Writings

[5300]
I read in the Catholic Annals that the new schism of the Eupelian Armenians which has broken out in the East because of the declaration of infallibility, is going backwards like the old Catholicism in Germany, while it is revealing its own weakness and its ranks are thinning out. Who could think it possible that Eupelians should be found even in Central Africa, and that these unfaithful sectarians should have extended their tentacles so far? The following case provides proof that the Heart of Jesus, the Patron of Central Africa, does not want to tolerate this sect here, and can overcome it.
[5301]
In 1874 a devout, rich trader of Aleppo died in my arms. In his will, which he made in my presence just before he died, he named the Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, Mgr Gregorio Balitian, as the executor of his will for his affairs, and I myself sent the copy of it and a sealed letter with full rights to this most worthy Archbishop. Since the latter was authorised by the maker of the will to settle his debts in Aleppo with this inheritance, what did the Eupelian party do now? By underhand means it won over the credulous members of the family to the idea that after the Archbishop’s appointment as executor of the will, the family would receive nothing from the inheritance, and the faithful, everything.
[5302]
They therefore started legal proceedings at the Turkish-Egyptian court to annul the Archbishop’s appointment, so that the family could receive a few thousand pounds more. But the will obliged the Archbishop, as its executor, first to settle all the debts and then to leave the remainder to the father, mother, brothers and sisters. I do not know whether the members of the family came to an agreement with this plan of the Eupelians; nonetheless some of them agreed to cut themselves off from the legitimate Armenian Patriarch Hassun on specific conditions, and the acceptance of the schism was made. A long trial started at the court and one of the brothers of the deceased was sent to Khartoum to assess the credit of his deceased brother.
[5303]
In Cairo, he gave up obeying the legitimate Patriarch Hassun and was received with full solemnity into the sect of the Eupelians by the rebel priest Serafino, their leader in Cairo.
[5304]
His Excellency Mgr Gregorio Balitian told me about his dispute in the trial against the Eupelians in a letter of 8th April this year and informed me that one of the brothers of the deceased was in Khartoum for the reasons mentioned above.
[5305]
After this, I immediately had Signor Giorgio summoned (this was the name of the brother of the deceased), and in two or three conversations with him I succeeded in convincing him of his error without much effort; he then abjured it and promised obedience until death to the legitimate Patriarch who had been appointed by the Holy See. I did not find it excessively difficult to bring him to this point; given that he had received a Christian education from his parents, he had always adhered to the true faith, and always received the Blessed Sacraments with devotion until the moment when he had joined the Eupelians.
[5306]
The Egyptian courts, after precise investigations, stated that the question of the will was unexceptionable and in order, and that its legitimate executor was the Archbishop; and they then offered sound opinions and showed more good sense than the sectarians; and the family members who belonged to the sect were condemned to settling the costs.
[5307]
On 28th July, last Sunday, Signor Giorgio fell seriously ill with typhoid fever and sent for me to hear his general confession. He made it with extraordinary repentance and said aloud: “I want to die as a genuine and true Roman Catholic Christian, as a Hassunite. I detest the sect of the Eupelians, which I only joined for worldly interests. I want to die a good Catholic, as I was born!” The day before yesterday after he had received the Sacraments and the papal blessing, during which he showed deep piety, he passed on to eternal peace. That very evening the funeral offices were celebrated for him in our church, and accompanied by priests, he was taken for burial to the European colony’s cemetery.


