precisely to comfort her and keep her firm in her trust in God. As I said, I, you and His Eminence would have lived and died with our own opinions.

[6986]

But now that the matter is with Rome, if Rome decides against me (I refer to the vocation, etc.), I shall be the first to proclaim to you and to His Eminence that I am a first class donkey. And I believe that you too will be still and calm at the judgement of Rome, to which the first thing I am writing is this: that you are a true saint, just as your Congregation is a holy one, that you deal with my affairs in Africa with more commitment, zeal and charity than any man would treat his own, that it is a really divine blessing of God’s to have destined you to care for the major interests of Africa as Rector of the African Institutes, and that I would like to die before you for the good of Africa.

[6987]

In any case, everything happens through God’s adorable dispositions; therefore let us love him with all our heart and place all our trust in him. You must be brave and press on, for one day we shall sing of the divine glories in heaven because, although we are unworthy, he has made us the instruments of the redemption of the Africans, who are the most forsaken souls in the world. I care nothing about the gossip that may already be spreading in Verona to damage and discredit my dignity and my character, or whether they believe what is said (untruthfully) about my having a passion for a woman, etc. as certain vile peasants believe, etc., etc.: cupio anathema esse pro fratribus; amo pro nihilo reputari, etc. The only thing that matters (and this has been the one true passion of my whole life, and will be until I die, and is no embarrassment to me) is that Africa be converted and that God grant to me and preserve those auxiliary instruments that he has given and will give me.

[6988]

Do you know what the Jesuits have done to me? Ah! I have told you many times that when it comes to true and upright holiness, delicacy, disinterest and a true spirit of God you are worth more than all the orders and Congregations in God’s Church, and even the Jesuits, whom however I love, respect and idolise greatly. When I told Fr Dichtl and Fr Francesco about the nasty business of the Belgian, Neefs, who came from Cairo, listen to what Dichtl told me in the presence of Fr Francesco who was sick in bed. In Cairo, Fr Francesco, Fr Dichtl and Fr Giuseppe Ohrwalder, who is now in Kordofan, invited the Jesuits to their house several times, and in clear words the latter said that they should leave poor Mgr Comboni, etc. and join the Jesuits, etc., etc. What is more, when Fr Villeneuve came to give us a retreat, having come to the choice of state, he set up for them an examination from one side and the other, in other words, whether to be Jesuits or Missionaries of Central Africa; and he placed all the reasons on the scales in favour of the Jesuits. At this point, Fr Dichtl and Fr Giuseppe answered that they no longer needed to choose their state because when they made their vows and were ordained sub-deacons titulo missionis, they were certain of their vocation for Africa and would never change it. Fr Francesco said that ever since he made his vows in the hands of Mgr Comboni, he recognised no one but Mgr Comboni as the sole interpreter of God’s will for him, that he had complete and unlimited trust in Mgr Comboni, that he had already rejected the advice of other holy men who wanted to prise him away him from Mgr Comboni and that Mgr Comboni was the master of his life and death, etc.

[6989]

Cursed world! Cursed selfishness of friars and religious! Everything is lies, deceit and temptation in this world. There is nothing firm and stable in it but Christ and his Cross.
I bless everyone, Fr Luciano and the women’s convent; a thousand respects to His Eminence, to Fr Vignola (oh! that fellow is worth a hundred Jesuits, but I love them all the same) and Bacilieri, and pray for
Your most unworthy

+ Bishop Daniel, Vicar Apostolic

[6990]

Fr Giuseppe Sembianti, Rector of my African Institutes in Verona, has just written to me that Your Eminence ordered him to tell Virginia Mansur, an oriental postulant in my Institute of the Devout Mothers of Africa, that she was not to embark on the journey to Africa for the time being, and urged him to make sure that this order of Your Eminence be carried out exactly. I know that my Principal Superior of Central Africa, Mother Teresa Grigolini, and Sister Vittoria Paganini, Superior in Khartoum, women of eminent virtue and wisdom who have a very good grasp of things, humbly asked Cardinal di Canossa to allow Virginia to come to Africa and said that they would assume entire responsibility for her, convinced that great good for the mission would come of this because Virginia is worth three, is healthy and would gladly die in these deadly regions, and at the same time would achieve the purpose of her vocation. However, I do not know at all if Virginia would be prepared to come out this year; indeed she wrote to me recently that if the Superiors answer favourably to the African Provincial Superior’s requests, her first desire is to go to Beirut to try to convert her brother Abdalla, who is a schismatic Greek, because he wrote from Syria that he had been ill for many months without hope of a cure.

[6991]

In any case Your Eminence may rest assured that your order will be carried out exactly; and that, if God so disposes, if this unhappy but most virtuous young woman should be called by God to Africa, she would not come here without the consent and instructions of Your Eminence, my venerated Superior and Head of all the Missions in the world.

[6992]

In the meantime I am very pleased that Cardinal di Canossa, as is clear from the order Your Eminence has given to Fr Sembianti, has referred the matter of Virginia to Your Eminence. The reason is that this matter brings up certain other issues regarding the welfare of my Work, which I would like to be known in Rome, in that holy Ark of justice and charity, in that providential Oasis, the refuge of truth alone, which spreads the most dazzling light in the midst of the gloomy shadows of the universe.

[6993]

Already for some time I have felt the need to unburden my heart to you on certain points for the greatest good of Africa. I was extremely loath to do so out of respect for Cardinal di Canossa, who after all is one of my great benefactors because of the strong moral support he has given me since the beginning in 1867 for the foundation of the Work, and without whom perhaps I would not have been able to do anything. But now that for the second time His Eminence himself has left me an opening to enter Propaganda and give an account of all my affairs, which solely concern the redemption of Africa, I ought no longer to have human concern about anyone because, first and foremost, God and the great concerns for his glory must go before all else.

[6994]

The first time I realised that Cardinal di Canossa had opened a breach for me into Propaganda, without my getting wind of it beforehand, because he never dropped me the slightest hint, was last year, when Your Eminence deigned to order me to rid the Mission of a certain Virginia who had been dismissed by the Sisters of St Joseph. I received the letter on 3rd August in Ischl, where I had been visiting the Emperor of Austria. On 15th August I received a letter in Vienna from Verona, which informed me that I should be there for the pontifical Mass to give the homily for St Zeno’s feast day, in the large basilica dedicated to him, because the Cardinal was unwell. I was very far from thinking that the order you had given me to dismiss Virginia had originated from Verona, let alone from Cardinal di Canossa.

[6995]

I went to Verona, and on the 22nd celebrated the pontifical Mass and gave the homily as I had been asked. I presented myself to the Cardinal and mentioning to him the letter and the order I had received from Your Eminence, I asked him to protect Virginia and to inform himself about her from the Superior, who was well acquainted with the postulant who wanted to enter my Institute; and then to write about it to Your Eminence. “Very well”, he said, “I shall go to the convent and speak to the Mother Superior, and then I shall refer to Cardinal Simeoni myself. Rest assured and carry on”. Then he embraced me and kissed me on both cheeks, saying: “I am very fond of you”; and I went home, where I found a withering letter from Cardinal di Canossa written to me several weeks before but only delivered then, in which among other things he said that he regretted having spent six hundred lire to travel to Rome in June 1877 to get me made a Bishop!!! I will find this letter and send it to Your Eminence.

