Writings

[4771]
By means of the august sign of the Cross, by the will of the eternal Wisdom, we see the Christian world emerging from the enveloping darkness in which it was imprisoned by the ancient law; the Cross alone was strong enough to work this miracle, and this is why all works that come from God must be born at the foot of Calvary.
[4772]
Therefore the signs of recognition, which consist in the Cross, suffering and contradictions which often oppose works of charity by impeding them with the gravest obstacles, speak in favour of a work’s holiness. Yes, it is only on this “Way of the Cross”, covered with thorns, that the works of God mature, come to perfection and achieve their complete fulfilment. The God-Man himself walked along this way to carry out his work of redeeming all mankind.
[4773]
The Holy and Immaculate Virgin was Queen of Martyrs before she became Queen of heaven and earth. In exactly the same way, all the Orders and all the foundations and Institutes of the Church of Jesus Christ were founded on thorns, and this gave rise to the most heroic virtues which even now spread their blessings and benefits throughout the world.
[4774]
The martyrs and all the saints trod this way, and we measure their holiness by the depth of suffering that they had to bear during their earthly life. Finally, the Church of Jesus Christ and the Papacy, from St Peter down to Pius IX, have followed the example of their divine Founder and bear the scars of this struggle in which no quarter is given.
[4775]
The Church, the most august creation of the divine omnipotence and love, the most perfect thing that came from His right hand, this sublime marvel of his eternal counsel, this ark of the New Covenant, this mystical barque which for 19 centuries has withstood unharmed the crashing of the breakers continuously unleashed against her by the furious forces of hell, will be masterfully steered over the waves for centuries to come until she enters the haven of eternity.
[4776]
Things are no different in the sublime work of the Christian regeneration of Africa which boasts of receiving from you and from all Catholic Germany its first spark of life, its first impulse and first assistance for its progress and steady development.
[4777]
This apostolic undertaking too, has the same destiny as all other holy works which are born in the Church of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as the obstacles and hostility against which the Church has had to struggle from her beginnings can be considered an infallible guarantee of her success and happy future.
[4778]
Thanks to the Holy See’s wise arrangements, this work has entered a stage in which we will have the joy of extending it further. It will therefore not be displeasing to the esteemed members of the Society of Catholic Germany if I present them with a picture of the history of the Vicariate of Central Africa and of the works for the evangelisation of Africa, which will enable us to achieve Africa’s conversion in the best and most practical way. At the same time, I shall give a concise description of the current situation of this most important apostolate.
[4779]
The Apostolic Vicariate of Central Africa was created by a decree of Gregory XVI of happy memory on 3rd April 1846. Its borders are:
In the north: the Vicariate Apostolic of Egypt and the Prefecture of Tripoli. In the East: the Red Sea and the Apostolic Vicariates of Abyssinia and Galla. In the South: the mountains which according to modern geographers, lie between 10 and 12 degrees, Latitude North.
In the West: the Vicariate of Guinea and the Prefecture of the Sahara Desert.

[4780]
The surface area of the Vicariate is larger than the whole of Europe. It includes the possessions of the Sudan, which are subject to the crown of the Khedives of Egypt and form a territory five times the size of France. They contain tribes given to fetishism, the lands of the primitive peoples which do not belong to central Africa, and some kingdoms, ruled by kings and sultans, which have more or less embraced the laws of Mohammed.

[4781]
According to the rough calculations of my illustrious and expert predecessor Dr Knoblecher, the population is about 90 million; according to my own calculations and the statistical data of Washington, the number comes to about 100 million infidel souls. It follows that the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa is by far the greatest and most populated on the earth.
[4782]
From the historical viewpoint, this immense Vicariate’s history covers three different periods:
In the first period it was under the direction of Fr Ryllo, S.J., who succumbed to the hardships of missionary life in 1848 in Khartoum, of the famous Dr Knoblecher who sacrificed his life in 1858 in Naples, and of Mgr Kirchner, who ceded the Vicariate to the worthy Seraphic Order in 1861.

[4783]
In the second period, from 1861 to 1872, the Vicariate was administered by the Most Reverend Franciscan Fathers, under the exalted direction of Rev. Fr Reinthaller and the Reverend Delegate and Vicar Apostolic of Egypt.
[4784]
Lastly, in the third period, it has been under my direction since the Holy See entrusted it exclusively to the Institute for the Missions in Africa which I founded in Verona, whose protector is the Most Excellent Bishop, Marchese di Canossa.
[4785]
We glean from previous reports, printed by the most prestigious Society of Cologne, that in the first period of the Vicariate of Central Africa, four stations were established:

1. Khartoum in Upper Nubia, the capital of the Sudan, belonging to the Egyptian possessions, and located on the White Nile, between the 15th and 16th degrees of Latitude North.

2. Gondokoro in the region of the Bari tribe, on the White Nile between the 4th and 5th degrees of Latitude North.

3. Holy Cross, among the Kich, located between the 6th and 7th degree of Latitude North on the White Nile.

4. Shellal in Lower Nubia, at the Tropic of Cancer, opposite the island of File.

[4786]
In the first period, more than 40 European missionaries toiled there in the most difficult conditions, and almost all fell prey to their heroic charity, their superhuman efforts and the lethal climate.
[4787]
In the second period, when the distant stations of Gondokoro and Holy Cross and later, the closer one of Shellal were abandoned, all apostolic activity was concentrated on the Khartoum mission which had been provided with a large dwelling and a vast garden planted with date trees by Dr Knoblecher; all this was made possible by the means generously provided by the Presidency of the Marienverein in Vienna.

[4788]
Fifty members of the Franciscans, mostly laymen, toiled there and 22 of them succumbed in their first year; most of the survivors, seriously weakened by illnesses and their great efforts withdrew to Egypt or Europe. Only a few priests and laymen stayed on to serve the mission and they brought great spiritual comfort to the Catholics in Khartoum who belonged to the Apostolic Vicariate of Egypt.
[4789]
In the third period a new mission was founded in Kordofan, in the capital, El Obeid, with a building for the missionaries and another for the Sisters of St Joseph, and half a day’s journey away, the agricultural colony of Malbes. This consisted of a few houses arranged with a little arable land for the mission’s exclusive use, and its purpose was to be a settlement for the African families who had become Christian so that they could gradually form completely Christian villages.
[4790]
In Jebel Nuba, in the south-west part of Kordofan, between the 9th and the 11th degree of Latitude North, a new mission was also founded, and in Khartoum a fine Institute was opened, with an orphanage and a hospital, for the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. A new station was also founded in Berber. It was directed by the Fathers of St Camillus de Lellis for two years, but is now entrusted solely to priests of my Verona Institute.
[4791]
All these Institutes were provided with new forces by two establishments in Egypt which trained and acclimatised them. In this period, priests from my Institute for the African Missions in Verona, a few Ministers of the Sick and the very zealous Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition from Marseilles worked there.
[4792]
In this period, not a single European priest died because of the inclemency of the climate. They are all without exception still alive and in excellent health, despite the many hardships and sacrifices they have to put up with. However, we were obliged to mourn the death of a few sisters, unaccustomed to the exhausting missionary work, and not in the best of health when they took on a work of Christian charity as demanding as this one.
[4793]
It is therefore clear that right from the start the Vicariate Apostolic has embarked on the inevitable path which divine Providence has marked out for it. Yes, every holy work, before it has fully developed, must pass through a school of trials which consists in a series of hard battles and sacrifices.
[4794]
At this point, may I be permitted to give a rapid sketch of the origins of the holy work of the evangelisation of Africa which I founded; as it came into being under the protection of the most venerable Bishop of Verona and as, with the help of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and St Joseph in the most disastrous of times, struggling against the most serious obstacles, it nevertheless succeeded in putting down roots in Verona, Egypt and Central Africa, through which life and support are now brought to the Vicariate.
[4795]
Among the first five missionaries the Holy See sent to Central Africa in 1846 under the guidance of that great soul, Fr Ryllo, was the priest Fr Angelo Vinco, a native of Cerro in the Diocese of Verona and a member of the Mazza Institute, a miracle of Christian charity which was founded by the illustrious Fr Nicola Mazza, to whom I too owe my priestly and apostolic formation, since I was a student and member of that Institute from 1843 to 1867.
[4796]
After Fr Ryllo’s death Vinco returned to Europe to gather alms and new apostles of Jesus Christ, and he stayed two months in the above-mentioned Institute. In the hands of Providence, he was the instrument by which the most distinguished priest Fr Mazza was induced to take new decisions. He sent the most suitable members of his most flourishing Institute to Central Africa, since the account of the unfortunate condition and wretchedness of the African peoples given him by the missionary on his return, moved him deeply.
[4797]
In January 1849, a 17-year old student, I promised at the feet of my most reverend Superior Fr Nicola Mazza to dedicate my life to the apostolate of Central Africa; and with the grace of God it has never happened that I have been unfaithful to my promise. I then began to prepare myself for this holy undertaking. Then in 1857, when the third period of the mission had already begun, under the leadership of the courageous Fr Giovanni Beltrame, I was sent by Fr Nicola Mazza with a few other priests to Khartoum and to the stations on the White Nile where I had to spend a difficult time of testing and was several times smitten by violent equatorial fevers that nearly carried me to the grave. There I had the opportunity to study and to become fluent in the Dinka language and with it, the customs and traditions of many black tribes of the interior.
[4798]
I was recalled by an order from my Superior and after my return to Europe via Dongola and Wadi-Halfa, I had to go on important business to the East Indies, to Arabia and to the east coasts of Africa. In the meantime, the Vicariate had passed into the hands of the Franciscan Fathers.
[4799]
In 1864, on 18th September, I was in Rome and while I was attending the beatification of St Marguerite Mary Alacoque in St Peter’s Basilica, the thought of suggesting a new Plan for converting the poor African peoples to Christianity flashed like lightning through my mind. Its individual points came to me from on high as an inspiration. It later obtained the approval of His Holiness Pius IX, who had it submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. It was translated into various languages and came out in various editions. On the basis of this Plan, my intention was to organise the Mission among the poor black peoples of Central Africa with greater vitality and coherence. I therefore resolved to found two Institutes in a suitable place in Europe, one for each of the sexes, for the purpose of forming personnel, both male and female missionaries, to run these missions in Central Africa.
Likewise, in a healthy spot on the African coast I decided to establish two institutes as stations for the preparation and acclimatisation of missionary personnel, before they penetrated the regions of the African interior.