Conversion of three Abyssinian Muslims

[5308]
The Catholic Church recently celebrated a triumph over Islam in Khartoum, during the Novena of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in mid-June, about which I want to send an account to the members of our Society, to prove to them that our holy work is a work of God, although it functions in the midst of afflictions, desires and thorns. The ways of divine Providence are marvellous and beneficial, especially when it is a matter of the salvation of souls and the call to the faith.
[5309]
Last year a rich schismatic Greek merchant of Smyrna died in Kadaref in the great Province of Taka on the Abyssinian border, which is part of my jurisdiction. He was a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Five or six years ago he had purchased, one after another, three young Abyssinian girls with whom he lived in concubinage. By one of them he had three children, two girls and a boy. All three slaves lived in sisterly union with one another, and faithfully served their master by whom they were well treated.
[5310]
After the man’s death, the Austro-Hungarian Consul received the order from Egypt to go to Kadaref and to settle the inheritance. He went there immediately and sent the legal heirs in Smyrna the money obtained from the sale of the furniture, properties and goods, etc. He gave letters of freedom to the male and female slaves and, to the slave who was the mother of the three children, he himself gave ample provisions for their sustenance and even let her keep the trinkets her master had given her. He later also commended her warmly to the heirs in Smyrna and then returned to Khartoum. The three slave girls lived on these provisions for as long as they could, then they sold everything. When at last they too felt the effects of the famine, when every source of help was exhausted and they could no longer survive in Kadaref, they came to Khartoum to obtain help from the Consul. He promised to engage himself in seeking their release from the heirs and sent them to the Catholic mission, where they could ask for protection. He went to see the mission Superior about this matter and discussed it with him.
[5311]
However, since all three were Muslim and had lived as such in the Greek man’s house, one of them cried with contempt: “I shall never go to those Christian dogs”. But the Heart of Jesus repaid this offence to Christianity in a manner worthy of the Redeemer of humanity, as did the Virgin Mary as Mother and Refuge of sinners. For it was indeed precisely there that God’s mercy and Mary’s protection awaited them and transformed those three sinners into joyful heirs of heaven through a miracle of divine grace.
[5312]
They wandered about Khartoum for a few days and knocked imploringly at the doors of the homes of various Muslims. But the state of famine in those places and the fact that they had been in contact with Christians and that the children were a Christian’s caused them to be sent away without help. Then the good Angel led them to the place of their salvation. They presented themselves at the mission and the Superior, who had been told about them by the Consul, showed them into a large room and gave them eight piastres (Khorda) a day, that is, 35 centimes. Good Sr Germana Assuad of Aleppo who was carrying out a true apostolic activity in Africa, took care of them. This Sr Germana also had a special feeling, as regards the slave girls, for these three who had lived in a shameful relationship with their master; she led them back to virtue and arranged for them to live in some family as domestics.
[5313]
In 1873, unbeknown to me, she had the concubine, whom he had owned for about 2 years, removed from a gentleman compatriot of hers. This gentlemen from Aleppo came to me to claim back his slave girl. I told him to refer to Sr Germana for this matter. But he was unable to achieve anything because his slave told him clearly that she was mistress of her own will, and wanted to become a Christian. So he turned to the Governor of Khartoum who advised him to go to the Superior of the Christian Religion in Khartoum.
[5314]
But since it was I who held this office, he was obliged to hear from me that I protect the freedom of individuals who are under my jurisdiction. Finally he calmed down and shortly afterwards went to our church to celebrate Christian marriage with another girl. His former slave was baptised by me. She is one of the most devout Catholics in the Vicariate, and receives the Sacraments with deep devotion. She now serves the Sisters, the Devout Mothers of Africa, in Berber and leads an exemplary Christian life.
[5315]
Sr Germana therefore took motherly care of these three slave girls, and paid no attention to their aversion to becoming Christian. In the end, the grace of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary was triumphant; they asked to become Christian and accepted in good part the instruction in the Catechism they were taught by Sr Germana and another African sister from the Mazza Institute, to prepare them for Baptism.
[5316]
I knew all three, especially the one who was the mother of the three children, because she had strongly recommended her children to me and had asked protection for them from the Consul through my good offices. Apart from her brown colouring, she was endowed with the greatest physical and spiritual gifts. She demonstrated a rich soul and extremely apt discernment; moreover she displayed a strong character and a propensity for good. But now to conclude.
[5317]
In mid-June this year, one of these slave girls was stricken by smallpox, and since the disease took a violent turn for the worse, she asked for Baptism, which was immediately administered to her, as well as for Holy Confirmation, so that after receiving these holy Sacraments with great joy, content with her death, she flew to heaven. In the meantime, the mother of the children also fell ill with the same disease and she too requested Holy Baptism, which I administered to her together with Confirmation. On the point of death, she begged me to look after her son as a true father, and asked Sr Germana to be a mother to her daughters, with the express wish that the three children become Catholic Christians. Two days after the death of the first, she also died and her soul flew to heaven to reach eternal life.
[5318]
The third, who had nursed the other two, also fell ill. She too received the Sacraments, and after excruciating pain which she bore with a heroic soul, gave up her spirit, strengthened and comforted by our faith, to join her companions who had preceded her. Touched by divine grace, these three slaves became heirs of heaven after only a few days spent in peace, having lived for several years in sin, indulging in their passions. The three children stayed in the orphanage of Khartoum.
[5319]
Oh! How marvellous are the ways of Providence!
As far as man can remember, no missionary has ever been to Kadaref. Neither Fr Ryllo, nor Dr Ignazio Knoblecher, nor the Franciscans sent any missionaries to Kadaref. Perhaps Kadaref had not seen a single Catholic priest since the time of the schism of Dioscorus of Alexandria in the 4th century, which spread to all the ancient kingdoms of Ethiopia.
But the Heart of Jesus wanted to save these souls whom he caused to leave Kadaref to find eternal salvation in Khartoum. Praise and honour be to the Heart of Jesus who is so merciful and who brought about the salvation of these souls, amongst the most abandoned on earth.