[6996]

Devastated and weeping, I returned to His Eminence and asked him the reason for his regrets and for this letter; and all sweetness and kindness he said: “It’s nothing, it’s nothing, I will go to the Mother Superior and write to Simeoni; rest assured and carry on”, and embracing me and giving me two or three kisses, he dismissed me, giving me a few errands for him in Rome. Only then did I realise that the order given to me by Your Eminence regarding Virginia had originated in Verona. Oh! How dear and venerable are the Crosses sent by God.

[6997]

When I arrived in Rome and came to see Your Eminence to discuss Virginia and other things, hearing from Your Eminence that Cardinal di Canossa had written in a satisfactory way about Virginia, and that consequently the order I had been given to dismiss her was no longer applicable, I said nothing and thought no more about the poor unfortunate woman, distracted as I was by the work I was doing on the four Pro-Vicariates in Equatorial Africa entrusted to Mgr Lavigerie and the preparations for my departure for Africa.

[6998]

The day before I left Verona for Africa, a good lay member of my Institute, though among the first to object to the arrival of Arabs in Verona because he felt incapable of studying Arabic (he is a good man but narrow-minded and obstinate, and my Rector likes him very much) said, in front of my manservant Domenico Correia, whom I have just sent back to Rome because he would have died on me here, and who will be applying for a new post to his previous employer, Cardinal Sanguigni: “Now that the Bishop is off to Africa, we can soon rid ourselves of both the male and female Arab teachers”. I am not making a big thing of it, but that is exactly what happened.

[6999]

I will now deal directly with the matter of Virginia and will then tell you of other matters. From these Your Eminence will understand that if since 1867, when I started the Work, until now there had been a real Bishop in Verona who was serious, firm, always consistent with himself and generous like Verzeri in Brescia, Carsana in Como, Scalabrini in Piacenza or Zinelli in Treviso, etc., my Work would have progressed by gigantic leaps and bounds, the Rules of my two fundamental Institutes in Verona would already have obtained formal approval from the Holy See, I would not have been obliged several times to leave the Vicariate to deal with my Institutes in Verona, etc., etc. and I would have made great headway under the guidance of Propaganda in the definitive conquest of Central Africa for the Faith.

[7000]

It is very painful for me to come out with these unfavourable remarks about Cardinal di Canossa who, on the other hand, has so many splendid and sublime virtues. I would be happy to be mistaken in my judgement, which I would never express to anyone but Your Eminence, my venerated and adored Superior who weighs my words justly, who lives in Rome participating in all the affairs of the Church; in Rome, where the excellent Cardinal of Verona is known, especially at the Holy Office, at the Congregation for Rites and at the Council, etc. and who can therefore assess my words and judgements according to their true value. Your Eminence should not think that because I am behind in my Work I have lost courage. I will never lose courage because it is God’s work, and although I am a useless pawn: servus inutilis in God’s hands, I am certain that with divine grace I will make up for lost ground, and with the help of the Holy See I will ensure that the Work makes so much progress before I die, if death does not come too soon, that the conquest of Central Africa for the Faith will be well on the way.

[7001]

In all matters, and in the affair of Virginia, I promise Your Eminence perfect obedience, even should I die of a broken heart and lose my life; because from my childhood until this very day I have loved and until I die will continue to love doing the will of God and of my superiors; and I would be happier to be condemned to perpetual imprisonment and death, while remaining in communion with the Pope and the Church, my Lady and Mother, than to be a king and to live in glory and honour in the world. This cursed world is truly totus positus in maligno.

[7002]

As regards Virginia, here is the main discrepancy between Cardinal di Canossa and myself. He says that Virginia is a plague to the mission, that she never had and does not have a religious vocation, that she is opaque, fickle and unworthy of being a missionary in Africa, etc. Instead, I submissively say the exact opposite, and my opinion is totally opposed to this. If it is true that she does not now seem to have a vocation (something about which Verona has given me no positive arguments, but only gratuitous assertions without proof), Virginia will have lost it because of the oppressive measures taken, without my being heard or consulted as I should have been, or listened to on any issue (of which I can give clear proof and strong arguments to Your Eminence). Instead, under a different spiritual direction without sinister constraints, etc., Virginia would overcome the defects she has contracted during the two years of suffering and humiliation she experienced in Italy in the shadow of my Institute and would become happy and a real manna, under the direction of my admirable and holy Sisters, for my Work.

[7003]

I must make two other declarations, which are the pure truth.
The first is this. It is not Cardinal di Canossa who is against Virginia and who acts in these and other matters. In my opinion, it is my dear Fr Sembianti alone. Cardinal di Canossa generally always does whatever is suggested to him: a priest or a seminarian are capable of prompting him to act, because he wants and loves what is good and to please. In general, or at least in very many cases, with Cardinal di Canossa those who are right are those who are close to him, who can approach him at the right moment, when he is not having (as old priests and nobles say in Verona) a canossina, that is, a bad mood caused by heart palpitations etc.

[7004]

The second truth is this. In the affair of Virginia, both Cardinal di Canossa and my Rector Sembianti are acting in conscience for a holy aim and solely for the good of the mission and for my own good (I believe, instead, that they pay no attention to the good of that poor unhappy woman and of her converted brother, treating it as a secondary issue, although Fr Sembianti was enthusiastic about it when he made his abjuration before me at Your Eminence’s behest in the splendid church of your Congregation). However, I must tell you that I am nonetheless very fond of Fr Sembianti, although he is stubborn as are all saints, somewhat pessimistic and scrupulous, because he is a devout priest and a gentleman, trains good candidates and will certainly send me candidates for the mission with an excellent spirit, who are prepared to die for Africa. All these discrepancies are things disposed by God, who made the cross for us to bear it; and God will know how to draw great good from it for Africa and for all our souls.

[7005]

Now who is this Virginia? I will only give you a brief outline here, but will later explain and prove everything to be quite true. She is an orphan who was born and lives to suffer on earth, but will then have great joy in heaven. After seeing her father and eldest brother slaughtered like sheep in the tremendous 1860 massacre of Christians in Syria, and after seeing the family houses and villas burn, she was taken to Saida and received at the age of 6 by the Superior of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition, Sister Emilienne Naubonnet, who died as my Provincial Superior in Khartoum in 1877 and told me what I am now telling you. At 15, at the hands of the Greek schismatic Bishop and her schismatic relatives assisted by a French freemason, she was taken back to her family at Beirut, where they wanted to force her to marry a young schismatic who hung around for six months. But, standing as firm as a pillar, though confined to the house and absolutely forbidden to go to church or to confession and Communion because they wanted to make her schismatic, she endured this martyrdom for six whole months, until one night, seeing that no one was watching her, she fled and walked all night and the following day, feet dripping with blood, until she met a Maronite and was taken to Saida. From there, she was smuggled to France by the Mother Superior herself. After completing the novitiate in Marseilles, she was sent to Khartoum on the orders of the Superior who told me that Virginia (in religion Sister Anna) Mansur does the work of three Sisters.