[4800]
However, finding myself alone, without the help and financial means necessary to implement my Plan, but with the permission of my Superiors, of His Eminence Cardinal Barnabò, Prefect of Propaganda and of Rev. Fr Nicola Mazza, for three years I was obliged to run around Italy, France, Spain, England and Germany and especially Austria, in a continuous attempt to study Foreign Missions and their institutions which are admirably organised in France and Ireland. Everywhere I sought to build up my knowledge, and giving a clear explanation of the importance of the work to be undertaken, to procure support and money for myself. In this I was greatly helped by His Eminence Cardinal Barnabò and by other notable ecclesiastical and secular figures, and especially by the encouragement and prophetic words of our incomparable Pius IX, who made a deep impression on me in September 1864 with his words: Labora sicut bonus miles Christi pro Africa.
[4801]
Although I found myself facing almost insurmountable and difficult obstacles against which I would have to struggle both in Europe and in Africa, I always trusted in the divine Heart which was also suffering for unhappy Africa. My hope in the ultimate success of so great and sublime a task never left me for an instant.
[4802]
When in 1865 I proposed my Plan to make the Mission secure in Africa to the highly esteemed Society of Cologne for Aid to Poor Africans, it was approved, and guided by the greatest human benevolence, the importance of putting it into practice was recognised. This Society was the first to promise continuous aid after the generous declaration, confirmed by the Most Reverend Dr Baudri, Bishop of Aretusa i.p.i. and Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cologne, in which the General Administration of this Society engaged to pay 5,000 francs annually for the foundation of a mission house on the African coast. This was the first spark of enthusiastic generosity which opened up the sources of beneficence everywhere in Europe and especially in the principal associations of Lyons and Paris.
[4803]
It was only in 1867, with God’s help, that I found the real support on which I could build the edifice of my Plan on firm foundations. The distinguished Marchese di Canossa, then Bishop of Verona and now raised to the dignity of Cardinal, a worthy relative of the celebrated Countess Matilde of the memorable times of Gregory VII and a worthy nephew of Countess Maddalena di Canossa, foundress of the Daughters of Charity who educated him in his youthful years, was pleased that the devout Fr Olivieri should present a group of African girls to him. Touched by profound compassion, he not only gave him a sum of money but also persuaded his friend, the venerable Fr Mazza, to receive them at his Institute of Cantarane, so that they might be instructed in the Christian faith and later, under the missionaries’ guidance, to be ready to spread it in their homeland. He warmly supported gathering the African children in institutes situated on the African coast which seemed best to correspond to the aim, because in Europe, Africans died. Had Fr Olivieri, that true angel of mercy, been granted a longer life, he would certainly have later put into practice his resolution to take them to the interior as apostolic messengers.
[4804]
When I came to know of the immense zeal which motivated that venerable prelate to toil for the salvation of the most unfortunate people on earth and realised how dear this thought was to his heart, I resolved to tell him, who had known me since my youth, all about my Plan. I begged him to give my work his powerful protection and to deign to preside over it himself, and I solemnly promised him that I wanted, with God’s grace, to dedicate all my activities to this work until death and, that with the help of the patriarch St Joseph, I would procure the money and all the other necessary means. Moved by a truly apostolic spirit, this magnanimous bishop placed himself at the head of my work and agreed to be its president, although he had considered the unfavourable conditions of the times, the great difficulties he was bound to encounter, and the scant forces I could make available.
[4805]
However he was encouraged and strengthened in this by the words of Pius IX, of the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda and of a large number of the princes of the Church whom he met in Rome at the centenary celebrations for the glorious martyrdom of the Princes of the Apostles. Consequently, under his providential protection, an Institute was opened in Verona in 1867 for the formation of missionaries for Africa, and a second one for female missionary personnel, directed by the Daughters of Charity, known as the Pious Mothers of Africa.
[4806]
To provide help for these institutions I founded the Good Shepherd Association which the Holy Father enriched with many indulgences and whose members include numerous Church and lay figures noted for their piety and charity. All this was concluded only just after I had separated from the Mazza Institute for ever, in order from that time to devote myself fully and undisturbed to my work and, with the approval of the Head of the Church, to undertake the foundation of Institutes, all of which I wanted to place under the Holy See’s protection.
[4807]
As the head of the Institute for African Missionaries which was to become a Seminary for the apostolate in Central Africa, I proposed Fr Alessandro Dalbosco, a man of exceptional aptitude for this office who had been my companion on the mission in Central Africa, where his name is still blessed.
[4808]
It was only possible to think of the other Institute in 1872, due to my absence from Europe and after the evil times. Since it was extremely important also to establish an institute for female students in Africa, I had first to make various journeys to acquire information about the female religious Orders which most closely corresponded to this objective. God deigned that in conformity with the desires of the Holy See, my choice should fall on the well-deserving Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. After the crusades, this Order was the first to send European Sisters to the East, to the promised land, to Malta, to the west coasts of Africa, to Australia, to the Indies, to Italy, and it is very widespread in France.
[4809]
After getting help together for my work in Europe in this way, I could henceforth, on the basis of my Plan, go in search of a foundation for it on the African coasts. After long and mature reflection, I chose the capital of Egypt because, located between Europe and the areas of the burning heat, it has a climate midway between them, in which Europeans destined for the apostolate in Central Africa spend their training period, and because Cairo has completely free communication via the Nile with the Egyptian provinces of the Sudan. The surface area of the Vicariate of Central Africa alone is five times the size of France.
[4810]
With the consent of Propaganda and of Mgr Luigi Ciurci of the Friars Minor of St Francis of Assisi, Archbishop of Irenopolis and Vicar and Delegate Apostolic of Egypt, in November 1867, I sailed from Marseilles on an imperial French vessel with three Missionaries, three Sisters of the above-mentioned Order, and 16 African girls, educated in the European Institutes (9 of whom had been pupils at the Mazza Institute), fortified with the blessings of the Holy Father and of the Bishop of Verona. Through the extraordinary kindness of the French managers, I obtained free passages for 24 persons from Rome to Marseilles, and from there to Alexandria. After my arrival in Cairo on the eve of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, under the protection of the Most Reverend Delegate Apostolic and Archbishop of Egypt, two Institutes were opened in Old Cairo, close to the Sacred Grotto where tradition claims that the Holy Family spent most of their seven years of exile. I assumed the direction of the Institute of the African boys, and that of the African girls was taken on by Sr Maria Bertholon.
[4811]
During the gruelling foundation of these two Institutes, my missionary colleagues and I received the most effective help, in advice and in deeds, from Mgr Luigi Ciurcia, who was a true father and protector to me, and from Fr Pietro of Taggia, President and parish priest in Old Cairo. The latter was lovingly beside me with his great experience and extraordinary zeal and toiled for me with true dedication. This incomparable son of St Francis, a lover of sacrifice, had already worked for 35 years caring for souls in the missions of Egypt and Syria, in which he often found himself in the most desperate situations and bothered by opposition of all kinds. How beneficial we found his encouragement, and how reassuring his comforting words!
[4812]
I will also always remember with gratitude to the very end of my life, Mgr Ciurcia’s wise advice and protection, as well as the practical love of the Most Reverend Fr da Taggia and our beloved Director, who met my needs with such marked goodness and keen interest; and the worthy Brothers of the Christian Schools in Cairo, Fr Pietro and his successor, Fr Fabiano, and many other Franciscans in Cairo and Alexandria whom I could mention here! May God reward them in eternity for all they did for me!
[4813]
With regard to the organisation and to the Rule as it is in force in the Institutes of Verona and Cairo, I have already informed you in the Annals of Cologne, and in future I shall also be sending you reports on their recent development.
[4814]
On my expedition to Egypt in 1867, my companions were the Ministers of the Sick of the Order of St Camillus de Lellis, Stanislao Carcereri and Giuseppe Franceschini who, after the suppression of their Order in Italy, were granted permission by the Bishop of Verona, as Apostolic Visitor of the Camillian houses in the Lombardy-Venice Province, to join the African work for 5 years, with a rescript from the Congregation of Bishops dated 5th July 1867. I must recognise and praise their activity and zeal in the Institutes of Egypt, especially during my two journeys to Europe which I was obliged to make for the interests of our great enterprise. I decided to entrust Fr Carcereri with the direction of the Cairo Institutes until October 1871, when he was succeeded by the Most Reverend Canon Pasquale Fiore, who is now my General Representative in the Vicariate.
[4815]
In 1870 I had the great satisfaction of being able to present to the Vatican Ecumenical Council my Postulatum for the Peoples of Central Africa. It was printed in the Annals of the Society of Cologne, and a large number of Bishops from the 5 parts of the world signed it. After receiving the approval of the Sacred Congregation whose task it is to examine the topics proposed by the Most Eminent Council Fathers, the most distinguished Mgr Franchi, Archbishop of Thessalonica in partibus infidelium, then Secretary of this Congregation and now Prefect of Propaganda, it was presented to the Holy Father Pius IX. It was 18th July, the day of the Definition of the Dogma of Infallibility of the Supreme Pastor, and I had the joy and honour to be present at this solemn session. It then passed into the hands of the Congregation for Apostolic Mission and Oriental Rites (usage).
[4816]
After the good progress of the Institutes for preparation and acclimatisation in Egypt and in Verona which justified our best hopes, I could proceed to move their most suitable members to the African interior. I first pondered over every aspect of this and had also had it very thoroughly studied by others. The experiences of the Vicariate’s first period had indeed shown that the habits of Africans from the White Nile had been completely ruined because of their continuous contact with Muslim or Oriental traders or even with European Christian traders, but especially with the Jallabas, dealers in human flesh. Between them these last had every vice; they also knew that the Egyptian Government certainly acts without law and morals because it sends military expeditions to monopolise all trade, especially in elephant tusks, and maintains the slave trade so steadily that the population located on the two banks of the Nile as far as the Equator is decimated in the most horrendous fashion.
[4817]
From this it clearly appeared that it was the most propitious time to penetrate the interior and found a station amongst the tribes living between the White Nile and the Niger and also because this region, being at a higher altitude, offered greater advantages for health than the swampy depressions of the White Nile between Khartoum and the land of the Bari. I also had another very important reason for choosing precisely these territories located to the west of the White Nile for our apostolic activity. This was that it had never been penetrated by Christianity nor had the Gospel ever been preached there before; in addition, given that the Vicariate was entirely in the hands of the well-deserving Franciscan Order who had its base and reference point in Khartoum and could extend the field of its work to the regions of the White and Blue Niles, it would certainly have allowed our Mission to move towards the interior, to the west of the White Nile and to send priests there from my Institute of Verona and the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition.
[4818]
To this end I gathered precise information on the kingdom of Kordofan. I was thoroughly familiar with its previous history, both from before the Egyptian occupation under the rule of the native sultans from Darfur and after it had been taken in 1822 by the cruel Defterdar on behalf of the great Mohammed-Ali, Viceroy of Egypt. No Catholic missionary had ever been to Kordofan, and I knew that in its capital there was a constant influx from the hundred tribes of the interior: from the great kingdoms of Darfur, Waday, Bahermi and Bornù, all situated on the fringes of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa. I therefore resolved to found a sub-station in the capital of Kordofan, which to my mind should be the base and starting point for apostolic activity among the tribes of the middle region of the Vicariate, so that Khartoum would remain the natural base and reference point for work in its eastern and southern regions.
[4819]
Confirmed in this by the shrewd opinion of Fr Carcereri and the missionaries of my Egyptian Institute who meanwhile had been inured to the African heat in Cairo, I sent Fr Carcereri, who had volunteered, to explore Kordofan with another missionary from my Verona Institute. They were joined by two lay brothers: Domenico Polinari from Montorio and Pietro Bertoli from Venice and from the same Institute. But since Fr Carcereri, choosing as his companion instead of a Verona missionary, Fr Franceschini, a member of his own religious family, was pestering me for my permission, I gladly gave him my consent. I provided the small caravan with the necessary money for the journey and food for two years, and in a letter from Dresden I added detailed instructions and objectives for Fr Carcereri, to take the way across the Korosko Desert to Khartoum, to equip himself with camels in Kordofan and, having explored the principal points, to settle in the capital, El Obeid.
[4820]
His main task was to become acquainted with the country’s conditions, the population and their characteristic features, the government of the land and the influence of the climate; I then wanted a detailed report and for him to await my further decisions and the approval of Propaganda. The three travellers left Cairo on 26th October 1871 and already in February the following year Fr Carcereri had successfully concluded the planned expedition and I received his report in Europe, a report that was printed in your Annals, whose content is therefore known to the members of the Society.
[4821]
Since Fr Carcereri told me that a comfortable house, although built only in mud and sand, could be purchased for a modest price, I hastened to send the necessary sum to Cairo for its purchase. I asked him not to move until further decisions had been taken, to busy himself learning the language, and if possible, to gain a few souls in articulo mortis, especially children, for heaven. In the meantime I was totally occupied with my Work in Verona, and busy in Austria, Germany, Poland and Russia collecting the necessary sums for the maintenance of the Institutes in Verona and Egypt.
[4822]
Then with the indispensable instructions and recommendations provided by the Bishop of Verona, I went to the Eternal City to obtain approval for the work from the supreme authority of the Church, after submitting to it all my plans and wishes.
[4823]
Here I cannot pass over in silence the donation of 20,000 francs in gold, granted to me by the illustrious munificence of their Apostolic Majesties Emperor Ferdinand I and Empress Maria Anna of Austria. I was therefore able to buy a building for an African Missionary Institute next to the diocesan seminary.
[4824]
In Rome, where I arrived on 7th February, I had the honour to be given a particularly kind and favourable welcome by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda and by the immortal Pius IX. I gave a report to Cardinal Barnabò with all the details of my activities; I added the credentials of the Bishop of Verona with the decree of canonical establishment of the Missionary Institute for Africa, and a list of all the practices and rules for it and for the houses in Egypt, as well as the documents regarding the means of support for the maintenance of the Verona Institute. Finally, I also presented a petition which had been attached by the Bishop of Verona, including all the formalities and those sent by the Societies of Cologne and Vienna, in which with full submission a petition was presented to the Holy See to grant a special mission in the regions of Central Africa to the Institute of Verona for Africa, which would be independent of any other jurisdiction.
[4825]
The prudent and expert Cardinal Prefect maturely considered the matter and gathered information on the organisation of my Institutes and the financial means I had available, absolutely necessary to guarantee an Institute’s future, and on the possibility of really obtaining good results in this difficult undertaking. He then instructed me to present to the gathering of the Cardinals of the Congregation of Propaganda a general report on the state of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa which was received in February 1872, in order to explain in person the means which, in all modesty, I considered the most suitable to improve it. My ideas were discussed in a general Congregation of Propaganda by the eminent Prelates who are responsible for the ecclesiastical affairs of such a large part of the world. After distributing to the Eminent Cardinals my “Memorandum”, printed by the Polyglot Press, on 21st May they held a session at the Vatican and the following decisions were made:
[4826]
1. To grant the whole of the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa to the new Institute for Missions in Africa founded in Verona, after the worthy Seraphic Order had given up its activity there.
2. The general administration of the Missions in Central Africa was put into my hands, I was given the title of Pro-Vicar Apostolic and provided with extraordinary faculties for the apostolic ministry in the Lord’s new vineyard.