[5320]
The conversion of these souls who came from the province and city of Kadaref was probably the reason why, this year, a new mission is being founded in the city and province of Kadaref, on the Abyssinian border. Indeed, because of the children of the deceased, I had various discussions with a Greek merchant from Epyrus, in defence of their interests.
[5321]
He is called Giorgio Toma, and he showed me how important and useful a mission on the Blue Nile would be; and he offered me his home free of charge for a few years, to house the two missionaries who would research the viability of the idea. I accepted his offer and on 15th July this year, I sent Fr Gennaro Martini, who had formerly been in Jebel Nuba, to Kadaref, to find out about the situation in the whole of that area and to see whether a new mission there would be advisable and advantageous.

+ Daniel Comboni


Translated from German.

[5322]
The terrible famine which is devastating my Vicariate and the enormous efforts and illnesses together with the continuously stifling and exhausting climate have prevented me from undertaking a regular correspondence with the Holy Childhood, from which I hope for substantial aid for my exhausting and arduous Mission.
But you are very familiar, Monsignor, with the special circumstances of the various Missions in the Catholic world, and you know very well that the Mission of Central Africa (like that of Equatorial Africa which, I hope successfully, the good and zealous missionaries of Algiers are about to undertake) is the most difficult in the world.

[5323]
It is always necessary to fight, in addition to the other difficulties of the other Missions, with illnesses, fevers that are inevitable for Europeans as well as for the local people, with a burning hot and oppressive climate, so that one has to work constantly under the burden of a slow martyrdom: this is the truth of our situation.
But we are prepared for all this; putting our full trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, we are always prepared to die and to bear all the crosses, in order to succeed in winning these souls for Jesus Christ.

[5324]
There is yet another difficulty: slavery and the trade in Africans which the Muslim races have always exercised and still exercise today; they have decimated the African peoples, so that we have to travel far afield and face every danger to find where African peoples are gathered. This is one of the worst causes of our problems and increases them. However, if we are helped by the charity of our benefactors of the Holy Childhood and the Propagation of the Faith, we will resist all the difficulties, we will never draw back in the face of obstacles, and when God pleases, we shall reach our great goal.
[5325]
My journey from Cairo to Khartoum with my numerous caravan was very long and tiring. Since many of the camels died of hunger because of the lack and the scarcity of the rains last year, I had great difficulty in finding camels to cross the great Atmur Desert with my personnel. I was obliged to divide the caravan in two, one part to transport the personnel across the Atmur, the other for the provisions, which I had cross the desert in the kingdom of Dongola.
The latter reached Khartoum in the month of June, 125 days after leaving Cairo. The former, which I led myself with the personnel, arrived in mid-April, 77 days after leaving Cairo. We travelled 17 hours a day, in a temperature of 58 degrees. We arrived exhausted by our efforts.