[7006]

During the six years she remained in my Vicariate she behaved extremely well, worked harder than all the others and was much loved and respected by the four Superiors who died there in six years, but much hated and persecuted by two other Sisters who were not Superiors, and unjustly so, as I shall prove. When eight or ten girls she had instructed and prepared for the Holy Laver were solemnly baptised in Khartoum, while all the others celebrated, she wept and said: “Here I am converting Africans, while I leave my mother and my brothers and sisters who are schismatic to perish for eternity”. Several times she asked my Provincial, Mother Emilienne (who had smuggled her to France to become a nun in 1870) to allow her to go home to Beirut for a few months to convert her family. But that good and holy Mother answered rightly that the Most Reverend Mother General would never allow her to return even for a short time to her family because, since Virginia had been stolen away to France by the Sisters of St Joseph and the family had never had any news of her, this would jeopardise the relations of the Congregation of St Joseph with the schismatics in Syria. This was a thorn in Virginia’s heart, and it was the beginning and the principal reason why she started to think of leaving the Congregation that she so loved, which she actually did, prompted by three main motives which I will describe later, because the post will soon be leaving.

[7007]

To say that she was dismissed from the Congregation is therefore a lie told by those in Verona because, when the Sisters were recalled from Central Africa, she had the assignment, which I saw myself, to one of the Congregation’s houses.
I had nothing to do with her decision to leave the Sisters of St Joseph because in answer to her repeated verbal and written requests I always said that I will never advise anyone to leave their own Congregation or Order and, on principle, I will not receive in my Institutes anyone who has belonged to other Congregations.

[7008]

Here are the main reasons for her departure from the Institute of St Joseph; I simply list them here, but I will provide proof and documents: 1. To convert her family.
2. Because the Sisters of St Joseph abandoned Central Africa where, she says, there are more conversions of pagan souls in a single house than in all the houses of Syria combined.
3. Because she was horribly maltreated by some of her companions and she understood that in the house of the Devout Mothers of Africa there is total peace and that the Sisters there love each other as sisters.
4. When she finally reached Cairo, she requested and obtained an obedience to go to Marseilles and tell the Mother General and assure her that what was written to her were calumnies and lies: that is, that Mgr Comboni allowed the Sisters to starve in Africa, but that in fact Mgr Comboni treated the Sisters better than himself, and better than a father; and that when there was a drought in Kordofan, the Sisters were given water to drink before the Missionaries, etc.

[7009]

It was in July 1879 that Virginia left St Joseph and went to Syria, to the sorrow of many of her companions. She therefore stayed in the religious communities of the St Joseph houses, and doing very well, from 1860 to more than half-way through 1879. So she stayed nearly 20 years.

[7010]

What I am saying is that the suggestion of Cardinal di Canossa and Fr Sembianti is false and very rash, when they wrote to me that Virginia never had a religious vocation, if she stayed 20 years in an Institute approved by the Church and which has done so much for the Missions.
Two months after she went to Beirut, she wrote to tell me that three members of her family were ready to become Catholic, but that it was necessary to get them away from their home which was more than two hours away from the nearest Catholic church, and that she too, after 20 years in a religious community, was in purgatory in her own house, especially since it took two hours to go to Mass. So she asked me:

[7011]

1. If I would accept her as one of my Sisters, prepared to do anything, and especially to die for Africa even right away (and for six years she had given splendid proof of this).
2. If I would help her find a place in some house where her brother, her sister and her cousin Alessandro could prepare for their abjuration.

[7012]

To her 1st request, as the founder, master and head of my Institutes, and knowing the person and my Work’s need for Arabic speakers, I answered in the affirmative as to receiving her, but reserved the right to decide whether to send her to the Novitiate in Verona, under the Mother General, or in Africa, under my Mother Principal Teresa Grigolini. In the meantime I also told her to do her utmost to convert her own mother.

[7013]

Regarding her 2nd request, as I had been accustomed to doing with my holy Superior, Fr Nicola Mazza, who was overjoyed when I brought unbelievers and Protestants to the Institute to be converted, I answered that I would accept all three of her relatives in my Institutes, either in Verona or in Cairo.
I stop here, and will continue the account in the next mail, to humbly propose a small matter. His Eminence Cardinal di Canossa never spoke or wrote to me about Virginia, nor ever asked me for details, explanations or such like. He always acted on his own at the suggestion of someone who was not competent, with the exception of the Rector (sic. sic.), who was himself deceived by a certain Fr Grieff whom he later sent away, and also by two simple peasants.

[7014]

And yet, before Fr Sembianti became Rector, His Eminence excluded Virginia from the Institutes, as well as the two Arab women who were angels, without consulting me although I was in Rome in February 1880, and made them stay together in a house of mine outside my establishments, ordering them not to have any communication with the establishments except during the Arabic lessons they gave under supervision. Imagine what a purgatory such isolation was for Virginia after twenty years of life in a community and such a happy and active a community as that of the Sisters of St Joseph. This is why, after a few months, I sent her to Sestri.

[7015]

But in his actions towards Virginia, Cardinal di Canossa never deigned to consult me, although I was a competent judge. Nor did he even consult the Sister Superiors of Verona or Sestri before writing to Your Eminence to order me to free the Mission of Virginia who had been dismissed (sic.) by the Sisters of St Joseph. The proof is as follows:
1. That having just spoken to the Mother Superior of Verona, he wrote to Your Eminence saying the opposite or something different to what he had said before.
2. This is proved by the two signed documents that I enclose, namely: one letter from my Superior General, Mother Maria Bollezzoli who approved the eminently religious spirit of Virginia: Attachment I; one letter from Sister Metilde Corsi, Superior of Sestri, who does the same: Attachment II.

[7016]

Your Eminence will certainly presume that before Cardinal di Canossa wrote such bad things about Virginia, ordering that for the time being she should not come to Africa, he would have consulted the Mother Superior in Verona about Virginia’s behaviour. No, Most Eminent Prince, he himself told me in a long letter he wrote me on 27th May (Attachment III, that I will send you with my next letter, because I must make a copy of it), that he consulted neither the Rector Sembianti (sic) nor the Mother Superior General. Here are His Eminence’s exact words:
“Virginia is a scourge to the Mission, she is an opaque, capricious, fickle woman without a trace of a vocation for the religious life… and so much so that in the place she left (that is, the Congregation of St Joseph) and if she were to leave, everyone sang (sic) and would sing the Te D e u m , etc., etc.”

[7017]

After this splendid portrait, he adds: “Do not think that either Fr Sembianti or the Mother Superior have informed me about this; no, they have not mentioned it at all; they do not even know that I am writing to you… But from what is being rumoured by others here and there (my God!), and murmured by Fr Tagliaferro, I have put together the facts that oblige me to make the judgement on Virginia which I have just expressed”.
On the other hand, the Mother Superior in Verona did not give me bad news of Virginia, but good. A month ago she wrote to me that Virginia was happy, that all the Postulants and Novices respect her, love her and are fond of her, etc. Well, if they all respect her and love her, how can His Eminence say that she is a scourge, etc.? I will send you the Mother Superior’s letter when I can find it, because now, Your Eminence, I am tired, exhausted and full of aches and pains due to my inability to sleep, etc.