[4827]
These decisions, submitted to the Supreme Pastor by the Most Excellent Mgr Simeoni, then Secretary of Propaganda, were approved by Pius IX on 26th May. This illustrious Prelate has now been made Cardinal Secretary of State. The following June the respective Papal Brief appointing me Pro-Vicar Apostolic was issued by Propaganda.
[4828]
Having tied up my affairs in Rome and been received at a private audience by His Holiness Pius IX, accompanied by Fr Pio Hadrian from the region of the White Nile in Upper Nubia, a priest of the Benedictine Order of the strict observance of Subiaco, I went to Vienna to pay homage to His Apostolic Majesty Emperor Franz Jozef, the august protector of our missions in Central Africa, and there I enjoyed a cordial welcome and kindness and several favours.
[4829]
With the help of the very active Rev. Fr Antonio Squaranti, Rector of the African Institute of Verona and my General Procurator, I concluded all the outstanding arrangements, and with a large group of Gospel workers undertook the voyage to Egypt, in whose capital, Cairo, we arrived on 26th September 1872. I quickly sent several missionaries to the Vicariate, appointed Fr Stanislao Carcereri as my Vicar General for an unspecified time and made him responsible for taking possession on my behalf of the house in Khartoum which the Franciscan Fathers were about to leave, since they had already received their letter of recall from their Superior. I also ordered him to rent a suitable house for the African sisters, whom I wanted to take with me from Cairo to the Sudan, and who were to be the teachers of the female pupils.
[4830]
In fact in January 1873, leading more than 30 people, I embarked on two great Nile boats and travelled with them towards the Sudan. This small caravan consisted of Missionaries, Sisters, Lay Brothers, African women teachers, coadjutors and African pupils. I settled the Sisters temporarily in a rented house, until our means should enable us to purchase a real mission house for them.
[4831]
It was the first time that women religious had penetrated African territory. From the time when the Virgin Mary, there in the temple of Jerusalem, the first of all the daughters of Eve, raised the glorious standard of holy virginity over the earth, and the brightness of this sublime virtue spread in the Church, we saw coming together numbers of devout virgins who, submitting in every age to the most perfect obedience, were sent to all lands to dispense everywhere the benefits of Christian charity. Today we see these heroines, above all the admirable sisters of St Vincent de Paul, employed in almost all the Catholic missions in the world: we find them in England, America, Germany, St Petersburg, Constantinople; we find them in Syria, Armenia, Persia, in Mongolia, India, China, Australia, and on all the coasts of Africa.
[4832]
Even the peoples who are fanatical followers of the Koran, for whom women are in an inferior state and become the subject of scurrilous passions, cannot but hold them in esteem and treat them with deep veneration; yes, they are worthy of admiration for these lofty virtues of Christian generosity, so that Muslim Sultans frequently express these sentiments. Only Central Africa had never seen Catholic women religious and the marvellous success of their work on her soil.
[4833]
God disposed that this sublime mission should be kept for the praiseworthy Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition from Marseilles, and the first fearless sisters who devoted themselves to this sublime work came from the Orient. They possessed no great talents, they were not endowed with any great knowledge nor was their health the most robust. But they shone with great purity of habits and ardent love; all they wanted was to bring salvation to this people, the most wretched on earth, so that in them the sublime assertion of the Apostle of the Gentiles, St Paul, that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” might become a luminous truth.
[4834]
Two of these three sisters had a most splendid earthly career, and the memory of their rare virtue will certainly fire with enthusiasm those who will follow them in this arduous apostolate and will spur them to imitate these models. They are Sr Giuseppina Tabraui and Sr Maddalena Caracassian.
[4835]
After a long and difficult journey of 99 days, we entered the capital of the Egyptian possessions of the Sudan. There I was solemnly welcomed by the most distinguished Austro-Hungarian Consul, the Pasha of Khartoum, the entire Catholic population and even non-Catholics and Muslims. I settled the missionaries in the large rooms of the magnificent building founded by my predecessor, Dr Knoblecher with the abundant donations of Austrian Catholics. For the missionary sisters and the African teachers, I rented for one year a house which had belonged to the deceased Maltese, Mr Andrea de Bono.
[4836]
It took me a whole month to organise these establishments in Khartoum and to set up the mission’s new administration; I left Fr Carcereri there as superior and appointed as his assistant Canon Pasquale Fiore, from the Archdiocese of Trani and a member of my Verona Institute. Then I left Khartoum on a government steamer which had been put at my complete disposal for personal use by the kindness of H.E. Ismail Ayoub Pasha, Governor General. After navigating against the current on the majestic White Nile for 127 miles, we landed at Tura-el-Kadra and crossed the dense woods of Assanieh and the parched steppes of Kordofan with 28 camels. On 19th June we arrived in El Obeid to the great joy of all and sundry, and especially of the Governor General of Kordofan, who on the previous day, probably through fear, had temporarily suspended the slave market which until then had regularly taken place in the public squares of this densely populated city.
[4837]
Since I did not have enough Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition to set up a stable institute for students in Kordofan and since in all the missions of Central Africa the teaching and education of the female part of the population must be directed by women, I had my most able cousin Faustina Stampais, a native of Maderno sul Garda in the Diocese of Brescia come to El Obeid. She had been working in Khartoum until then. She had previously devoted herself with extraordinary zeal to the institute for African girls in Cairo. I placed her with two African teachers in a suitable house so that she could direct the instruction of African girls who would be purchased or seek refuge there as slaves.
[4838]
Later, I bought and restored a large house, separated from the Institute for African boys by a public road. My cousin ran it until February 1874 when it was handed over to the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. Thus in a short time and with the help of enthusiastic Missionaries and Sisters, I succeeded in organising two institutes in Kordofan which will do a great deal of good for the most important apostolate of Africans in Central Africa.
[4839]
For the moment I do not want to go into the details of the apostolate of the Missionaries and Sisters, either in Kordofan or in Khartoum. On the whole, the results were comforting. I also pass over in silence my specific activities, the state of the country as I found it, and the horrible abomination of slavery. All this will be the subject of a special report I shall keep for the future. Moreover, I have already provided a few details at a time in the Annals of the associations in France, Germany, Austria and Italy. As I first resolved, I shall continue to sketch a general picture of the work as a whole.
[4840]
In Verona in 1849 I had already met an excellent young African called Bakhit Caenda, who belonged to the family of the Conti Miniscalchi. He was born in Caco, in the tribe of Jebel Nuba, was well known throughout Italy and especially appreciated at Propaganda. Bonds of friendship and an identical interest for his homeland brought me close to this fervently Catholic African. Like myself, deeply Catholic Verona admired with amazement this Nuban whose faith was steadfast, whose piety outstanding, and who combined a very strong character with these excellent qualities. Through him I formed a high conception of the Nuba and said to the excellent Bakhit at least a hundred times: “I will have no peace until I have established the Cross of Christ in your homeland”. In the first years of my ministry this was impossible, because the apostolic activity of the missionaries in Central Africa at that time was limited to the White Nile. But when I arrived in Kordofan as administrator of this apostolic territory and had the opportunity to hear talk every day of the land of Nuba and the fidelity and courage of the Nuban slaves who were continuously arriving in El Obeid, my heart was fired anew with an ardent desire to bring them the light of the faith.
[4841]
I did all I could to get acquainted with this neighbouring people. I was given information by a chief of police of the Diwan, a heretical Copt, one of whose wives was a relative of the great Nuba chief with whom she maintained a close friendship. Providence soon offered me a propitious opportunity to meet this man. In fact a Nuba chief of Delen had come to El Obeid. His name was Said Aga, and the police official, Massimo, brought him to me at the mission on the morning of 16th July 1873. It was just as we were leaving the church after the hour of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament which I had introduced in all the chapels in Egypt and in the Vicariate and which we do every Wednesday to implore the adorable Heart of Jesus for the conversion of Africa. I treated the Nuba chief with full deference, I took him round the various workshops where the crafts are done, the little school of the African boys and girls, I briefly played the harmonium for him and took him to the main altar, where I showed him the statue of Our Lady and other things.
[4842]
When I saw Said-Aga’s keen pleasure at being shown all these things, I told him of my desire to meet the head Nuba chief and did not conceal my intention of founding a mission among the Nuba. As soon as he had returned to his land, the good Said-Aga, amazed at all he had seen on the mission could not keep quiet about it and did not neglect to mention it to the Cogiur, his superior. Cogiur Cakum consequently decided to pay me a visit in Kordofan.
[4843]
Indeed, two months after Said Aga’s departure, on Wednesday morning 24th September, as we were emerging after the hour of adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I was most pleasantly surprised to see the head chief entering the mission of El Obeid with a retinue of more than 20 persons, including minor chiefs and servants. All day long I conversed with him and with his retinue; I spoke to him at length of my plan and showed him everything. The workshops and the sound of the harmonium filled him with unspeakable amazement. He wanted to have all the tools and utensils in sight: shovels, hoes, planes, saws, files, nails, etc. Then when he saw me press the bellows of the harmonium with my feet while my fingers moved simultaneously over the keys from which I drew harmonious chords and melodies, he and his entourage were completely stupefied and exclaimed with amazement “Agiaeb”! (that is, “marvellous”!) “You know everything, you do marvellous things”.
[4844]
He approached the harmonium, and having tried in vain to produce sounds from it, he exclaimed, “You are the son of God, from a piece of wood you can make magnificent sounds, even more beautiful than the singing of birds and men; my Nuba will not believe me when I tell them about all these marvels”.
[4845]
Then I took them around the establishment for African girls and introduced to them an African girl who had been educated at the Verona Institute, called Domitilla Bakhita, and others, some Nuba, who could do such fine work and write so well that they filled them with even greater amazement, and the chief exclaimed, “You are the greatest mortal on earth, there is no one like you!”
[4846]
I told him that there were thousands of people in Europe who knew far more than I; that there were many who cared deeply for Africans and who give us money to go to the Africans and teach them all that white men know, Christians who venerate a glorious and very wise Chief whom they call Pope, the supreme Pastor of all the Christians. “Yes, this supreme Chief of all the Christians of the world who is the Vicar (Ukail) of God on earth, loves you very much and has sent me to your country to do good to you, so that you may know the truth and be eternally saved”. At this point they all responded: “Agaieb!” (marvellous!) And the chief said: “We are ignorant, we do not know anything, come and teach us what we should do, what is right in your opinion; we and our women, our sons and our daughters, our slaves, our cows, our sheep, and even the earth and the leaves of the trees will be at your service”.
[4847]
During the next four days he repeated his visit to the mission and it was agreed that with a few companions I should promptly visit the Nuba at the end of the rainy season, and probably, after a careful exploration of the country, build a mission in a suitable place among them. With this hope and beaming with joy at my plan, they set out on their return journey.
[4848]
Still in July, when the Nuba chief Said Aga had visited me, I had informed my missionaries in Khartoum of the event and of my intention to prepare an expedition to the Nuba. Fr Carcereri was electrified with excitement at this news and repeatedly and insistently asked me if he could go with me. He even offered to undertake the journey of exploration without me, in which case he would willingly postpone his journey to Europe to draw up an agreement with his Superior General. I pondered over it and invited him to come to El Obeid. It was my intention to have precisely him make the exploratory trip, or if I should do it, to leave him in El Obeid as my vicar.
[4849]
On 1st October he arrived in El Obeid and I finally decided to have him undertake the journey of exploration with a companion, Fr Franceschini, as he wanted. However I also gave him a second companion, in the person of Mr Augusto Wisniewski, a very courageous man with a lot of experience, from the Prussian Diocese of Ermeland who had worked on the mission for 20 years. With tireless zeal and great prudence and constancy he had served the former stations of the Vicariate well, and was an expert traveller in the African interior. Thus the three of them prepared for an expedition among the Nuba. For greater safety, I asked the Pasha of Kordofan to provide a military escort for our travellers. It was led by the above-mentioned police official, Massimo. Equipped with all the necessary, they set out from El Obeid on the evening of 16th October 1873.
[4850]
In my opinion the journey should have taken several months, but in a very short space of time they had already returned. Since they had explored only the nearest Nuba territory, Delen, they were back after two days. They had of course conferred with the head chief, Cogiur Cakum, who had shown them from a plateau the many villages scattered at the foot of the hills in the interior, which Fr Carcereri had marked on a map published in Verona. On the 28ht of that same month, he was back in El Obeid. He was able to confirm to me all that Said Aga and the chief had told me during their visits.
[4851]
After organising the mission in Kordofan as well as possible, I went to my principal residence in Khartoum with Fr Carcereri and the lay brothers, Wisniewski and Domenico Polinari. On this exhausting journey I had the misfortune to break my left arm, after having just got a difficult eight-day journey across the desert behind us. On the day dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria, my camel took fright at the proximity of a hyena. Of course the animal, very scared and skittish, as though being pursued by the other, galloped off at full speed, careering madly through the desert, throwing me violently, so that blood came from my mouth; I lost consciousness and lay as if dead.
[4852]
When I came to 24 hours later, in a tent pitched by good Wisniewski and Domenico who had also bound my arm with wet handkerchiefs tied with a string, I had to remount the camel and privately I thanked Providence that, mercifully, in this misfortune, he had enabled me to find at least some water, as the only remedy. The four days I had to spend on the camel were very difficult. The animal had a cumbersome, irregular gait and would be constantly turning in all directions to keep off the flies, so the pain I suffered became very acute and only with extreme difficulty did I reach Ondurman, located directly opposite the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue. I travelled to the mission on a steamer, made available to me by the kindness of the Governor General. Two doctors and Arab surgeons treated my arm and I had to wear it in a sling for three months. For all this time I slept very little, given that I could not lie down. During this period it was impossible for me to celebrate Holy Mass.
[4853]
On 11th December, immediately after Fr Carcereri’s departure for Europe, four new Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition joined me, accompanied by the priest Fr Giovanni Losi from my Verona Institute and by various white and black lay brothers. I now found myself obliged to construct a larger building, because the house we had formerly rented, part of the legacy of Mr Andrea de Bono, known as Latif Effendi, had been claimed by his heirs to house the Prussian Vice Consul, Mr Rosset, and anyway it had become too small. I gave the grand new building a length of 112 metres and I had it built on solid foundations in brick and stone with donations I received partly from the European societies which are our benefactors, and partly from the magnificence of His Apostolic Majesty Emperor Franz I and Her Imperial Highness, Empress Anna of Austria and from His Imperial Highness, the late Archduke of East Austria, Franz V, Duke of Modena. I destined this house for all the female staff of the missionary works in Khartoum.
[4854]
While I was working on the mission with my colleagues, Fr Carcereri signed in my name a 5-year convention with the Most Reverend Fr Camillo Guardi, Vicar General of the Ministers of the Sick. In this agreement it was stipulated that with regard to jurisdiction and the care of souls, the Camillian religious would be subject to the Pro-Vicar of Central Africa, as diocesan parish priests to their Bishop; in addition, that a house would be founded in Berber with a Superior who would take on parish duties for the Catholics who live here and there in the Province of Suakim, on the Red Sea and in Taka, not far from the northern boundary with Abyssinia, as well as for the Catholic inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Dongola, to the west of the Nile in Upper Nubia. Both parties signed this agreement, and the contractors engaged to carry out their individual rights and duties for a period of five years, after which a new contract was to be made on the basis of the experiences of the apostolate for the Africans.
[4855]
Meanwhile in Rome on 14th August 1874, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda considered in depth the affairs of the Vicariate of Central Africa at its general meeting in the Vatican, so as to give its government a system that would promise it security and duration, to enable further development. In one of its documents Cardinal Franchi, Prefect of Propaganda, and the Most Eminent Cardinals, authorised me to found a new mission in Jebel Nuba with my available means, so that those unfortunates might be converted to Christianity. They deigned to give me instructions filled with practical wisdom and magnificent directives for the good of this Vicariate which is so demanding and laborious; above all, they gave me norms of conduct for dealing with the horrible scourge of slavery and the terrible situation of the Africans that ensued.
[4856]
Lastly, the principles to be followed in the formation of Africans to the priesthood were established, as well as the way to combat the evil tendencies prevalent among these peoples and the wicked and vicious customs that had taken root among the Catholics of the Vicariate. The illustrious prince of the Church ended these directives with a few words honouring me, that I mention here with a certain embarrassment and only repeat so that the benefactors of our great work are up to date with the efforts of myself and my companions to make unhappy Africa Christian, and all that with God’s grace we have already succeeded in doing; so that charity and enthusiasm for our work may increase in all those who have always helped us with their beneficence and that they send us ever more abundant means for these most important missions. May they make known throughout Catholic Germany what the worthy Society of Cologne proposes for the redemption and education of poor Africans. The letter ends:
[4857]
“Moreover I have the pleasure of making known to you that my Eminent Colleagues have paid you a tribute of praise for the hard work with which you have begun the arduous undertaking of the evangelisation of these people, and they encourage you to continue and not to be dismayed at the obstacles you will encounter, but to rely on divine help in which you will certainly not be lacking.
Alessandro, Cardinal Franchi, Prefect”