[5326]
I found a distressing famine and an extreme shortage which had been devastating Central Africa for seven months. Further, this famine and this lack of everything has continued to increase and has assumed colossal dimensions. There is no more wheat bread. The last lot we bought for 124 francs the ardeb (88 kilos); at the moment it cannot be found at any price. Durrah (maize) which last year cost from 6 to 7 francs the ardeb now costs from 58 to 75 francs. Meat, eggs and every other essential item costs from 12 to 18 times more than normal.
In the kingdom of Kordofan, where we have three institutes, the good Sisters of St Joseph have to make enormous efforts to find dirty, brackish water at three francs the borma (a jug of 4 litres).

[5327]
A Sister sets out at 4.00 a.m., with some of the orphans, for the distant wells (ours are dry) and she often has to wait until midday to have some dirty water for drinking, cooking and washing (at the moment the laundry has not been done for more than 6 months), at a price which is higher than wine in France. Hundreds and thousands of villages have been abandoned by the starving and thirsty population. They are dying like flies on the streets.
One of the consequences of the famine is the multitude of contagious diseases and, especially, a sudden fever which kills in half an hour.

[5328]
One of our lay people from Rome and a missionary priest died in this way. Here I have not yet seen mothers or fathers who eat their children or anyone eating the dead, but it happens that the results of the famine end by affecting the Mission and jeopardising its existence, for with food so dear, in addition to relieving extreme wretchedness among the Christians and many Muslim families, we must also feed and preserve our Institutes; this is why not only have we depleted all our resources, but we are obliged to run up debts, and the debts continue to increase, to save from perishing the Mission which has cost me so many sacrifices and has such special importance.
After receiving the last funds from the Propagation of the Faith in July, I am left without a penny in the cash box and with more than 40,000 francs of debt. In addition to all this are the illnesses, the immense heat, and weakness and lack of appetite; in three months, I have not slept more than one hour in 24.

[5329]
But if our flesh is weak, our spirit is always willing. I shall stay at my post until death, since there is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of Mary and of Joseph and the work is God’s; this work, born at the foot of Calvary, will survive all the difficulties to reach fulfilment. Oh, the infant Jesus never grows old, he is ever young and vigorous, and never dies!
[5330]
We have baptised about thirty children at death’s door, we have taken many into our Institutes. We have only just begun to organise the work of the Holy Childhood, but it will progress as we are able to reinforce our Stations in the nomadic areas. We have celebrated many Catholic marriages which were formerly concubinage; we have baptised some adults after a long trial-period, and I shall be baptising about twenty on the feast of the Assumption.
[5331]
You must realise that the Mission is in early days. We have many catechumens, but it is essential to think carefully about assuring ourselves of their perseverance, because of the uncertainty of their future, as they are in great danger among Muslims. The places where they will attract entire peoples is where fetishism prevails, where there are no Muslims (such as the Mission of Jebel Nuba), but there too time is necessary, because of the dangers of public security and because of the quantity of superstitions there; consequently, before undertaking ordinary preaching, it is necessary to learn languages which are always unknown, and to do this we have neither grammar books, nor dictionaries, nor teachers. We have to make use of the Africans themselves, and by our efforts and hard work guess the meaning, the conjugations, the tenses, etc.
[5332]
It is a colossal task and we are subjected to fevers, illnesses, extreme weakness through loss of appetite, efforts and the lack of sleep for at least six months a year. This is not usual in the other Missions. Thus, in other Missions there are grammars, dictionaries, wise persons, etc. Here everything is primitive, it will take years to organise a normal apostolate. Great perseverance, self-denial and a spirit of sacrifice are therefore required, and God will always give them to us. I will certainly send you the details of our apostolate. For the moment these notions suffice.
So I beg you with tears in my eyes to continue not only the aid you granted me last year, but further to add a substantial donation, given the grievous circumstances of our current plight.