[7018]

Now I ask you a favour, O Most Eminent Father: I have a well-founded fear that those in Verona might immediately send Virginia away to Syria among the schismatics, placing her soul in peril, as they did two months ago with her brother Giorgio. Without advance notice to Virginia or her brother, they took Giorgio to Trieste and put him on a ship bound for Syria.

[7019]

Therefore, since Your Eminence has been so good and prudent as to order Fr Sembianti to tell Virginia that for the time being she must not go to Africa, please now send Sembianti a note telling him “to order Virginia to stay in the Institute as a Postulant, and to do so until further orders from Your Eminence”. Postulant is the lowliest grade in my Institute, and it will require an ample dose of humility and self-denial on Virginia’s part to stay there, and to see others who came after her overtaking her and being admitted to the Novitiate. But she has these virtues.

[7020]

Here is the precise reason for this humble request of mine:
1. As soon as Virginia’s brother, cousin and Bechir arrived in Verona, the two peasants and Grieff who had such an influence on my good Sembianti, who believed them a hundred times more than me, repeated for months and months that these Arabs would never become Catholics. With heroic patience, they put up with the greatest humiliations, insults, ostracism, exclusion from the community and being banished to a house outside it, as I said. Finally, despairing of ever converting them in Verona, I sent Virginia’s cousin Alessandro and Bechir to Rome, to Fr Dionisio Sauaia, so that he might help me make them Catholic. Good Fr Dionisio, who is at Via Frattina 17 and is Procurator for the Greek monks of Mount Lebanon, took care of them. In short, Your Eminence should speak to Fr Sauaia and he will tell you how good these two oriental boys were. One of them made his abjuration to Mgr Sallua, the other was baptised by a Bishop with the catechumens, and then I took them to Cairo.

[7021]

Amazed at what had taken place in Rome, Fr Sembianti, as a gentleman, took Virginia’s brother Giorgio to the Fathers of his Congregation. After examining him for a few days, they decided that Giorgio was ready to make his abjuration right away, because he had the deepest Catholic sentiments. Therefore, at His Eminence’s orders, I myself received the abjuration in the church of the Bertoni Fathers, with the assistance of the Father General, and it was a moving celebration.

[7022]

Fr Sembianti was very fond of Giorgio and often took him to his Institute, etc. But what happened then?
Before I left Kordofan, I received a letter from Fr Sembianti in which he told me that, at the advice of His Eminence and his usual councillors (who are most devout men), “I took Giorgio in a carriage and went to S. Martino. There we took the train and when we reached Trieste, I put Giorgio on a Lloyd ship for Syria: but Virginia still knows nothing, and would not even imagine such a thing. Tomorrow, I will tell her about it and hear what she says. I had to do this for the good of the Institute, out of prudence and at the advice of His Eminence, etc.”

[7023]

I admit, though I do not know it, that they may have done this for the most just and holy motives. But Your Eminence will concede that if Virginia was distressed and responded with arrogance when they told her such news, it is understandable. I would have done worse.
“The next day”, writes Sembianti, “I went to the parlour, summoned Virginia in the presence of the Mother Superior and told her coldly that I had sent her brother off from Trieste to Syria, and that for reasons of prudence Cardinal di Canossa had thought it appropriate not to tell her and that she should accept the news with resignation, etc.” Virginia was shattered, she could not believe it and asked him what Giorgio had done wrong, etc., etc. Then, says Sembianti, she said she wanted to leave and that she did not want to remain under him, etc., etc. On the basis of these replies, Fr Sembianti then wrote to me that in conscience he judges that Virginia has no vocation or patience and is restless, etc. But the Mother Superior wrote to say that two days later she was still weeping, yes, but that she was calm and had stopped complaining about Fr Sembianti, whom she had told that he had no heart and that if he had allowed her to speak to her brother beforehand, she would have corrected him and he would have asked forgiveness, etc. But it was all pointless with Fr Sembianti.

[7024]

I will send you the two original letters signed by Fr Sembianti, so that Your Eminence may judge. But in the meantime, doesn’t Virginia have the right to be afflicted at seeing her brother taken from her without a last farewell, sent to Syria among the schismatics, with the risk of losing his faith due to his poor treatment in Verona; a brother for whom she wept in Africa for so many years and made so many sacrifices, even leaving her Congregation to convert Giorgio and her family?

[7025]

That is the truth. So I implore Your Eminence to write to Verona as I said. In Sestri too, Fr Sembianti withdrew the Sisters and the Institute (he had a thousand reasons of which I approve, due to the change in Tagliaferro who, they say, has not been to confession for 30 years, and lives and dresses like a lay yokel; and because Virginia as a true missionary twice implored Tagliaferro to dress as a priest to honour Monsignor [me], and to put himself in order with God so as to go to heaven, Tagliaferro told me that Virginia was a schemer. No wonder that he spoke ill of Virginia to Cardinal di Canossa who, as I said, quotes Tagliaferro as the source of his very bad opinion of Virginia, and left in the night at 1 o’clock, without saying goodbye, without informing the head of the house. I do not pass a bad judgement on this, but these systems of prudence generally do not please me. I kiss the Sacred Purple, etc.
Your most obedient and devoted son

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

Attachment 1 follows.

[7026]

I ask your forgiveness for my delay in thanking Your Excellency and the honourable Gentlemen, Commendatore Malvano, Prof. Dalla Vedova and all the members of the Council of the Italian Geographic Society for the honour conferred upon me in my appointment as Member Correspondent of this distinguished Society, of which you with your great wisdom and intelligence are President. The document, with the accompanying letter, was delivered to me only just before I left this capital to visit the Missions in the interior. And before writing a reply, I wanted to offer you some practical evidence to prove that I am a correspondent of this illustrious Society not only in name but in fact.

[7027]

Having carried out an important exploration of the mountains of Dar Nuba with some of my missionaries, not only to organise and extend the Catholic Missions but also to put an end once and for all to the infamous slave trade, with the powerful help and crucial and loyal determination of His Highness the Khedive and his worthy representative, Rauf Pasha, Governor General of the Sudan who gave me his full support, I hasten to send you a copy of the map made by my Missionaries and me after diligent observations. It is very exact, and I assure you that as soon as I have some free time, I will write an equally precise Report for you on those very interesting peoples which, with a good core of missionaries and Veronese Sisters and divine help, I have undertaken, after enormous difficulties, to refine and to civilise.