[4858]
In Khartoum, when I received official notification from the Congregation of Propaganda granting me the faculties to found a mission in Jebel Nuba, I sent a small caravan to Kordofan provided with all that was required to start the work immediately. I gave orders to the Superior of El Obeid, Fr Salvatore of Barletta, to join the new expedition among the Nuba. At the same time I fulfilled the obligations I had assumed as stipulated in the agreement with the Father General of the Ministers of the Sick. I went to Berber and purchased some of the finest and most comfortable houses in the city, for which I paid cash; I placed Fr Franceschini there with a lay brother from my Institute and made them responsible for starting the necessary modifications so as to properly accommodate a religious Order.
[4859]
I had hardly returned to Khartoum when a caravan of 16 persons arrived from my Institute. They were missionaries, religious of St Camillus de Lellis and Sisters. Under Fr Carcereri’s guidance they had taken the route via Wadi Halfa and Dongola and had travelled from Cairo to Khartoum in 103 days.
[4860]
I immediately sent some priests and lay brothers into Kordofan and ordered the departure for Jebel Nuba, appointing the excellent, tireless and diligent Fr Luigi Bonomi from my Verona Institute as head of the mission.
[4861]
In April 1875, the Mother Superior Emilie Naubonnet arrived via the Red Sea and across the desert of Suakim, accompanied by a devout young sister. This good superior, a native of Pau in France, took on the direction of the main Institute of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition in Khartoum. All the Sisters and the houses which have been or will be founded in Central Africa by this religious society are under her jurisdiction. God’s merciful grace has sent us this extraordinary woman as a distinctly marked favour, because the activity of a female community is indispensable in such a vast and arduous Vicariate, and is one of the principal means for success, both with regard to teaching and for every charitable work. It is also forms as it were a safeguard for the sisters destined to the missions in the lands of the interior.
[4862]
In addition the missionaries need the help of female hands in a country where primitive customs prevail. Mother Naubonnet is a veteran of the missions in the Orient, she was one of the first sisters who settled there after the Crusades. She was superior in Cyprus for nine years and more than 20 in Syria, where she founded houses in Saida, Deil-el-Uamar and in Beirut. In Syria, in the horrendous massacre of 1860, she worked miracles of charity and helped thousands of unfortunates. She zealously took in poor orphans whose families had died under the knife of the cruel Druses and settled them in the building she founded on the ancient ruins of Sidon. I was deeply happy that such a woman should come to pour out the copious treasure of her experiences for the good of the unfortunate peoples of Central Africa. This excellent woman, after leaving behind her 30 years of uninterrupted labours in the Orient, humbly and obediently submitted to the call that reached her, sailed over the Red Sea, ascended the Nile, left behind her the desert lands and appeared in Central Africa where she finds a new field for her spirit of sacrifice, her constancy in the gruelling work, and her perspicacity.
[4863]
When the religious of St Camillus had been installed in Berber under the direction of Fr Carcereri, and the mission in Khartoum entrusted to Canon Pasquale Fiore, I sailed on a government steamer with a large caravan of missionaries and two sisters to visit Kordofan and Jebel Nuba. We arrived at El Obeid with thirty camels on the feast of the Assumption of Mary. There I administered the sacrament of Baptism to 16 adults who had been prepared by the missionaries and sisters, and the holy sacrament of Confirmation to various Catholics: comforting ceremonies which I and my missionaries celebrated several times in the principal stations of the Vicariate; this has already been recounted in the French, German and Italian Annals. On 15th September, I set out on the journey to Jebel Nuba with a few missionaries and sisters, taking 12 camels with us.
[4864]
We had already been travelling for 5 days and found ourselves in a wood in Singiokae, when we ran into a Baqqarah Arab rascal of the Omur race on a horse; I presented him with a turban, that is, a long, wide piece of silk which he wound round his head to protect himself from the burning rays of the sun. I charged him to announce our imminent arrival among the Nuba to the main chief and the missionaries. The Arab, expecting a further tip, spurred his horse on and flew to Delen. To our surprise and pleasure, the chief rode out to meet us half a day’s journey from Delen, followed by spear-bearers and more than fifty Nuba, some of whom were armed with guns, and all rejoicing at our arrival. As soon as the chief saw me, he dismounted from his horse, approached my camel, kissed my hand and bowed to me deeply several times, as he said in the Arabic dialect of Kordofan: “God has sent you to us, everything at your disposal, our families, our children, our cows, sheep, goats, huts and fields. You are our father, we are your children; we will do all you command and we will be happy”.
[4865]
I benignly accepted all this kindness and answered that I had come precisely to be their father, and that, if they proved true children and followed the teaching of the missionaries and sisters obeying our orders willingly, they would be happy, first on this earth and one day in heaven. I then made the religious and secular chief understand that he should precede his subjects by giving a good example, meekly accepting all we would teach them in God’s name; then, assisted by Cogiur Cakum, I dismounted from my camel.
[4866]
The night was enchanting, the moon shone like silver and a myriad stars sparkled in the sky. We spread out our mattresses on a suitable flat part, and on a blanket spread out on the ground, laid out our dinner. We ate cheerfully and drank the water the Nuba brought us. These good individuals kept watch over us all night, and lit huge bonfires to scare away any wild beasts and to warm themselves a bit. Indeed the great chief felt he was the richest king on earth because he possessed an ordinary military blanket in which he rolled himself up during the night; indeed, when I asked him at dawn whether he had slept well, he answered me with an air of great satisfaction: “How can one not sleep well under the protection of God and of such a fine blanket?” (in Europe it would have cost five francs). “I take your gift with me on my horse and will always cover myself with it at night in my house”.
[4867]
Then I mounted the chief’s horse, but a servant had to lead me on it because since the day when the camel had thrown me and I had broken my left arm, I had taken a distaste to riding. At midday we arrived in front of the enclosure among the joyful applause and rejoicing of the people and the under-Cogiurs (priests) and I was received by the Superior and the other mission companions with the greatest joy. I was given an exquisitely kind welcome by the Nuba and their chief. I also received visits from various “Gnuma”, a primitive people who are ever so brave and go about completely naked: they are big, thickset and very fierce. They ruthlessly kill all the Muslim jallaba who want to make them slaves in their thieving raids. The inhabitants of the bordering plateaux also flocked to me, so that I have well-founded hopes that I shall be able to do great good in these regions, far more than is possible with the people contaminated by the errors of Islam. However, since here too one must deal with many superstitions, the first of which are the very strange ceremonies and customs of a spirit called “Okuru” which exercises a total influence over them, we need to study the Nuba dialects thoroughly before beginning our apostolic work of preaching the Gospel, for here Arabic is not enough.
[4868]
So wasting no time I set to, studying this language with the help of the excellent Fr Luigi Bonomi who in his six months’ stay with the Nuba together with Fr Gennaro Martini, had already learned many words from them. The great chief, with whom I made myself understood in Kordofan Arabic that he knew well, and who even showed an extraordinary intelligence, worked hard to teach me many aspects of his language.
[4869]
Readers who have heard talk of gun shots celebrating my arrival will certainly think that the Nuba have already made some headway in civilisation, to the point that they use firearms as we have them in Europe. But this is not the case. The jallaba, those merchants of human flesh, armed with spears and poisoned arrows frequently set out from Kordofan to raid the mountainous parts of Jebel Nuba, in the plains of Gianghè, Shilluk, Fertit and of other tribes, and attack the poor Africans to make them slaves. Their feet fettered, a cord tied around their necks and under a yoke attached to a heavy beam, they are led naked to the slave markets of El Obeid, Dongola and Khartoum. From here, they will later be taken and sold in Egypt and the lands of the Red Sea or Syria.
[4870]
But when progress of civilisation brought to Egypt the use of front-loading firearms and both the Remington rifle and the Chassepot, with good ammunition, were introduced into the Sudan by Syrian, Turkish and European traders, the jallaba abandoned bows, arrows and spears and hunted the blacks with gunpowder and lead. The Nuba, a brave and warlike people, hidden in the mountains, were often able to defend themselves quite well from their assailants and frequently even managed to gain possession of these weapons and ammunition. From that time, they earned the respect of their assailants and now they are even better able to keep them away from their territory. This is why, as soon as they saw me, they wanted me to give them bullets and gunpowder, because they had finished theirs and only had the pebbles they found in great quantity in the granite mountains, with which they were making do.
[4871]
At this point I must draw attention to the extremely difficult task to be undertaken by missionaries to Central Africa which is inhabited by so many different peoples with different languages. There are over a hundred of Semitic origin, mostly made up of monosyllabic words. Since these primitive peoples hardly possess any culture or literature, they only express the most essential ideas and are restricted to the very few words they need for their limited reasoning. It is therefore extremely difficult to convey the sublime nature of our holy religion to them. Apart from Arabic, divided into many African dialects and spoken by the Muslim populations of the Egyptian possessions in the Vicariate, there are the above-mentioned 100 or more different languages that have remained unknown to Europeans, since there are no dictionaries, no grammars and no books for studying them. Even the simplest words like “read”, “write”, “learn” or “spell” are lacking.
[4872]
While missionaries going to India, Persia, China, Mongolia, America or Australia can learn the languages of these peoples, even in Europe, in their formation houses with the help of dictionaries, grammars and books, the poor missionaries bound for Central Africa must with the greatest difficulty learn everything from the mouths of the natives who, at best, if they were slaves of Muslim masters, understand a little Arabic. The missionary in Africa is not only exposed to every kind of deprivation, but in addition, as we have seen, must struggle with the incredible difficulties of language learning and research, and is forced to compile dictionaries and grammars, listing the verbs with all their conjugations and the declensions of the nouns. He has to do all this without the help of able teachers and books to provide guidelines in these matters, but with ordinary savages who know and understand nothing, have not the faintest idea what grammar is, and are familiar with only a few words of Arabic.
Anyone who has applied themselves to learning languages can easily understand the enormous difficulties they are up against.

[4873]
I myself went through this experience in 1858 and 1859, when I was in the Kich tribe at Holy Cross station, between the 6th and 7th degrees of Latitude North, with my companions Giuseppe Lanz from the Tyrol, Giovanni Beltrame and Angelo Melotto; we were the first to compose, with persevering patience, the first Dinka dictionary, the first grammar and the first detailed Catholic catechism.
Fr Bartolomeo Mozgan, from Laybach, founder of this station, had written only a certain number of words before we arrived, which he had left to his successor Lanz. We used this manuscript for our research and two students who knew a little Arabic were also helpful. The results of our work were sent to the learned Canon Mitterrutzner, Rector of the Episcopal School in Bressanone and Secretary to Bishop Fessler during the Vatican Ecumenical Council. This excellent man is the person most familiar with the apostolate of Central Africa. He is one of the most distinguished and active members of the Committee of the Society of Mary.

[4874]
Two young Africans from the Dinka and Bari tribes helped him compile a dictionary, a grammar and the Gospels for Sundays and feast-days in Bari and Dinka with parallel texts in German. It was published with notes in Latin and Italian at Bressanone (1864) and was acclaimed for its great accuracy and depth of research. This man, who has an extraordinary gift for languages and a vast knowledge of philology, was invaluable to the Missionaries in the territories of these primitive tribes. It is to his industrious help and concern that we owe the progress made in the holy work of the missions. It was also he who collected donations for us and our work among the good Tyrolean and Bavarian Catholics, and enrolled such active and distinguished missionaries as Gostner, Überbacher and many others.
[4875]
The indefatigable Beltrame later had a very clear grammar of the Dinka language published in Italian and the Italian Geographical Society is currently editing his Bari-Dinka dictionary, for the enrichment of knowledge, and specifically for the use of future missionaries in the White Nile. Since Dinka and Bari lack any written symbols, like all the as-yet-unknown languages of Africa including that of the Nuba people we are discussing, on the advice of many authorities I decided to adopt the Latin symbols, as had Mitterrutzner and many others, because these languages are particularly important to the missionaries of the Catholic Church who go to these parts. As regards the pronunciation of African idioms, so as to approximate them as far as possible to the Latin, I decided partly to follow the system established by Lepsius and the illustrious and learned philologist Count Maniscaldi-Evizzo of Verona, who proposed it at the Venice Institute.
[4876]
With regard to the terminology of the Catholic Church, to express in African languages the holy Sacraments, the articles of faith, the Eucharist, transubstantiation, the holy Mass, etc. I opted for using the Latin Church’s Latin terms, giving an explanation in their own language to the peoples of Central Africa, and then adding a transcription, making the catechetical content as clear as possible. It is a system of prudence and of considerable importance, which we are practising here and which will be clear to anyone who knows the history of the heresies of the first century in the Church of Jesus Christ.
[4877]
In Fr Luigi Bonomi’s company, I applied myself with maximum diligence to studying the language of the interesting and intelligent Nuba people among whom I was living. We both explored all the surroundings, to glean from the natives the nature of their religious superstitions, their customs and habits, their still infantile artistic ability and their traditions. Several brief accounts of our research have been published by the missionaries Martini and Bonomi. A more detailed description will follow, when we have made further progress in the country’s tongue; in fact I am firmly resolved not to publish anything before I myself have made the most thorough investigations.
[4878]
I would like here to transcribe an official report of 8th October 1875, which I sent to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda from Delen, the first station among the Nuba. It says:

(See the letter to Cardinal Franchi of 8th October 1875)