[7028]

I am confident that in a year the total abolition of the slave trade in Dar Nuba, which year after year has decimated those strong but unfortunate people, will be a fait accompli, and that the proposal I made to that wisest and truest of gentlemen, the governor general, will have been implemented. I suggested that those mountains be removed from the jurisdiction of Kordofan on which they depended, and that a new province called Dar Nuba be created; it would extend from Birkat-el-Koli at 12 degrees Latitude North, as far as Bahar-el-Arab and Bahar-el-Gazal, headed by a mudir or a European governor. I am still hoping that with the good will of His Highness the Khedive and his ministers’ wisdom, permission will shortly be granted for a railway between the Red Sea and the Nile at Khartoum, since there are some who will assume responsibility for financing it. Rauf Pasha is enthusiastic about it. He knows how to explain wisely the material advantages it would bring to the Sudan and Egypt, and even more, the moral benefits, among which the axiom “a railway in the Sudan means the definitive abolition of the slave trade” is not the least.

[7029]

In addition to other endeavours, with unspeakable efforts we have extracted more than 3,000 words from the interesting language of Dar Nuba, which is completely unknown to science, and compiled a dictionary which we will be publishing shortly. Only those who have the experience and have tried it out will appreciate the enormous difficulty involved in learning a language unknown to science from the lips of the indigenous people, some of whom have a smattering of Arabic, but know it very badly. This is what I discovered when I stayed among the tribe of the Kich in 1858–59 with the excellent Fr Beltrame and the late Fr Melotto at Holy Cross Station, headed by the wise Tyrolean, Fr Giuseppe Lanz (who died in Khartoum in 1860); together we managed with enormous effort and study to compile a dictionary, a grammar and a lengthy treatise on Religion in the Dinka language. These were subsequently published (since we sent the manuscripts to Bressanone) by the most scholarly Prof. Mitterrutzner, and later, by the excellent Fr Beltrame.

[7030]

I will soon be publishing an important volume written by Fr Giuseppe Lanz. Fr Beltrame and I lived with him among the Kich for more than a year, and together resumed our study of Dinka at Holy Cross Station. I found the manuscript in the library, it comprises a long catechism and several addresses in Dinka made to those people, and another work that we wrote together in Dinka which will affect the well-being and assistance of missionaries whom I shall soon send out to those peoples. I intend to found new missions among them where I shall settle missionaries, Sisters and lay brother craftsmen. When I founded the station of Delen at Dar Nuba, everyone, men and women, went about in the costume of Adam and Eve. We, especially my able missionaries Fr Luigi Bonomi from Verona, the Superior, and Fr Giovanni Losi from Piacenza, who is primarily responsible for the Nuban dictionary, introduced the custom of purchasing the necessary food with lengths of material and fabric; when I recently visited those villages, I found that some of the people of Del are wearing clothes outside their huts at Dordor. Otherwise no local chieftains, no men or women, are dressed; they all go about stark naked.

[7031]

I am really delighted with the successful outcome of the long journey, the only one in that direction, in one region, gloriously undertaken by Dr Matteucci and Dr Masari who reached Guinea and will already have arrived in Italy by now. This brings great honour, after the failures of the Antinori expedition and of the unfortunate Giulietti.
Your Excellency and the illustrious Society may also use me for anything that may really serve science and true civilisation in Central Africa, since the motto of my arduous and laborious institution, which I founded with so many efforts is: Religione cattolica e Civiltà cristiana, as you can see from a small work that I wrote in eight days at Sestri Levante. I arranged to have it published in Verona before leaving Europe last September but without being able to supervise the printing, which turned out to be full of typographical errors; it is entitled: Quadro Storico delle Scoperte Africane; I take the liberty of sending a copy of it to you, Your Excellency.

[7032]

As well as this small work, I am also sending you a second, in German, that I published in Vienna which includes a brief mention of the history of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa, from its foundation until my appointment as the first Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa in 1877. In addition to these two works, I am also sending you a third. It is n.25 of the Annali del Buon Pastore, which I founded in Verona. It includes a letter from H.E. Rauf Pasha, making me responsible for studying the question of slavery in Dar Nuba and for proposing the appropriate remedies to him; which I did to the letter, and all my suggestions were adopted by the governor general, as you will see from the brief Report that I shall send you when I have written it, if I can recover my strength.

[7033]

I would be most obliged to Your Excellency if you would kindly have the Society’s bulletin sent to Khartoum, my provincial residence, so that I can keep up to date on the renowned Society’s publications.
I have the honour to declare myself with the highest esteem, Your Excellency’s
Most devoted and respectful true servant,

+ Bishop Daniel Comboni

[7034]

I celebrated Mass in my room this morning at about 3 o’clock (since I could get hardly any sleep at all). In the morning I haven’t the breath to say Mass nor even to hear it, so I say Mass some time after midnight, when I can breathe better, in my rooms. I said this Mass for you, for the 78th year since you came into this world to trick this earth and to be a puzzle to others.
I prayed that God might make you holy, and give you many spiritual graces to assure the eternal salvation of your soul.
I did not pray for a longer life for you, because that is altogether too worldly, although it would be the greatest of joys for me if you were to live to a hundred, provided that it brought you more grace and merit.
Apart from that, what use is this miserable world?

[7035]

Instead I pray a great deal that God may lengthen the lives of those who live badly and far from his grace, that he may grant them the time to repent, at least when the world gets tired of them and no longer knows what to do with them.
I pray for our relatives because they have children, etc., but I don’t bother at all to pray either for you or for myself that we may live long.
We must pray instead that we may save many souls and go to heaven, not alone but with a great crowd of converts.

[7036]

Fr Vincenzo Marzano and Domenico my servant left more than a fortnight ago. The latter was in tears and went to tell the Sisters and the Superior: for pity’s sake, look after Monsignor, the poor thing, he has no one to take care of him, etc., etc., etc.
To tell you the honest truth, after Domenico’s departure, I chose as my servant that big etc. Tuscan Giuseppe, whom you saw in Verona, and who was sent to me from Piacenza although he is Tuscan. This good man is worth a hundred times more than Domenico, because as well as serving me ten times better and with greater skill, he does not disturb me with Domenico’s chatter and foolishness; instead he works hard, keeps busy, does things and is silent; and he is the model of kindness, loving and respectful, etc.; in short, a servant worthy of a bishop.
Furthermore, he does not drink; and Domenico with his secret tipples, etc., telling piles of lies, dishonoured me to the point that I felt ashamed of him all too often, in Verona, Rome and Africa.

[7037]

Oh! How much happier I am and how much happier all the Missionaries and Sisters are! However, I sent Domenico to Europe with all gratitude and kindness because with his tongue-wagging and his insolence he might have harmed some missionary, especially Fr Luigi who did not want him to come to Jebel Nuba because two servants were needed for him! He is in Rome, enthusiastic and completely at peace with me and with everyone else. He wants to write to you and to come and see you (he has no money and won’t come), and sees everything that belongs to me as his own.

[7038]

Nonetheless I thank Heaven that he has left. As for Giuseppe on the other hand, not only has he not annoyed me even once, but on the contrary his kindness, attention and modesty inspire my respect. Furthermore, Giuseppe serves everyone here, and all the missionaries he serves are enthusiastic about him.
I send my greetings to our dear relatives, who will certainly come to Limone in October from Milan and Switzerland, Pietro and his wife, the ones in Riva, Teresa and Faustino, etc.
Your most affectionate son,

+ Bishop Daniel

P.S. Domenico who left thinks I am desolate over his departure.