[4879]
As I noted right from the start, since all God’s works originate from Calvary, the mission among the Nuba also had to take this sorrowful way and bear the marks of the Cross. While I was writing the previous report to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, Fr Gennaro Martini fell ill with intermittent fever, and two days later so did the two Camillian Fathers, Franceschini and Chiarelli. Domenico Polinari had already been suffering from it for some time. Sr Germana Assuad of Aleppo, Superior of the Institute for African girls who had already been smitten by violent attacks of nerves, suffered such a decline that we feared we should lose her. All the African boys and girls who were serving on the mission, fell ill one after another. I also sickened with a violent fever, and that same day, Fr Luigi Bonomi, who had always enjoyed excellent health since he left Europe, fell ill too and the disease took an equally dangerous turn.
[4880]
The merciful love of the Almighty had spared only Augusto Wisniewski and Sr Maddalena Caracassian, who could at least help the others. But after a few days she too succumbed and good Wisniewski also began to feel unwell, so that in the end all the members of which the mission among the Nuba consisted were visited by illness, and our establishment had turned into a hospital. It is impossible to describe in few words how deeply worried I was, because in that period the full burden of responsibility weighed on me and I was overcome by deep despondency. The fever manifested itself in everyone intermittently, so that those who groaned with the violence of a fit of fever one day found respite the next and could help others suffering from a febrile attack. Fr Bonomi’s state of health deteriorated so badly that I doubted he would recover. In this anguish I resorted to the remedy which in my 20-years’experience I had always found the best in these attacks of African fever, that is, a change of air, according to what Hippocrates said: “Flee the skies where you fell sick” (Fuge coelum in quo aegrotasti).
[4881]
Since I had gathered members from various religious Congregations there, I felt the burden of my heavy responsibility for them; this made me decide, also given my own illness, to consider a change of air, because I felt that this state of emergency could not lead to the slightest advantage and that it really must be God’s will. My plan was to withdraw from Delen for a while. But how could I put this into practice? To make the journey on foot would have been certain death to all, and we had neither camels, nor horses, nor donkeys available, because there were only four or five in the whole area and furthermore, our provisions of salt to season food and our scanty broth, the only nourishment for our fever patients, was sufficient for only another 20 days. Most of us were not used to riding, as is this land’s custom, on cows and bulls.
[4882]
Ah! What days of harsh trial those were for me, and how I racked my brain to make the best of our wretched situation which was to become yet worse with the arrival of a message from the Governor of Kordofan. He wrote to me from Birch, a three-day journey from Delen that I should suspend the station there for the time being, since he could not guarantee our lives against the threats of the neighbouring tribe of Baqqarah nomads. At the same time, the Mudir sent 20 camels to transport us. In addition, the messenger told the sick Superior that in Birch and the surroundings, there were a thousand soldiers at the Governor’s residence with four cannons, and that they were intending to attack the villages subject to the chief Kakum because he had not wished to pay the obligatory tribute. At this announcement the Superior immediately hastened to me and begged me to order our immediate departure, or we too would be massacred by the Muslim soldiers who are usually savagely cruel in such circumstances.
[4883]
In view of our dangerous situation, I had the Cogiur Kakum called and advised him to pay the tribute he owed as he had in previous years; but he explained to me that for the moment it was absolutely impossible for him to do so and that I could write to the Governor asking him to wait until the next harvest when he would pay it all. I immediately sent a messenger to the Governor bearing a letter informing him accordingly.
[4884]
This new situation heightened our anxiety, so that after having fervently prayed to the divine Heart of Jesus, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and all our patron Saints, I gathered all four missionaries in our hut to hear their opinions. They fully agreed to temporary abandonment of the station, and promised to return should they recover their health. Fr Bonomi added that had he not been so ill, he would have stayed despite all the Governor’s dispatches, but he fully submitted to my decisions.
[4885]
The sisters were also of this opinion, although given that they lacked medicines, they were keener on my plan to retire to Singiokae, where we were to stay until we had all recovered. There, too, through the Governor’s kindness, it would be possible to procure the salt we were lacking and the other necessities. I also suspected that with this dispatch the Governor’s only aim was to distance us from the Nuba in the interest of the wicked slave trade, for he had received reliable information that the Baqqarah chief had declared to the Governor that while we were with the Nuba he could not exercise the slave trade to pay the annual tribute imposed on them by the Governor of Kordofan.
[4886]
Wasting no time, the camels were loaded with cases and the whole station, with the huts and all their contents, put under the protection of the chief Kakum; after which we left on the morning of 30th October. In journeys through the forests and the arid desert zones, I always make a habit of being one of the last to mount my camel, in order to watch over the loading and to keep an eye on all the personnel so that no one gets left behind and so that I can see if all is going well. In the impenetrable forests the laden camels never follow one another in an orderly way and can often be one or two miles apart without the other members of the caravan even noticing. On the morning of 30th October the departure of the camels was ordered, according to whether they were loaded with baggage or persons, an operation which lasted until 7.00 a.m., and then I too mounted my beast with the janissary the Governor had sent to escort me. At 7.00 o’clock the whole caravan was on the move. Before us we had a 14-hour journey through the forest, inhabited by lions and other fierce animals.
[4887]
We had barely been travelling for an hour when Fr Franceschini felt ill. He was overcome by such a violent attack of fever that he had to dismount and the sisters and I hastened to help him. Having lain on the grass for a good half hour, he felt able to remount his camel. Then I gave orders that the sisters, Augusto and the janissary should ride beside him. He continued with difficulty, but already after an hour of the tiring ride, declared that he could go no further as he was having great trouble breathing. We led him tottering to under a tree, bathed his temples with water and did all we could to relieve him. But his fever was continuing to rise, he had excruciating stomach pains and the water we carried with us in two little flasks was beginning to run out, while the cooking provisions and mattresses were with the part of the caravan that had separated from us. So I immediately sent two guides off on camels at full speed to tell Fr Luigi and Fr Alfonso to return at once with the camels laden with the food, mattresses, etc., because for the moment it was impossible to continue the journey. Fortunately I was carrying the Holy oil with me for all eventualities, for which I am deeply grateful to the Lord.
[4888]
Fr Franceschini’s condition became far worse, and we had no water to hand to bathe his forehead or rub his chest. We were painfully aware of our distressing circumstances and saw no way out nor the wherewithal to relieve this anxiety. After three hours of unspeakable pains, Fr Franceschini who was lying on the ground under a blanket, fell into a deep sleep and sweated for a good hour. When he awoke he felt much better. Thanks be to the Lord! It was now almost two o’clock, and those who were supposed to be bringing us mattresses, water and food had not yet returned; we were consumed by a burning thirst and had not even a mouthful of food to calm our hunger: we were all lying on the ground. Given that Fr Franceschini felt a little better and I knew him to be a brave and energetic young man, I suggested that he attempt to remount his camel so that we might reach the caravan. Thus we continued our journey in an extreme, ever-so-horrible heat, that was almost unbearable.
[4889]
After four hours of irksome progress, we saw in the distance one of those pools of dirty, brackish water in which cows, sheep and goats usually quench their thirst when they need to. Here we watered our camels, and however nauseating and bad the water was, we also quenched our own ardent thirst and it succeeded as well as the best of refreshments. In the meantime dusk had fallen and the roaring of lions could be heard. We had to cross a thick wood that took us two hours, in which our burnooses, turbans and the veils and habits of the sisters were torn to shreds by the thorns. As I considered it very dangerous to continue in the dark of night and as the lions’roars were growing even louder and we were overcome with exhaustion, I decided to call a halt, although I found myself in disagreement with the views of Augusto, the janissary and the camel drivers, who insisted that if we were to stay there we would be the lions’ prey.
[4890]
I therefore ordered everyone to dismount immediately. I offered the camel drivers and the janissary three Megedi thalers (=14 francs), in case they wanted to continue the journey to reach the rest of the caravan which would have to wait until we caught up with it. They were then to return immediately and bring us the mattresses and everything we needed. But they adamantly refused, objecting that it was simply impossible to risk going through the wood because they would certainly be torn to pieces by lions. So I had a great fire lit all around us which was to last all night, to keep the lions away; then we spread our saddle-cloths on the ground and lay down.
[4891]
Tormented by hunger and thirst, we spent a horrible night and what deep anxiety I felt! Indeed I had absolutely no news of the fate of the rest of the caravan and feared it was lost or had turned back. We were all more or less prostrated by fever, we had fasted for a long time, we had no idea where we had stopped nor how far we were from our journey’s end. Fortunately the janissary found a piece of raw mutton in his pocket, killed three days earlier, but it was barely 5–6 ounces and already half putrid. By rummaging in my travelling haversack I pulled out a piece of salt meat of about 8 ounces which I had bought in Khartoum. How pleased we were with this find! Lacking a receptacle, to cook that little bit of meat we put the two little pieces in the doka (a cradle-shaped piece of iron on which the Sudanese Arabs prepare their bread) and after it had cooked for a few minutes, we divided the meat which in less time than it takes to describe had already vanished.
[4892]
How we praised the Lord who had mercifully remembered us among the roaring of the lions, in the thick of the forests! At dawn, fainting from hunger and thirst, numb with cold and tired out by our exertions, we continued our journey. After riding for about 8 hours we found the rest of the caravan sheltering in savages’ huts, since they had arrived a few hours before us. Then we got to the bottom of the mystery and were able to piece the story together. Instead of persuading the caravan to stop as I had ordered them, the camel drivers I had sent out from the tree where we had sheltered with Fr Franceschini, had incited our companions to continue, saying that I had given orders that they could continue and that we would follow them, taking a short cut.
[4893]
Many hours later, not seeing us arrive, Fr Bonomi had ordered the camel drivers to stop, and prepared to send us water and provisions. But they insisted on their first assertion and did not want to return; thus they were forced to continue the journey, indeed without knowing where we were, so that they suffered the same anxiety for us as we had suffered for them. We stayed a few days in Singiokae to recuperate. My plan was that the sick should stay there for a long time and only return to Delen later; but given that their condition was not very good, I sent them to our mission house in Kordofan. Furthermore, all the inhabitants had fled from the village of Singiokae and taken their flocks with them to prevent them from falling into the hands of the thieving troops of the Mudir. As well as the tribute due, the latter would also have taken possession of their cattle, provisions and slaves and in addition, they would have been forced to give the mercenaries their keep. Thus we found no meat, nor butter nor anything else to nourish our sick properly. This is why I decided to continue the journey to Berket-Koli, the home of the Mudir and his people, from whom we would be able to obtain what we needed.
[4894]
So that readers will better understand the reason for my decision, may I add the following:
The Government of Kordofan, intending to conquer the neighbouring tribes and also the territories inhabited by various nomadic Arab tribes, had long been exacting annual taxes from them, in money, cattle, corn or slaves. Since some tended to resist and refused to pay these tributes, a custom had been introduced whereby each year the Government sent a few senior officials to these regions with a certain number of troops to extort the tributes by force; on these occasions there was often recourse to beating and whipping. In addition, as we have already mentioned, the government troops are guilty of appropriating everything, and sack and destroy the huts of the poor locals.