[7039]

In your letter n. 30 of 11th June, you write to me: “I do not want to end this letter without telling Your Most Reverend Excellency of a fear I have that the Sisters of Africa be put under pressure that would be as painful as it is unreasonable, to ask for Virginia in the Vicariate. I don’t know anything; but the past makes me fearful for the future; in that case there might be victims who would give up because of the shouting, etc.”.

[7040]

Since it is indeed completely untrue that in the past I put pressure on any Sister or Superior of the Devout Mothers of Africa (and this is one of the many false assertions that are found in the letters you have been writing to me for three months regarding the unhappy and unfortunate Virginia), and I cannot, since I am in Africa, summon to your presence those Sisters in Verona on whom you declare that I exercised pressure; to enable you to know the truth about the Sisters in Africa (since I am concerned, for the good of the Work, that between you and me there should be the most sincere, frank and true reciprocal esteem, so that its goal may be more easily achieved), I decided, after receiving your letter in Kordofan, to send Sr Teresa Grigolini to Verona to put her under your influence; so you will be able to sniff out the matter and will be convinced that I never exerted any pressure, for it matters to no one more than myself that things go well and that the Sisters are not anyone’s victim, let alone mine, for I am their first father, teacher and founder. I have also chosen this holy Sister who is, without exception, the first and most perfect model of the Sister-daughter of charity for the needy in Central Africa, because she is half her former self and needs some respite; I have chosen her, although I am making the greatest sacrifice by doing so, because according to the best missionaries who know her and Sister Vittoria who admires her, she is the strongest pillar of Central Africa, and is a comfort and consolation to me because she is a soul who belongs totally to God.

[7041]

Then when I read in your letter n.35 of 24th July: “It should be noted that the Mother (of Verona) no longer possesses her former energy and can no longer work as she once did, she needs the help of someone to replace her in some offices, etc., etc.”, I felt more determined than ever about my decision. I have already written to Sister Grigolini herself in Kordofan, telling her that after the Kharif she should prepare to come to Khartoum, ordering her to inform in my name the person who is to replace her. On the journey to Cairo etc., I will have her properly escorted, etc. and the journey will do her good. I am sure that her presence in Verona for a few months will be good for the Work, for the Institute and above all for the Superior, who will be able to have a complete rest for several months, to take the waters, etc. She will arrive in Italy next spring.

[7042]

Furthermore, when I read in His Eminence’s letter to Sister Vittoria, that she secretly asked for Virginia, because of someone’s pressure (that is, mine), I then decided to send Mother Grigolini to Rome too, to tell Propaganda about the apostolate of the Devout Mothers of Africa, to let Propaganda know how things are going in Central Africa and to respond clearly to Cardinal Simeoni about whether I exert pressure on the Sisters, in case the Most Eminent Cardinal di Canossa has told Propaganda that I put pressure on the Sisters or victimise them.
Moreover, it serves my purpose to send Sister Grigolini to Cairo, to decide on the vocation of a postulant born in Egypt and offered to us (!) by the Franciscan Sisters (!), in order to examine the state of health of those Sisters, and to see which of them I can summon to Central Africa.

[7043]

Brown wrote to me from Malta that before leaving Rome he had made available and put aside for me the 400 pounds sterling (10,000 francs) which I had requested, so that his son would give them to me; and it is not his fault (the old man’s) if his son Cav. Giuseppe Brown did not hand them to me. In addition, he ordered his son to give me or my delegates a magnificent ring of Pius IX with an authentication of Mgr Ricci (which I saw, both the ring and the authentication, a ring which Brown said was worth about 20,000 francs), and he did not give it to me. I enclose with this the note Brown wrote to his son in Rome, and the letter Brown wrote to me; and I ask you to kindly ask Dr Count Theodore Ravignani to advise you, to see if it is possible to take Giuseppe Brown to court to retrieve what he owes me.

[7044]

In this regard, I am writing a letter to Brown in Italian because you understand it, and so does Brown, in which I ask him to make me a legal declaration in the form that he will send to Fr Sembianti, my procurator, and to send it from Malta directly to you. For help in Rome or for knowledge of English or to speak to Brown’s son, there is Mgr Antonio Grasselli, Archbishop of Colossae i.p.i. He is Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Apostolic Visit, and lives in the Greek College, Via del Babuino in Rome; he knows His Eminence well and is a friend of his, he is also well acquainted with the whole family of Brown, for whom I also enclose a note.
Here is my translation of the note that Brown the father wrote to his son in Rome.

Enclosure 1:

(From English): “Malta, 22 July 1881 Mr Giuseppe Brown Junior, 131 Via Rassella, Rome
As it appears to me, you have not paid Mgr Comboni the money which I prepared and designated for him, before I left Rome. I asked you to give to him or to hold at his orders the precious ring (of great value) of Pius IX, with the documents of authentication which I left with you, or the equivalent money, should it have been sold.
H.G. Brown”

The same Brown senior then wrote me a long letter,

Enclosure 2, from which I have extracted the following passages.

42, Strada Cattedrale,
Sliema, Malta
22 July 1881

[7045]

“You accuse me of premeditation! But I can prove that a few days before leaving Rome I had prepared and set aside for you the 400 pounds sterling (10,000 francs) for which you asked me, and they were there ready for you, etc… This is in response to your accusation of premeditation!!! I am most highly surprised that Giuseppe could have told you that I had obtained the 400 pounds sterling for you in Naples, whilst he knew perfectly well that I had followed your orders directly. (In fact he was remiss in many things, etc. and has treated me as I do not deserve). Giuseppe (the son) has been our ruin, etc., etc…

[7046]

Pius IX’s very valuable ring, which I had always hoped you would have sold (he had ordered me to do so, but I did not find anyone to buy it; nor did he leave me the ring, but only a printed description); the ring’s intrinsic value was 2,000 francs; but with the document of authentication that it had, it could have been worth more than 20,000, and it was even said that it was worth more than twenty thousand lire. I had always intended this ring for you, and enclose an order to this effect, although I fear that you will not be able to get it back from him”.

[7047]

Think about this and seek advice from Ravignani, also to get the ring out of that thief (as I am entitled to call Cavaliere Giuseppe Brown, the son in Rome), because of everything his poor father tells me in this letter. I shall write to him kindly in the future.
As well as Mgr Grasselli (who can manage for English, etc.), there is my Procurator for liquidating the Brown credit, who only took 5% of the 13,000 francs that were found on the old man’s registers for himself; that is, Cavaliere Luigi Pelagallo, a most gentlemanly man who lives in Rome at 9 Via Capo le Case on the 4th floor.

[7048]

But the old man writes further in the same letter that in August he had not received any cash deposit from me. In actual fact I did send him money; but in August all the dealings were with the son, also for sending it, etc. However, I find it in my records, and I remember clearly that in August I did send some to Brown in Rome (perhaps the son received it without saying anything about it to his father).