[4895]
When I was a day’s journey from Singiokae, I heard that Birket had also been abandoned by the population for this very reason. The Mudir had gone to the mountains of Tegheta with his soldiers but had left behind an official and a few soldiers whom he had placed at my disposal. Unfortunately the fever among the missionaries and sisters did not abate. Lacking any help, I decided to take the caravan to El Obeid where in our own house the sick could have all the comforts and the right medicines and it was to be hoped that they would all recover. This journey was again accompanied by worries and anxiety, because it is very difficult taking sick people on camels with a baking sun by day and bitterly cold nights; this is how it continued, across the endless desert.
[4896]
We hope that it may all be written in the great book of the One to whom we have consecrated our whole life, a life full of dangers and sorrows, to achieve the one sublime goal of wrenching souls from the power of the enemy spirit. Thus after a journey of 18 days after leaving the Nuba, although worn out, we reached our residence in El Obeid all still alive. If we survived so many dangers, we owe it to divine grace. We were welcomed with indescribable joy by our people who had been deeply worried about us. God had arranged that good Dr Pfunt, a physician and naturalist, happened to be in this capital. I entrusted my sick to this excellent man. After repeated violent attacks of fever which took the most varied forms, and after taking a lot of medicine, with God’s help they all, without exception, recovered their health, for God never abandons those who trust in him.
[4897]
I owe it to God’s inexhaustible goodness alone that I succeeded in saving the lives of all my companions on that dangerous mission in Jebel Nuba.
[4898]
In the capital of Kordofan I found very important dispatches which obliged me to leave immediately for Khartoum and Egypt. I undertook this journey without delay, as soon as I had taken all the necessary measures with my companions and the Governor. I charged Fr Bonomi with some companions to continue the mission in Jebel Nuba as soon as his health permitted. Sr Germana and Augusto accompanied me. After crossing immense plains and the dense forests of rubber trees in Tura-el Khadra, we embarked together with the American General Colston on the boat which had been sent to meet him, and so arrived happily and in good health at Khartoum.
[4899]
Before leaving the capital of the Egyptian possessions in the Sudan, it is my duty to mention briefly a small part of the apostolate of Central Africa which concerns a few thousand Christian heretical Copts who live in Nubia and are subjects of the episcopal see of Khartoum. This little spark of Christianity which recalls its glorious times and has survived until our day in the darkness of Islam and paganism, deserves mention, both in the interest of Church history and as regards the Mission of Central Africa.
[4900]
Nubia, as I have already said, forms part of the immense Ethiopian regions which include almost all the countries of Africa and extend between the two tropics, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, as far as Niger and Guinea. The ancients divided Ethiopia into various denominations, amongst which the best known division is Ptolemy’s: the Island of Meroë, the part of Ethiopia below Egypt, and the interior of Ethiopia. The Island of Meroë includes the regions between the Nile beyond the desert, and the Blue Nile. Some say this territory extended without boundaries to the right of the White Nile. Nubia, today’s Abyssinia and the territories of the Galla, which Ptolemy indicated as the land of Troglodytes of the ancients, a territory they thought was India, formed the part of Ethiopia under Egyptian rule.
[4901]
The interior of Ethiopia included all the territories between the south of Niger and the south-west of Abyssinia and the territories beyond the line of the Equator. Some ancient historians thought of Ethiopia as half of Africa which they divided into upper Africa and lower Africa, consisting of an enormous, boundless kingdom which was then further reduced by the Arabs, the Turks and the neighbouring peoples, to a little less than half. Abyssinia, Nubia and part of Guinea constitute Upper Ethiopia. The Ethiopians who were once a great and powerful nation, extended their dominion as far as Syria; but the great Sesostri, King of Egypt overcame them. In ancient times, Ethiopia was famous for the wars its inhabitants waged against the Egyptians and for its prosperous trade. It produced copper, iron and other minerals, and it was immensely rich in precious stones, especially emeralds.
[4902]
Abbot Tergi of Lauria gives us a description of Ethiopia and its provinces. He says that the great kingdom of Upper and Lower Ethiopia was formed of 40 kingdoms, which he lists, and was inhabited by heretical Christians and idolatrous blacks, and he presents us with a picture of the many languages, moral conditions and characteristics of these peoples who obeyed a single monarch called the “Negus”, who boasted that he descended from King David through his son Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. He tells that this monarch once had 72 tributary kings, and speaks of Lower Ethiopia with its provinces and the famous Island of Meroë, with their capitals and the city of Queen Candace. He provides a chronological list of all the princes of Ethiopia, from the Queen of Sheba to the Emperor Fasilidas in 1660, a persecutor of Catholics. Tradition has it that this queen built and enlarged the city of Soba of which some ruins can still be seen today in the village of Soba on the right bank of the Blue Nile, a three-hour journey from Khartoum.
[4903]
Rinaldi says that the Ethiopians accepted circumcision from the Jews, that their sages, before the eunuch of Queen Candace (the first pagan to have himself baptised) was converted to Christianity, worshipped an immortal God, the beginning of all things, and a mortal God without a name. He adds that Ethiopia, with the exception of Abyssinia, was unknown to the ancient Romans; and that this part of Ethiopia was discovered by the Romans at the time of the empire of Constantine the Great. Traces of the Roman dominion before the birth of Christ can still be found in several localities of Lower Nubia, especially on the Island of File. The Gospel was spread by two routes in Ethiopia. The first was through Queen Candace’s eunuch who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. She lived in Axum, the capital of the kingdom in the Gugi Giam Giam, not far from the Blue Nile, where, commanded by a divine inspiration, she had built a magnificent temple with five naves, in honour of God and St Mary of Zion. After receiving baptism from St Philip, the eunuch preached the Gospel in the provinces located on the Red Sea and penetrated Ethiopia, where he converted a great multitude of infidels to the religion of Jesus Christ.
[4904]
The other route is the one we know, that is, via St Matthew, who taught the Gospel in Lower Ethiopia, and some maintain that Christianity in Lower Nubia was preached by St Mark. In addition, divine Providence, to illumine this people at the beginning of the 4th century during the rule of the Emperors Constantius and Maximian, also used another most effective means. Meropius, a philosopher from Tyre, journeyed to India, that is to the part of Ethiopia situated below Egypt, with two boys versed in various languages; one was called Aedesius, the other Frumentius. But since the Ethiopians were in rebellion against the Romans, Meropius was killed and the two boys were brought before the king of the Ethiopians who became fond of them, and as they grew up, granted them places of honour at court. Thus they acquired such high esteem that after the king’s death they were entrusted with the government and care of the heir to the throne.
[4905]
When the heir came of age, Aedesius returned to Tyre where he was ordained a priest. Frumentius on his return to Alexandria, informed St Athanasius of the condition of Ethiopia, was consecrated Bishop by him and sent out to convert the Ethiopians. He succeeded marvellously, at the time of Abraha’s government.
[4906]
Frumentius, with the help of a cleric given him by St Athanasius, established his episcopal seat in Auxuma, or Axum, which was the kingdom’s capital. From that time, Ethiopia was governed by many bishops who depended on their respective metropolitan but continued to be subject to the patriarchs of Alexandria. Monastic life was then also welcomed in Ethiopia because of the work of the famous hermits and monks from the region of Thebes and Egypt. This is attested by the remains of the numerous monasteries which obeyed the rules of St Anthony and of St Basil, founded in many parts of the territory, as well as by the accounts of ecclesiastical writers. Until the 5th century, Christianity in Ethiopia was preserved in its integrity.
[4907]
But in 449 Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, fell into the error of Eutychius, Archimandrite of Constantinople. Dioscorus was an ambitious and violent man; however he had great prestige in that large Patriarchate. He wanted to deal with the matter of Eutychius in the Robber Council of Ephesus and succeeded in enticing into error almost all the bishops subject to the Patriarchate of Alexandria. This gave rise to the Eutychian heresy which separated the famous Church of Alexandria from Catholic unity, so that the whole of Ethiopia, which was part of that vast patriarchate, was gradually also perverted. Although they were surrounded on all sides by barbarian peoples, the inhabitants of this great kingdom always enjoyed the merciful goodness of the Almighty who in the Old and New Testaments diffused magnificent rays of the holy and true religion among them. However, drawn into the darkness of error, deprived of bishops faithful to the Holy See and of all help, they lost the purity of the faith and became the unfortunate victims of false doctrines. They remained under the aegis of the heretical bishops who were sent to them by the Patriarchate of Alexandria.
[4908]
“The Christian East” gives the names and history of 40 metropolises of Ethiopia. According to the 52nd Arabic canon, Ethiopians are unable to choose their own patriarch among their learned men, because he is subject to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Alexandria and this see is responsible for the appointment and consecration of the so-called Catholic Metropolitan of Ethiopia, who is dependent, and has no right to establish metropolises like the Patriarch of Alexandria; although he enjoys the same honour, he does not have the same power. The Catholic Metropolitan is virtually Patriarch of the Abyssinians, but he is only the Vicar of the Patriarch of Alexandria, although he has a greater number of subjects.
[4909]
The Ethiopians have always had a lofty concept of the glorious Patriarchal See of Alexandria which sent them bishops, and they were ever faithful to it. They never allowed their metropolitan to elect more than 7 Bishops, for fear that the Ethiopian Church would reach a total of 12 Bishops, the number required by the Orientals in order to have a Patriarch, so that the yoke of the Alexandrine Church would not be dislodged and a patriarch independent from it would not be elected. Today this fear has become a problem, because there are only two episcopal sees whose titulars receive their mandate from the Patriarch of Alexandria: Abyssinia, with a very extensive jurisdiction, and Khartoum, with jurisdiction over a couple of thousand Copts, the majority of whom belong to the Diocese of Esne and who lived scattered about the vast Egyptian colonial territories that are part of our Vicariate.
[4910]
The religious differences of the dissident Christians of Ethiopia consist in circumcision, purification, the celebration of the sabbath, fasting until evening, abstaining from pork and fish without scales in many districts, and divorce and polygamy, something which nevertheless seldom occurs. They reject purgatory and believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father and that the human nature of Christ is equal to the divine. In Christ they admit a single will, repeat baptism and say that the souls of the just only enjoy God at the end of the world. They do not know Holy Viaticum and do not distinguish between sins of thought and desires contrary to the ten commandments of God. In addition, they believe that the soul was not created by God, but derives from matter. They reject the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, at which Dioscorus was condemned and (they do not recognise) the primacy of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church and the Pope as Vicar of Christ. When they confer baptism, they often brand a part of the face with a red-hot iron. The Catholic Church has repeatedly tried to lead them back to the right path of the faith, but has obtained a minimal result.
[4911]
The Roman Popes were deeply concerned with the spiritual health of the Ethiopians, especially: Alexander III in 1177, Innocent IV in 1243, Alexander IV in 1254, Urban IV in 1261, Clement IV in 1265, Innocent V in 1276, Nicholas III in 1277, Nicholas IV in 1288, Benedict IX in 1303, Clement V in 1305, John XXII in 1316. They strove to snatch the Ethiopians from the tide of heresy and Islam, by which unfortunately a large number had allowed themselves to be swept away. Because of a plea from the king of Ethiopia, Alexander III also granted this nation a church in Rome and a church in Jerusalem, to have its subjects educated in the Catholic religion. He granted the Ethiopians the church and cloister of S. Stefano dei Mori, behind the Vatican Basilica; and Innocent III entrusted this mission to the Order of Preachers.
[4912]
Eugene IV was the first Pope who attempted to unite the Copts or Jacobites of Ethiopia and Egypt with the Holy Apostolic See, at the Ecumenical Council in Florence. He offered the Patriarch John a friendly invitation because he had sent Abbot Andrea of the convent of St Anthony in Egypt to the Supreme Pastor. He appeared before the Pope as a legate of the Patriarch of the Jacobites and the King of Ethiopia, accompanied by a deacon and three delegates, of King Zereiacob, of the Emperor Constantine of Ethiopia and of the Abbot Nicodemus, legate of the Ethiopians resident in Jerusalem. In 1442, Eugene IV had the paternal consolation of reuniting the Jacobites or Copts to the Catholic Church and issued an instruction and a decree on this matter.
[4913]
While the Lutheran heresy was continuing its devastating work in Catholic Germany, David, King of the Ethiopians, made an alliance with Portugal against the Patriarch of Alexandria. He sent Francesco Alvarez to Pope Clement VII with letters patent in which he recognised him as supreme head of the universal Church and begged him to invite the Christian princes to defend him against the Muslims. The Pope deigned to honour the Ethiopian Church with the primatial dignity, appointing to this office Giovanni Bermodez.
[4914]
Seeing that he was constantly threatened by the Turks, King Claudius sought help from John III, King of Portugal, and consequently, in agreement with the Pope and with St Ignatius of Loyola, 12 Jesuits were sent to Ethiopia, the Portugese Fr Giovanni Nunes was elected Patriarch, and in addition, Fr Andrea Oviedo and Fr Merchiore Cornaro were appointed as coadjutors. This did not last long and King Claudius was most indignant. The Patriarch was not admitted to Ethiopia and Mgr Oviedo was stricken by persecution in his see, which put paid to any benefit to Religion.
[4915]
When in 1559 Claudius was killed and was succeeded by Neva, this man showed himself so hostile to the Roman Church as to put Oviedo in chains and plan his death. However, when he died in 1562 he was succeeded on the throne by his son Sarezza Denghal, who had kindlier sentiments towards Catholics and they obtained permission to practise their Religion. But the Ethiopians continued to persist in their ancient errors. At the conclusion of the Council of Trent, Pius IV asked Sarezza to send him legates, and he sent the Jesuit, Fr Cristoforo, to the Patriarch of Alexandria, but in vain. Then Pius IV wrote telling him to enter into relations with the king of Ethiopia. However, given that this prince and the people were very opposed to it, he ordered the Patriarch Oviedo to go to Japan. Only he was never allowed to leave Ethiopia and miserably lost his life in Tigray, where his companions also died.
[4916]
In 1597 Fr Supi died in Ethiopia and in the attempt to penetrate it, his confreres were killed by the Turks who had taken the Red Sea coast. In the meantime, in 1603 Fr Paez succeeded in making his way there, and King Zadanguel, full of affection for the Holy See, charged him to write to the Pope that he could elect a Patriarch. However, the Abuna, or heretical metropolitan, revolted and organised a rebellion against the king, who lost his life in it. His successor Susneos, to curry favour with the Portugese, protected the Jesuits and summoned Fr Paez to his court. He also wrote to the Pope that he could send him missionaries, while his brother Zela publicly professed himself a Catholic and, with a decree, gave orders to embrace the Catholic doctrine. He reprimanded the heretical Patriarch and the monks and priests who had plotted against his life, and giving up his previous errors, dismissed his concubines and formally declared that he recognised the Holy See alone and wished only to obey the Pope. Gregory XV, informed of this, made Alfonso Mendez of the Society of Jesus Patriarch of Ethiopia. He was given an excellent welcome by Susneos and received numerous proofs of fidelity and devotion to the Holy See from the imperial family. But since this consequently gave rise to tumults among the Ethiopians who were attached to their ancient customs, the king was so weak that he once again accepted the schism of Alexandria, declaring that the Church of Alexandria was the same as that of Rome.
[4917]
All the important figures were hostile to the Jesuit Fathers, and after Susneos’s death all Europeans were expelled from Ethiopia. In the meantime, as successor to Mendez, Apollinare of Almeida was appointed Patriarch. He was killed in 1638, and Pietro II, King of Portugal, appointed Fr Luigi da Silva as primate. Although all the efforts and concern of Innocent X for the Ethiopians had proved unfruitful, Urban VIII obtained a letter of submission from the Patriarch of the Copts, Matthew; and under Alexander VII it was hoped that the Patriarch of Alexandria would return to obedience to the Holy See, since through the efforts of the Reformed Friar, Fr Salemma, he had sent a profession of faith according to the principles of the Catholic Church. But then too, fear of the Turks and the usual inconstancy and adverse sentiments of the Copts and the Ethiopians, ever tenaciously adherent to the schism, prevailed; thus joy for the true doctrine of Jesus Christ vanished.
[4918]
Innocent XII gave 50,000 scudos to the mission among the Ethiopians and appointed as missionaries there the Reformed Friars of S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome. Their superior was the above-mentioned Salemma, who, provided with apostolic letters and gifts, went to Egypt and invited the Patriarch of Alexandria to join Catholic unity. But although he accepted the letters and gifts, he declared that he desired unity, but that for the moment he could not ratify it because of the war which had broken out in Egypt and because of discord among the country’s leaders. Therefore the Holy Congregation of Propaganda was restricted to sending missionaries only to Cairo. Clement XI did all he could to win Ethiopia over to the true faith, and he had King Dodemanut invited to work for the desired reconciliation, for which he sent out Fr Giuseppe of the Reformed Friars of St Francis, warmly recommending him to the Archbishop of Ethiopia and to the Abbot General of the monks of S. Anthony.
[4919]
The Holy See tried at various times to send men of this Order to those regions, as well as Capuchins and Carmelites, but they were not well received and many of them were killed by the Turks and others by the Ethiopians themselves. In recent times, for half a century and more Ethiopia remained without Christian apostles, until with Gregory XVI the Abyssinian mission was founded for the apostolate among the Ethiopians, through the requests made by my dearest friend, the distinguished Mr Antonio d’Abbadie, who has travelled all over this country for many years together with his brother. The mission was put in the hands of the Vincentian Fathers; the Vicariate of the Galla was entrusted to the Capuchins in 1846 and the Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa was organised as I have said.
[4920]
At present the episcopal see of the Copts in Khartoum is vacant. It is temporarily administrated by a Gumus (archpriest) called “Abuna Hanna”, with whom the Catholic mission has good relations. The Copts are involved in trade and are employed in the diwan of the Government where they often serve as clerks. They are found and live scattered over all the territories of the Egyptian possessions of the Sudan, from Suakim to Darfur, from Taka to Dongola, from Khartoum to the land of the Bari. They are more numerous in Khartoum, in Dongola, in Kordofan, in Suakim, in Berber and in Kassala; the supreme head of the dissident Coptic Church sometimes sends priests to all these places to administer the sacraments.
[4921]
Because the Copts have been in contact with the Muslims for so many centuries, they have naturally adopted many of their customs. Despite the age-old persecution on the part of the followers of Islam who literally decimated the Copt nation, they have preserved the Eutychian heresy. Since in the separated Churches of the East simple priests are permitted to marry, Bishops are recruited among monks, who alone preserve celibacy. Although Coptic monks are basically very well-versed in Holy Scripture and especially in the holy Gospel, nevertheless prayer and obedience in their monasteries, two essential features which distinguish the religious state, still leave much to be desired. Nevertheless, the sublime traditions of the first hermits and cenobites are not forgotten by the dissident Copts; on the contrary they can be praised for remembering them. Despite the great number of monasteries that can be seen on the banks of the Nile and around Thebes, bishops are only chosen from three, that is, the monasteries of St Anthony, St Paul and St Macarius.
[4922]
This is a sign of the great devotion which the Copts cherish for the three great saints, who very clearly demonstrated the victory of the spirit over the flesh in the deserts of the Thebaid. The monasteries of St Anthony and St Paul are located on the Red Sea, in the desert to the right of the Nile which extends to almost directly opposite Sinai. The monastery of St Macarius lies on the right bank of the Nile, just after the Delta. Only the monastery of St Anthony has the right to fill the see of the Patriarch, who, once he is in possession of his office, has no power over the priests with regard to church functions, because this is incumbent on the episcopal jurisdiction.
[4923]
The Vicariate of Central Africa enjoys the lofty protection of His Majesty Jozef I, Emperor of Austria and Hungary, represented by a consul in Khartoum; and the mission has harmonious relations with the local authorities, from whom it has obtained precious favours, including which its exemption from taxes must not be forgotten. My main intention, as soon as I came into possession of the Vicariate, was to spare no efforts to consolidate the two main missions of Khartoum and Kordofan, as reliable points of reference and centres of communication in order to extend our apostolic work to the most important localities in the Vicariate.
[4924]
The Khartoum mission is the operations base and communications point from which to take the true faith and real civilisation to each of those kingdoms and tribes which constitute the eastern part of the Vicariate, which border with the Vicariate of Abyssinia and the tribes of the Galla, and as far as the White Nile beyond the Equator and the sources of the Nile. Kordofan mission has the same task in the extensive kingdoms and tribes which make up the central and western part of the Vicariate. The mission has encountered great obstacles with the local authorities there, with regard to the problems of slavery and the abominable trade in Africans.
[4925]
I intend to write a special report on this point, because the matter deserves thorough treatment. However a spark of hope is already gleaming concerning this important issue which must command such a high level of participation from the whole of humanity. Recently the Viceroy of Egypt appointed Colonel Gordon Governor General of the Egyptian possessions in the Sudan. He is an excellent official with the grade of Ferik-Pasha. In the China war he distinguished himself against the rebels and shows the best intentions of wishing to do something about the abolition of slavery. This very able person with magnanimous sentiments, is at the same time a fearless and courageous man; he will give a mortal blow to the slave trade, as I trust and believe. However it is always to be feared that the peoples of the Sudan, the Arab merchants and the Muslim Governors will set obstacles in his path because they make enormous profits from the slave trade which is the greatest source of income of local authorities.
[4926]
There is only one way to heal these open wounds of humanity, this glaring injustice: to establish the Catholic Faith in these areas and to preach there the Gospel of Jesus Christ who teaches the equality of all, slaves and free men, and who brought to earth, for all peoples, freedom as children of God. The Catholic Religion alone can help the glorious Englishman in this humanitarian work and banish this age-old scourge from these unfortunate peoples. In the Catholic mission, the illustrious General Gordon will find the best help and most effective assistance in the fulfilment of his sublime task.
[4927]
The magnanimous and learned King of the Belgians, spurred by these motives, has recently taken the noble initiative of directing all the influence of science and all the forces of modern civilisation to this aim, so that the wickedness of slavery and the slave trade is wiped out from African territory. He will also have the most effective help in the apostolic action of preachers of the Gospel, above all in Central Africa which is the centre of the slave trade. Praised be this illustrious Catholic monarch in whose noble heart echoes the cry of pain of these unhappy Africans who, groaning, stretch out their hands to the Catholic Church and call on the civilisation of the European peoples to come to their rescue in the age-old disaster that oppresses them.
[4928]
This august Belgian monarch has succeeded in rousing the powers of Europe and America from their lethargy (England was always a most praiseworthy exception, because it devoted immense means and forces to this end) and has set them in motion for this great undertaking. In our modern age, when so many things are collapsing, this vivid spark will fire with enthusiasm hearts which have been insensitive until now, and whose sense of justice and charity has not yet been awakened. The conduct of the magnanimous King Leopold II is precisely suited to the lofty mission of a Catholic prince and he will acquire the everlasting glory of having launched, during his government, one of the noblest humanitarian ventures of Christian centuries, which will spread his blessings and benefits in the most abandoned part of the earth.
[4929]
The mission of Central Africa, the most densely populated and the largest in the world, will have the noble satisfaction of having co-operated in this great enterprise, inspired by the lofty wisdom dictated by Christian charity, which is showing true progress and will bring those who accept the august monarch’s invitation to the most sublime glory.
[4930]
On 19th December 1875 I left my main residence, accompanied by my secretary, Fr Paolo Rossi from Legnago and a few others, after conferring baptism upon a few adults of both sexes, prepared by the missionaries and the sisters. I paid a visit to the station of Berber. We set out over the scorching sands of the desert on ten camels and crossed the arid mountains in the Ethiopian territory which separates the Nile from the Red Sea; on this route there are fossilised forests and granite rocks and oriental alabaster to be admired. After 40 days of an exhausting journey, we stopped in Suakim where, perhaps for the first time for 13 centuries, I celebrated the unbloody sacrifice of Holy Mass according to the Catholic rite on the pleasant Nubian banks of the Erithreon (the Red Sea of the ancients). After visiting the Christians of every rite, it took four days on an Egyptian Government steamer to reach the port of Suez, where we received friendly hospitality from the Reverend Reformed Friars, and two days later, in excellent health, we reached Cairo.
[4931]
Here I cannot pass over in silence the great concerns and favours the Central African mission obtained through the illustrious Commander Ceschini. He is the diplomatic agent and Consul General of His Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria and Hungary at the court of the Khedive of Egypt; if after failed attempts and events in the past, the latter offered us a piece of land on which to build the two houses in Cairo as stations for the preparation and acclimatisation of missionaries and Sisters destined to work in the apostolate of Central Africa, we owe it to him.
[4932]
Through the generosity of the Viceroy of Egypt, we obtained free of charge a piece of building land worth 43,000 Francs, located in the Ismailia district, one of Cairo’s best. I had the building completed up to the second floor and as from last July, I have settled the missionaries from the Verona Institute and the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition there. Since 1867, they had been staying in two rented houses in Old Cairo. I trust and hope that my benefactors in Europe will help me finish building these houses, because the preservation of the life and strength of the Gospel workers destined to the torrid climate of Central Africa depends on them.
[4933]
Obediently following the request of the Most Eminent Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda, I left the classic land sanctified by the exile of the Holy Family and in April 1876 I went to the metropolis of Catholicism. During my absence from the Vicariate, the missionaries from the Verona Institute, complying with my Plan for the Regeneration of Africa, busied themselves training young African boys and girls whom I have provided with homes a day and a half’s journey from Kordofan, so that they will not come into contact with the Muslims and lose their faith. In the plain of Malbes, which is provided with water and can be cultivated, young African converts have been settled who were trained at our Institutes in El Obeid.
[4934]
As well as being isolated from the Muslims, the Malbes plain also offers our converts the advantage that they can make their living there from farming and trade. This institution is also very convenient as a place to send our sick from Kordofan mission to convalesce in the country. This colony will later become a village, a small town, a city, inhabited only by Catholics, under the direction of the missionaries and Sisters, in all that regards their eternal salvation. Wherever there is Muslim predominance we shall use this system, so that in time the Catholic mission will succeed in raising the standard of Christ there and the law of the Gospel will prevail over the numerous tribes in Central Africa, who for so many centuries have been burdened by the shadow of death.
[4935]
Having given this historical outline of the Vicariate and its work for the regeneration of Africa, I will now take a look at the implementation, difficulties and hopes of the apostolic work of the Vicariate.
[4936]
When the missionary has completed his formation in the Verona Institute, he is sent to the Institute for acclimatisation in Cairo; only afterwards does he continue to the interior, bound for Khartoum, to expend all his energies for the benefit of unhappy Africa in that station or in another post assigned to him; everywhere he must begin the struggle against serious problems, nowhere can he escape them. The various religions he encounters are the greatest hindrance to him in his work. Here I must mention all the errors of the Coptic schism and of Islam, which is widespread in the two Nubias, in the small and large kingdoms of Kordofan and of Darfur, Waday, Bahermi, Bornu, and which are encountered in all the nomadic Arab tribes that cover an enormous territory in their wanderings.
[4937]
On the other hand, some parts of the Vicariate are immune from this corruption, and these are located closer to the centre where paganism prevails. However, in order not to tire my readers by repeating something they have read over and over again, although those descriptions are far from being close to the truth, I would like to mention them briefly here.