[7049]

I sent Brown a letter of credit from Lyons from Vienna on 7th August (Widow Guerin et Fils in Lyons, account n. 355, Mandate 393), for 12,000 francs in gold; I sent it; but, as I say, the son reacted by writing to me with regard to the order given him to send Giulianelli 5,000 francs, that he did not know whether it was a G or a J, and that he was therefore unable to send the letter of credit (the thief). In short, I send everything to you, and I am certain that something will come of it for the Verona Institute. Ah! The ring of Pius IX! To me it is a small thing; but princes would pay a high price for it.

[7050]

I wanted to send His Eminence the 5 long pages which are a continuation of the 4 that I sent him from El Obeid in response to my justification to his letter of 26th and 27th May last, from Verona and Monteforte; but now that the Cardinal has brought a complaint against Cardinal Simeoni it is no longer worth sending it to Verona, where I will certainly be listened to as I have been until now, that is, not at all. I will therefore keep it to use it for Rome, if Cardinal Simeone writes to me on that subject.
It is a real and downright [lie], entirely contrary to the truth, that the Archpriest of Sestri spoke clearly to me about Virginia’s vocation, and I have written to him at once that he should explain what he claims to have said to me. He never spoke to me of Virginia, either well or badly, and in Sestri her vocation did not enter into it; but at Sestri poor Virginia had trouble with her sister who sometimes ran away from the convent, and Virginia had to go after her. I will write again later by this post to that Archpriest, and will tell him that it is a lie that he talked to me about Virginia, and still less of her vocation.

[7051]

I end this letter with an anecdote of the great Pius which involved me in Rome. In 1864, as I was in Rome for the Beatification of Alacoque, Cardinal Barnabò of happy memory ordered me to go to the Hospice of the Catechumens (where Beshir was instructed) to fetch a young man from Damascus, a convert from Islam (today he is a rich noble living in London) to present him to Pope Pius IX. He had already received Baptism. I went to the Catechumens and also found there that poor young 10-year old cobbler, who was Jewish, and had received baptism together with the young man from Damascus. The Rector of the hospice and I, with the two fortunate converts, got into the carriage of Mgr Jacobini, who was then a young prelate of the Catechumens and today is Leo XIII’s Cardinal Secretary of State. We went to see the Pope, we came back and Mgr Jacobini took me to Propaganda where I had to see the Cardinal Prefect. On that occasion I became thoroughly acquainted with the boy cobbler from the ghetto, who was rougher and less educated than our country cobblers, but happy at having become Christian.

[7052]

On the following Sunday in October, I was lunching with the Count de Sartiges, the French Ambassador to the Holy See, in the company of Baron Visconti, the Commissary for Antiquities, and Mgr Place, who was then Auditor of the sacred Roman Rota, later Bishop of Marseilles and today is Archbishop of Rennes. The ambassador told us how, on the orders of the Emperor Napoleon III, he had been to see Pius IX the day before to tell him that it was the Emperor’s will that His Holiness should give back to his Jewish parents the boy cobbler who had been baptised, and that the Pope had responded with a determined and decisive “no”. “What madness!”, said the Count de Sartiges, “What foolishness! What fanaticism! That is excessive, to refuse the Emperor of the French such a small thing! It is not good at all, it is not diplomatic, etc.”

[7053]

After Commissioner Visconti and Mgr Place had spoken to answer and to justify the Pope, the Ambassador turned to me and said: “Et vous, mon cher Abbé, que pensez vous? Vous n’auriez pas fait ainsi”. “Please forgive me, my dear ambassador”, I replied. “Don’t you see that the Pope was imitating perfectly Jesus Christ who would have shed all his blood for a single soul? Don’t you see the marvellous spectacle of a Pope giving the world a splendid lesson on the value of a soul for whom the divine Redeemer died? Indeed, it seems to me that in that sublime act of the Supreme Pontiff one can glimpse the poetry of our Holy Faith. Yes, the refusal of the greatest authority on earth to the most powerful Emperor in the world, by not wishing to give back to the Jewish cobbler father his poor converted son is truly a sublime spectacle worthy of the world’s admiration. Pius IX’s surprising courage in rejecting Napoleon III’s request to return a young cobbler shows the great soul, apostolic zeal and superhuman charity of the greatest Pope of the modern age, whom I admire and which makes Pius IX truly sublime”.

[7054]

“Oh! How poetic you are, my dear friend”, the Ambassador answered, smiling; and the others applauded my answer.
From this you may conclude, my dear Rector, that although Virginia is unhappy and a person of no importance, in Rome she will find greater charity than that she has found in certain parts of the world.
Pray for me, as I warmly bless you and the Institutes.
Most affectionately

+ Bishop Daniel

[7055]

First read the letter I am writing to Fr Rolleri as that will save me from explaining to you the reasons why I let him go to Europe, in response to your letters in which you told me that Rolleri could be kept in Khartoum (regarding Rolleri and his health I cannot come to any positive conclusions) as administrator.
I am sending you various letters from Sestri, and Brown’s declaration about Pius IX’s ring which he charged me to sell (only sending the description card; but he kept the ring) to some prince; but I did not have time in Vienna to show it to anyone.

[7056]

I am sending letters, both from Properzi, a witness of Tagliaferro’s promises, and from Tagliaferro. Keep the 6,300 from Paris. The post is leaving. Until the next mail.
I received the magnificent coverlet from Virginia who spent 32 days travelling from Berber to Khartoum. The Sisters were enchanted with it, and said that the coverlet was worthy of being presented to the great Pasha.
I bless you all.
Yours most affectionately

+ Bishop Daniel

[7057]

I repeat what I wrote to you in my last letter, n.1 of the sixth month, that is, that I have appointed you procurator general with full freedom to do whatever you see fit with the funds entrusted to your conscience, to buy where you please for the good of the work, etc., recommending to you the most conscientious parsimony.
I received your letters of the 10th, 15th and 22nd August, with the accounts for the month of July in good order.
I will send you little by little all the funds received in the current year which have not passed through your hands, so that you may record them in the book of the general administration.

[7058]

From now on for the whole of this year 1881, send no more money to Fr Sembianti, because with what he has and what he will be receiving, he will be sufficiently well provided for the Institutes of Verona for the whole of this year.
Keep the money you receive, after providing for the strictest needs of Cairo, ready for me in accordance with the orders I will send you. Keep it available for me.
Every three months send me the accounts of the general administration.
Then continue to send me an account of the income and expenditure for each month.
In writing to me, for reasons of order, always note the protocol number at the beginning, as I have started to do for you, and as Propaganda always does.

[7059]

I hope that you have sent Domenico Donizzoni home, and that Domenico Polinari will agree to go to Kordofan. Khartoum is provided for. Let me know about the conduct of the lay people and of your dependants.
For some time I have been insistently asking the government of Khartoum for the money of the Coptic Catholic Armenios; it seems to recognise that at least 47,000 piastres were made through the sale of his merchandise on the White Nile, but until now I have not been able to liquidate anything. Greet the Apostolic Delegate of the Copts, Abuna Marco, on my behalf. When you see the new Apostolic Delegate, Anacleto of S. Felice, pay my respects to him and offer him my services.