[4938]
Mohammed made use of such a cunning art to attract the spirits and hearts of the Muslims, that human forces have difficulty in doing away with the woeful suggestions of this doctrine. The Orient, which already entices the senses in its whole way of life, and in which the contrast of passions is so pronounced, rapidly fell prey to Mohammed. He proposed nothing new with regard to faith, but seduced the people with a monstrous quantity of propositions of faith, the most ordinary and general, with a cult that consists only in external practices and, at the same time, follows the basest instincts and passions.
[4939]
The Koran legitimises a dissolute life, sees the woman who is not sanctified by religion as simply an instrument of immorality, and considers her above all as domestic chattel. The Koran makes any human sentiment become bestial in the Harems, and drowns every noble human thought and sentiment of virtue. The mind is obscured and cannot understand anything sublime, the soul is degraded and can not strive after the sublime nature of the Catholic Religion.
[4940]
Even if Christian civilisation is now spreading in many ways and Islam is coming into contact with European customs, what conquests and progress can one make with regard to Muslims? Will we succeed in shaking the Muslim out of his slothfulness and make him abandon his bestial and anti-social inclinations? But isn’t this completely against the Koran, which expressly commands it? In truth, the European civilisation would have done a great deal if Muslims would let themselves be induced to abandon their huts and their camps under the open sky, to build themselves better dwellings. But Islam will never succeed in ensuring that man too is ennobled, that he thinks, feels and acts in a way worthy of man! It will be able to awaken the spirit of selfishness and common interests, but it will never achieve an influence over souls, it will never rouse the sentiment of justice. Love and respect for others will never be the bond that unites Muslim society.
[4941]
European civilisation will have achieved much when it can say to itself that it has sowed the idea in Muslims of striving for a reform of principles based on the Koran, because the Koran forbids everything new, all deeper instruction; and on the contrary, assures every satisfaction of evil desires and bestial passions, and permits its followers the greatest violence against infidels. Human society, as we imagine it in the true sense of the word, cannot agree with the Koran; true progress, true civility and the Koran cannot coexist. The one destroys the other. Then no human force can overcome the Koran, nor will Protestantism which declared war on the banks of the Nile succeed against it, because having recorded only two conversions in Esne — for a certain sum of money — it was forced to abandon those regions. The rigid followers of the Koran and the fanatical worshippers of Mohammed condemn any religious discussion and declare holy anyone who lets himself be trampled upon by the white horse of the head priest, on which he rides towards the mosque at the time of the great pilgrimage to Mecca; holy is anyone who, after continuous religious ovations to Mohammed, falls ill or becomes mad. They all hasten to assist such a hero whom everyone honours and asks for advice and who when he dies has a monument erected to him. Under this aspect, Nubia offers a sad spectacle.
[4942]
If a more thorough instruction and all religious discussions are forbidden, how can beneficial new things and new doctrines of faith take root? It is impossible to succeed in getting them to abandon the Koran, which they observe fanatically and to the letter, if one cannot first clarify its foundations. Without giving up the Koran, any higher-level instruction is inconceivable, and who would dare to try, if the Government itself forbids any attempt at conversion?
[4943]
Anyone who participated in higher education would be censured by all and rejected by his parents. Plato believed that only a powerful torch would be a marvellous force capable of lighting the darkness of paganism and raising fallen humanity. Therefore to renew the spirit and the degraded heart of Islam, a really miraculous means and supernatural illumination are required, which we find in God’s grace. Human means are incapable of this; here, only the Catholic Church can be granted to triumph; and the Lord who, with his power, shakes the cedars of Lebanon and makes the pillars of the firmament tremble, he alone, through his religion, can bring light to so much spiritual error.
[4944]
He who one day changed the idolatrous woods and temples into holy places of his true religion; only He, on the ruins of the mosque, will be able to raise the Cross. Only in this way Mahommedans, led on the path of salvation, will also be able to have all the advantages associated with Christian civilisation. Even if the Lord, in his inscrutable wisdom, wanted to make use of purely human means in his works, who would not see the fanatical prescriptions of the Koran as the greatest obstacles to success? Furthermore it is a question of substituting for the Muslim religion, a religion which Muslims so loathe that for them, the word Christian alone has the tones of an insult and the worst offence.
[4945]
Would they exchange their comfortable religion for Catholicism which demands self-giving, the mortification of the flesh and sacrifice? The obstacles and difficulties that arise in making them understand the sublime nature of the Catholic Religion, the holiness of its doctrine, the beauty of its liturgy, are almost insurmountable since they cannot understand sublime things, given that they are in a pitiful moral state because of the corruption permitted by the laws.
[4946]
But the Missionary trusts in God’s mercy and, ready to fight, goes to work in the vineyard guided by the hope that never abandons him. While he is aboard the ship a favourable wind blows, and the voyage begins.
[4947]
What a scene! The ever new marvels of the Nile extend before him! On the right bank he can glimpse the mountains of Mokatan in the Nubian desert, and on the left of the Nile, the Libyan hills which run parallel to the river, but are separated by a plain, now cultivated, now forming a sandy desert. He always has the most marvellous view before his eyes. Here an island with green pastures, there a black shepherd watches over his flock of goats, not far from a small hut one can barely discern among the thickets of date palms which surround it. There he can see a forest of date palms and Dong trees which display their fruits. Now the banks draw closer and show the travellers the beauties of their surroundings, now they spread apart again, and he finds himself unexpectedly in a lake. Then bare, jagged rocks return to close them off and surround them with a ravine, while the river in this rocky promontory is violently whipped up by the winds. At the close of this day, with pictures full of variety, we see over there in the distance the boundaries of the seething waters of the river changed by the setting sun into the brightest hue of glowing embers; we think we are in a sea of brilliance and flame.
[4948]
But the missionary’s thoughts are often far from all these magnificent enchantments of nature and filled with bitter observations, when in the twilight he hears the raucous voice of the muezzin, who calls the followers of Mohammed to prayer from the top of the minaret. And he is overcome by sadness when he thinks of the unhappy condition of these poor souls. In the deep silence that surrounds the banks on which here and there a hut rises, he thinks of the silence that precedes the storm and it seems to him that these unfortunates are sleeping a cruel sleep to awaken only at the flash of divine anger; and he must bottle it all up inside himself. The wind is favourable and the sailors sleep at the foot of the mast. The moon now spreads its pale light on the plain, only occasionally broken by terrifying masses of rocks.
[4949]
It is at times like these that the missionary, absorbed in deep prayer, seems to hear in this boundless solitude the voice of the divine Shepherd seeking his lost black sheep, as though mourning the Christianity which once flourished here, and whose ruins he now contemplates. His trust is rekindled and he firmly hopes that the obstacles Islam puts in the way of the conversion of its followers will fall, and that the power of evil will not long enfold Africa; and this great multitude of infidels offers the missionary the best of prospects for his activity, especially in the areas not yet contaminated by Muslim corruption. Now the cataracts interrupt his journey because the Nile, whose passage is blocked by rocky masses, falls foaming and thundering over the rocks and shatters them in a swirling current. The broken rocks lying in the Nile and scattered along its banks threaten the lives of navigators and from the masts of sunken ships, sticking out of the water, it can be seen that when the water crashes down, it often wins sad victories. There is also another route, but the desert with its endless expanse has its own great disadvantages.
[4950]
The missionary must always remember that twelve fishermen out of an obscure village in Judea, after looking at the heights of Golgotha, scattered all over the world, and strengthened in the faith of the divine Saviour and certain of victory, they felt great joy in their sorrows and sufferings. Thus the missionary of Central Africa too does not lag behind, however tiring and full of sacrifices his life can be. If he is wise, and proceeds with the means that experience puts into his hand, his activity will yield better fruit, for the benefit of the hundred million souls who for so many centuries have been in the grip of the malign one.
[4951]
If one considers the distances, the poverty of the means of transport the missionary is obliged to use, the lack of a fair wind in river journeys, the laziness of the sailors, travelling in these countries is extremely slow and often dangerous. When the wind is unfavourable, the missionary is forced to spend his nights on the lonely bank where he is seldom protected even by a thorny tree. It can also happen that he has to spend many days and nights in this fashion. Then for weeks and months in the desert, he must suffer the laziness of the camel drivers. He must be prepared to make serious sacrifices when, alone on the bare back of a camel, he makes his way over the boundless desert and crosses the stark granite mountains or immense forests of the interior. Here he has meetings with fierce beasts to fear, the camel rearing, perhaps even some injury if he is not assailed by some disease. In any case, he must continue his journey in these conditions, with pain and no possibility of relief; staying behind would make him die of thirst; but the camel drivers who are responsible for his life, would never let him stay behind, for any reason.
[4952]
In the boundless desert the sun hammers down on him with its burning rays, and sitting on the camel’s back from morning to night wears him out and drains his energy; and when he dismounts in the evening, he cannot yet think of rest, because he must wander, solitary, through the deserted plain, to gather dry plants and bushes to prepare his modest supper; and he very frequently has nothing other than bread and onions to eat with a little water from the flask which however hot, unhealthy and brackish, is nevertheless the only thing to quench the desert traveller’s thirst. Then he lies down on the sand and is very lucky if a rocky outcrop protects him from the wind. All the discomforts of the journey do not have much effect on him because in the mission stations his life is not much better; even if he is not tormented by illness, most of the time he is oppressed by exhaustion, the many problems he must grapple with and the many disappointments he must bear fill his soul with sadness.
[4953]
The missionary encounters one enormous obstacle to the free exercise of his apostolic vocation: the scourge of slavery. I can say that this is the greatest of all. These bloody manhunts are repeated time and again; troops of armed men hurl themselves on the mountain villages of the interior, the poor attacked villagers are forced to defend their families and are killed on the spot by the ferocity of these inhuman beings. These abductors of men in the peaceful lands of unhappy Africa, as yet go unpunished. How many caravans do we meet of poor slaves who have to bear oppressive marches under a burning sun, on scorching sand, tormented with hunger and thirst! In addition these unfortunates are attached to the “sheva” that is, a yoke to which the slave’s neck is chained. These poor Hamites are driven on ruthlessly by the evil jallaba and frequently leave trails of blood which has seeped from their swollen feet on the track.
[4954]
Many of them do not reach the destination and their bodies serve as a meal for the hyenas. If in these forays which destroy the happiness of whole families, a mother and a son are carried off, the brutal slave trader does not allow the mother to help her beloved child during the journey. If she lovingly adapts her pace with the child she still has, the jallaba immediately tears him from his mother and spears him with bestial cruelty, and he falls on the sand. The poor mother’s heart is bleeding and she would gladly die with her child, but she already feels the stick and the lash against her spine, and has to continue her journey in silence.
[4955]
And how many thousands of poor Africans, half-starved and exhausted, one sees on the slave markets! There, it can be understood how disgraceful slavery is for humanity. Some think of finding in slavery a means of civilisation; but how can the violation of the holiest natural rights be defended? What shameful treatment can be seen, and what cruelty, which would break a heart of stone! Here, humanity is sold like merchandise for money and only the basest and most degrading interests count. Anyone can see that the fate that awaits them when, after being bought at the market, they are led to a buyer’s home, is less barbaric under paganism than under Islam. Their master has the right of life and death over them and they must give him what little they earn. They are forced by some to steal from another master’s grain piles which are watched over by slaves not far from the master’s house.
[4956]
Their only prospect is a bloody beating or flogging from the person who has been robbed if they are discovered, or the same from their own master if that evening they do not bring back the quantity of grain required. The slave never finds help; he dies alone, he is left to himself, and at his death no one sheds a tear of sorrow. Thus his life full of sacrifices and torments ends; his body is buried in the sand and soon becomes the prey of wild dogs and fierce animals.
If despite all this one wishes to consider slavery as a means of civilisation, then why are slaves frequently permitted to spend whole days in idleness?