[ an administrative note follows]

I have received the Kinini, etc.
I will let you know of other sums, received at Verona, and income in the Vicariate etc, etc. Greetings to Fr Pietro, Germano, etc. I bless you all.
Yours most affectionately,

+ Daniel,
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

Begin the registry of the general administration from 1st January 1881.

[7060]

With my letter n.36, I sent you several letters from Fr Tagliaferro and Fr Properzi, who was the intermediary. Fr Properzi, who is a man of extraordinary talent and insight, foresaw everything, that is, that Tagliaferro is incapable of an act of generosity, and that Tagliaferro would never have given me his holdings at Sestri (as he promised, to him and to me). Properzi is a lawyer, he is sharp, etc. I told him that I would have made Tagliaferro give me the convent and restore him to God’s grace, since they say that years and years have passed since he made his confession, etc., and that he is a usurer, etc. My God! And he used to be a religious! Corruptio optimi pessima. If Properzi offers himself to you (you should always maintain a certain reserve with him. I have broken with him specifically over the Tagliaferro business, it was he who proposed and initiated it, and for other reasons), you should not refuse definitively, but reply that if he thinks he should act, then let him act. Properzi is a man with a great heart, who would sell himself for others. He is a man full of virtues and sins: he is a Neapolitan.

[7061]

I wrote straight out to Tagliaferro that he has deceived me, that your only option was to withdraw the Sisters, because keeping them at Sestri was damaging to the Institute, and that a man, I wrote, who demands payment for furniture, miserable beds, etc. is not capable of making the gift he boasted about. You should not pay for these things, but answer him that in this regard I have not given you any instructions and that he should come to an understanding with me. Moreover, I do not understand why this is something you fear. The agreement has no value; since it has no value we could not present it to the government. As for the rent he claims, you should say that he gave us accommodation etc. gratis (and this is true).

[7062]

I do not owe Rolleri a penny. The deposit of 2,200 lire put into his hands last November he repaid himself in Khartoum with money that I gave him as administrator for the journey from Cairo to Khartoum.
Ten days ago I read in the Gratz Gazette that Her Majesty Empress Marianna of Prague has sent Mgr Comboni 500 florins (not much); I wrote to her (to Mgr Gaspardis) to send the donation to Verona. That is the general rule! Keep for the needs of Verona both the 6,300 francs from the Holy Childhood in Paris and these 500 florins, and any more that you may happen to receive. Only I repeat that should I have an extreme need to draw on the cash of Verona for the Vicariate, I shall do so, and write to you to send such a sum to Cairo, etc. Trust in God! This is so rare even in pious souls, because God and Jesus Christ are little known and loved. If people truly knew and loved Jesus Christ, they would move mountains: and little trust in God is common to almost all good souls (as I am taught by long experience, and as was also Cardinal Barnabò’s opinion), even those who pray a lot, who pay lip service to trust in God but show little or none when God puts them to the Test, and at times obliges them to go without what they want.

[7063]

I myself have come across this in friars, in Jesuits, in Carthusians and in excellent Priests. I did not believe it was so: but so it is. I tell you this to warn you to have firm and resolute trust in God and in Our Lady and St Joseph. Your complaint in a letter when you heard that I had assigned you only 6,000 francs of the allocation of Lyons bothered me. Modicae fidei, quare dubitasti? Among those who have true faith and trust in heaven, more than you, more than I and more than the holy people in Europe (at least many of them) who eat food, are Sister Teresa Grigolini, Sister Vittoria Paganini and Sister M. Giuseppa Scandola and some of my missionaries, Nöcker, the holy Parish Priest, President of our Cologne Society, and many people in the world whom I know personally. Therefore pray and have faith; do not pray with words but with the fire of faith and charity. This is how the African Work was founded. This is how Religion and all the world’s missions were founded.

[7064]

I did not have time to tell you about Domenico Polinari. I am the only person in Africa who thinks well of him, because although he is mad, he has sound habits, is a great worker, and because he is the oldest in the new phase of the Vicariate, that is, since the time when it was entrusted to me and to the Verona Institute. But Fr Bouchard, the Consul, the Missionaries, the Sisters (and they have thousands of reasons) don’t even want to hear his name mentioned. Because he wants to bring the accounts of the vegetable garden to me. His duty was to refer them to the local Superior, Fr Luigi, and to obey him. Instead he sold the produce outside, and there was nothing for the house, Fr Luigi never saw a penny. Now instead, in addition to the service of the house which is provided with everything that grows in the garden, every day the Superior is given one or two thalers from the sale of lemons, and when there is other fruit, etc., there is more income. At the moment, in addition to 400 thalers from dates, there are the Okalib, sugar cane, etc. to be sold, and it all comes in to the mission. Under Domenico Polinari the mission never saw a penny, and he did not want to account to anyone. And now does he want to bring me the accounts? He is quite mad. Fr Giulianelli telegraphed me from Cairo that Polinari does not want to stay there. “Either the Sudan or he will leave”. So I begged Fr Fraccaro to take him in Kordofan; and he agreed; I telegraphed him back that I had destined Battista for Khartoum (but under the African Lonardo, who is in charge of the garden and had been dismissed by Polinari without a word to the Superior, when he had worked in the garden for 22 years), and Polinari for Kordofan.

[7065]

I do not yet know what Domenico has decided after my above-mentioned telegram. I am the only one, among everyone else, who would like him to come. I will write to Baron Bruck in Trieste whom I know well. He is a son of the person who was the Austrian Empire’s Minister of Finance, and who, I am told, committed suicide. I knew him very well, and it was in Vienna at the Ministry for Finance that I met the young Baron of Trieste.
I have not yet found Fr Tagliaferro’s receipt for 1,299.50 lire, which I paid in November, but perhaps I will find it.

[7066]

Fr Francesco Pimazzoni who had recovered a little and went for walks (perhaps too often) in the garden, had a relapse; and now I don’t know what to say. It will be a great cross if I lose this dear member.
Poor Matteucci! He embarked on a journey between the Red Sea and the Atlantic which no one had ever done before, which put him on a par with Stanley etc., and he died in London, like Gessi Pashha in Suez, in the act of reaping his triumph. An ugly world. Porro unum est necessarium. The soul, and concerns for God’s glory and to save souls. Multa to the Cardinal, to Fr Vignola, Bacilieri, Ravignani, and Fr Luciano. I bless everyone.

+ Bishop Daniel

[7067]

With this I am sending you the letters from Tagliaferro and Properzi. I would be very pleased to recover Pius IX’s ring from Brown.

[At the top of page 1]:

Oh! I would be most obliged to God if he caused me to recover Pius IX’s ring, which would certainly make me twenty thousand francs in Paris, or elsewhere.
Do your best, and have prayers said to St Joseph ad hoc.

[In the margin of pp. 1 and 3]:

All the Sisters here, especially Sister Vittoria, Sister M. Giuseppa, the Piedmontese, etc. are full of praise for little Elvira dell’Astori, whose origins no one knows, and Sr Vittoria and Sr Maria Gius. Scandola say that they would be very glad to have her with them when she has made her profession.