[4957]
Why are they forbidden to have relations with missionaries by whom they would be instructed in the Catholic Religion and in everything useful? But the fact is that if a slave succeeds in escaping because he cannot bear the brutal treatment, and takes refuge on the mission, his master uses every imaginable trick to get him back, even force; but at the mission this has no effect. All this is done because the slave, finding himself at the mission for the course of instruction, can no longer be sold. He receives from the mission, with the signature of our Consul protector, the declaration of his free state. The most shameful greed is the only reason why slavery still exists; and it is a great obstacle to the exercise of the apostolic ministry. This does not make our work difficult among only Muslims, but also where we have stations, such as in Berber and in El Obeid.
[4958]
In Khartoum, missionary work is just as difficult; for we were obliged to found stations at a distance of twelve or fifteen days’ journey from one another because only at these distances does one find populations gathered in densely inhabited cities of fifty or a hundred thousand; otherwise one finds only isolated villages with few families who have settled in the barren mountains of the desert. Here one also comes across the natural apathy of the indigenous peoples who, according to the precept of Islam, must remain in ignorance, and corruption can thus be allowed to spread undisturbed.
[4959]
But all this does not succeed in demoralising the priest or the Catholic lay person; on the contrary, they must be deeply moved indeed at the sight of such a large population languishing in such wretchedness. With this great motivation he must feel he is ready to undertake anything to reach the sublime ideal he has set himself.
[4960]
The Cross is the seal of all God’s redeeming works, and therefore even if the regeneration of these peoples is arduous, the victory we shall win will be all the more glorious. And since nothing is impossible, these difficulties will not get the better of us at all; but our love for the redeemed will become ever more alive in us and so our concern for them will grow.
[4961]
When we have the necessary means to open the doors to families and gain their affection and esteem, our missionary will find here, too, a terrain he can cultivate, where his work will yield fruit.
[4962]
Although the Catholic missionary sees no results from his work among the Muslims whom he does all in his power to convert, he nevertheless has the opportunity to do great good among the Europeans who live with their families here and there in Berber, Khartoum and El Obeid and in the provinces that depend on them. Their numbers will probably increase substantially with trade which is continuing to develop, and because of the workers who are brought here. Among these too, formerly the missionary was badly hindered and yet did great good; and he also finds here a vast area in which to dispense spiritual benefits. With visits, advice and threats he obtains a great deal, and guarantees the unfortunates who fall ill an incomparable welcome in the mission hospital.
[4963]
Through the missionaries’ influence legitimate marriages are contracted instead of concubinage, and the black and Abyssinian concubines are instructed in the Catholic doctrine through the Sisters’ work. Ecclesial life is revived in many families where it had been dozing. How gratifying it is to see here many of those who were spurred by greed in their Catholic homeland to come to these distant African regions, returning to the sacraments of religion, united in fraternal equality with the new African converts, taking part in the liturgical celebrations and satisfying their hunger at the sources of salvation the heavenly Pastor makes accessible to them.
[4964]
However, apostolic activity is not limited merely to the good of the European population living among Muslims, but also extends to the schismatic Greeks and to the Copts who live there, equally neglected. Even if no good results have yet been achieved with them, we nonetheless have great hope for the future, especially in those places where they are not guided by priests and yet have a firm faith, so that even a Catholic missionary enjoys prestige and esteem among them. We must also make a few conquests for the Cross among the schismatic Greeks.
[4965]
However, among the slaves who are in the service of Muslim families, who by far exceed the number of the population and who, coming from pagan tribes are more easily inclined to abandon Islam, which they have often embraced because they were obliged to by their condition, the missionary finds an area of work which promises hopes of greater fruit than among the Muslims and schismatics.
[4966]
The adults would certainly return to inconstancy if they came into contact with their Muslim masters again. When the missionary receives them into the Catholic Religion, he must be careful that either they stay on the mission, or enter service with a Catholic family, or marry one of the African girls who have become Catholic and receive their formation in our Institutes. In this way they will be able to continue the craft they learned from us. Those who seek shelter on the Mission are considered as adopted children and provided with all they need for their moral education and material well-being. They learn how to read and write and to do useful manual work, but we do not subject them to greater demands. Moreover we leave their customs to them, as long as they conform with the Christian traditions and religion. Our greatest hopes are in these young people and they are a consolation to the heart of the missionary, who surrounds them with loving care.
[4967]
From my descriptions, you will clearly understand how the expenses of this apostolic work are necessarily high; this point must make a great contribution to crowning our work in these lands with success.
[4968]
a) The expenses of a missionary system which is the only one possible in these lands, and the only one with prospects of success, are considerable. Suitable buildings do not exist there, we are always forced to build in order to house all the mission staff and the young African boys and girls. During their formation we have to feed and clothe them, then the mission must find a place to settle them, as I have already said. One can easily realise that the total expenditure will increase on a par with our conversions.
[4969]
b) Since the localities are isolated, they often lack water and in the small Sudanese towns we have to bring everything from Europe and Cairo.
[4970]
c) What expenses are required by the Institutes of Verona and Cairo alone, the continuous expeditions, transportation, loss by negligence, the enormous distances, the up and down of exchange rates in various countries? I am therefore glad that in the Muslim districts of the Vicariate themselves, our African missionary work does not appear impossible, as it might to anyone who knew how little the missionary is favoured; but there are obstacles to be overcome there. If the missionary uses the precautions advised by experience, he does not find even the climate lethal.
[4971]
If one considers that two large establishments have been founded for the noviciate in Verona and two in Cairo, in addition to the house in Shellal and a large building in Berber, two in Khartoum, one in El Obeid, and in Malbes, and that we have also started to build two buildings in Jebel Nuba, and on our own land, it will be seen that we have seriously foreseen of all needs.
[4972]
Thanks be to God for everything, and may our generous benefactors be eternally rewarded for helping us in our sublime task with their donations and their fervent prayers, even if they could not contribute in any other way to our work for the triumph of the Catholic Church. The historical outline which I have prepared for them in which I have omitted many other things, is evidence that this work was born at the foot of the Cross and that it bears the seal of the adorable Cross which is why it becomes a work of God.
[4973]
The Saviour of the world made his marvellous conquests of souls with the strength of this Cross which felled paganism, demolished profane temples, threw the powers of hell into confusion, and, as Pope St Leo said, became the altar not of a single temple, but of the whole world. This Cross which started its flight from the summit of Golgotha and filled the universe with its power, was worshipped in the churches; in the royal cities with the greatest veneration; it came to be respected as an emblem on flags, and hoisted on the majestic masts of ships. It consecrated the foreheads of priests and crowned those of monarchs. On the breasts of heroes, it communicated enthusiasm. Land, sea and sky recognise the Cross, and it is honoured everywhere.
[4974]
The work of the Redemption was born and developed among sorrows and thorns, and for this reason shows an admirable development and a comforting and happy future. The Cross has the power to change Central Africa into a land of blessings and salvation. The Cross releases a virtue that is gentle and does not kill, which renews and descends on souls like a restorative dew; the Cross releases a great force, because the Nazarene, lifted up on the tree of the Cross, extending one hand to the East and the other to the West, gathers his chosen ones into the bosom of the Church from all over the world, and with his pierced hands, like another Samson, shakes the pillars of the temple where for so many centuries the power of evil was worshipped.
[4975]
On these ruins he planted the marvellous Cross which has attracted all things: “Si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad meipsum” (When I am raised from the earth, I will draw all things to myself).

+ Daniel Comboni


Translated from German.

[4976]
Laborious, 1. slow and continuous martyrdom because of the inevitable, raging fevers, the torrid climate, the unheard of deprivations.
[4977]
Difficult, attempts made by the Jesuits; Franciscans, brave German and Italian missionaries; either they withdrew or they succumbed on the spot: 2. because of the burning heat, because of the character of the infidels and the obstacles set in the way by Islam, and because, until now, the Holy See has been unable to organise this mission properly.
Austria contributed to the proper organisation of the Vicariate, etc., etc.

[4978]
The most unfortunate. Because, since the Church’s efforts to establish the Vicariate of Central Africa have failed until now, those peoples have groaned under the iron yoke of the devil and the greatest misery: it is the last to be called at the eleventh hour by the Owner. Unfortunate, not to speak of other adversities, because of the permanent state of slavery in which it groans, and because of the loathsome slave trade which is carried on there. Description of the slave trade.
[4979]
2. It is so because they were also the last to be called, which is why they have groaned for the longest time in the abyss, etc, more than all the other parts of the world.
Central Africa is the holiest mission, holy because of the exalted vocation of the missionaries and sisters destined for the Apostolate. They must always be ready to die: therefore, love of Christ, souls, etc.

[4980]
3. For the noble charity of the benefactors who make donations to such a holy and sublime cause. It is more praiseworthy to offer a florin to save a man’s life than to appease a poor person’s hunger.
[4981]
Humanitarian, it is a matter of turning primitives into men. Helping the most unhappy peoples in the world, deprived of all goods. Changing cannibals, Dahomey, into civilised persons. They are poor and suffer so many miseries that until now no king or nation has been able to relieve them.
[4982]
More glorious for the great Christian apostolic virtues, the missionaries’ spirit of sacrifice and denial, etc., without which they cannot resist and persevere in Africa, but have to leave. It is of course more glorious for a captain to take a great fortress than to take a village.
[4983]
4. more glorious because it is the Work of the century of civilisation. The King of the Belgians, international Leagues, all the world looks towards Africa, the glorious flag of Austria will flutter, etc., etc.
[4984]
5. More glorious for the great merits and the nobility and loftiness of the exquisite charity of the benefactors and Charitable Societies which help the largest most densely populated holy mission in the world.
[4985]
It is the neediest and most destitute, and therefore most deserves the benefactors’ charity, etc.
The most interesting mission.

[4986]
Now estimate, O Most Eminent Princes and distinguished Gentlemen, the extraordinary merits of your deceased predecessors, of Bishops Mechatur, Hurter, Dworzak, and especially of that champion Baron von Spens, etc. Estimate the merits of His Majesty, of the generous Bishops, Clergy and other Catholics who have contributed to maintaining life, etc. with such enlightenment.
Now it is to your credit to have continued the work of your Predecessors with constancy, despite the trials suffered by the apostolate of Central Africa and the decreasing donations due to the momentary lack of success, and because of the increased number of associations and the other extreme needs of the Church, of the Papacy and of the necessary Catholic Works in the empire, Oh! For the love of 100 million souls, add zeal, and give a great impetus to the development of this Marienverein, etc., etc.

[4987]
An Episcopal See in Partibus Infidelium of Armenia Minor in Asia, under the Metropolis of Seleucia from the fourth century when it was erected. It was a flourishing city and is situated on the boundaries of Cilicia, between Comana and the River Cidnus. This city, like several others, took the name of Claudius Caesar, son of Drusus, who had established many colonies in various parts of the Empire, but especially in the Levant. Six Bishops had their Sees there. The last Bishops in partibus are Mgr Gio. Gaetano Gius. Maria Gomez Portugal who was transferred on 23rd February 1831 by Gregory XVI to the Church of Mechoacan; and Antonio Maithenyi, the Camerunian Archdeacon created by the same Pontiff at the Consistory of 14th December 1840, and given as Auxiliary to the Archbishop of Strigonia, as can be seen from the proposals and acts of the Consistory.
[4988]
CLAUDIOPOLIS
Franciscus Latoni
SS.mi Auditor

Pro R.D. Daniele Comboni Vicario Ap.lico Africae C.is Titulus Episcopalis Ecclesiae in Partibus Infidelium
Claudiopolis Civitas Asiae in Armenia minori et confinio Ciliciae sub Archiepiscopo Seleuciensi vacat per translationem R.P.D. Ildephonsi Infante et Macias ad Sedem Cathedralem S. Christophori de Laguna.