[5333]
Last year to send me the 5,000 francs which your generosity granted to me, you used the General of the Trinitarians of Rome in Via Condotti. I do not know what you have done this year, but I beg you to send me the Holy Childhood’s contribution through Fr Bartolomeo Rolleri, Superior of my Institutes for Africans in Cairo, in Egypt. This is the way the Propagation of the Faith uses, and it is the safest. Moreover, should you send me a bill of exchange on a Paris banker, I can also use it even here in Khartoum where there is a French trader who has relations with all the banks in Europe.
[5334]
Last year your kind secretary granted me the Annals of the Holy Childhood up to October; I am missing Annals 179, 180 and the subsequent issues, that is, from December 1877 until today. I beg you, Monsignor, have the kindness to send them to me either to Cairo, to my Institute, or here in Khartoum (via Egypt).
[5335]
Leaving aside other news for the present, to show you the marvels of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of God’s Providence, ever loving for the salvation of the most abandoned souls, I shall tell you about the conversion of five Muslims and of the wonderful ways in which God called them to the Church. You know that the conversion of Muslims is impossible. You know the dearth of Muslim conversions in the East, where for so many centuries so many Missions, Bishops, Missionaries, members of religious Orders, of the Daughters of Charity and of Catholic populations of all rites have been present. Well, the conversion of a Muslim is very rare. An old canon of Algiers who lived in Algeria for 38 years told me in Rome in 1872 that he had never seen a Muslim converted.
[5336]
In the months of May and June this year I baptised five Muslims, two men and three women concubines. But the two young men did not receive this grace through our merit: it was all due to the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Cairo, and perhaps without their realising it; and the conversion of the three Muslim concubines who were three fortunate robbers of heaven, was due to the merit of the existence of the Khartoum Mission and of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition, in particular of an oriental Sister from Aleppo called Sr Germana Assuad who has worked for seven years in my Work, and brought into the heart of the Church many concubines who have become good and most exemplary Christians. Here are the facts in a few words.
[5337]
For six or seven years two young Muslims from Dongola had been in the service of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Cairo as domestics, serving at table and in the students’dormitories. One earned 30 and the other 35 francs a month. These domestics, enlightened by divine grace, gradually came to notice and admire the charity and piety, the order and joy that prevail in that house and, above all, the precise observance of the Rule of the Venerable La Salle (whom we shall soon be venerating on the altars, as I heard from the lips of Pius IX), which is characteristic of all the Brothers’ houses. They were particularly impressed by the singing in the chapel, by the Brothers’ prayers both in the institute and in the countryside, and by the diligent and persevering charity to children and to everyone.
[5338]
Little by little these two boys, cousins, came to the conclusion that the Church and chapel of the Christians were better than mosques, that the practices of the Catholic faith are more moving than those of Islam, that the Gospel must be truer than the Koran and little by little, in their hearts they came to believe that the customs of the Brothers were purer and more perfect than the customs of the Mufti and Ulema and lastly, that Catholics like the Brothers are better, more perfect, more just and more impartial than Muslims.
[5339]
Finally they concluded that the Brothers’ religion was more beautiful and truer than the Muslim religion. They pondered over all this in their minds without one another’s knowledge, and gradually, over a few years. It was the grace of the Heart of Jesus, for which the Brothers have so deep a devotion, which prepared these two souls for salvation. At last they slowly reached the conclusion that Catholicism is the true faith and that the Muslim faith is false. Ever faithful to their service, they attempted to learn the Church’s prayers and, I do not know how. they became acquainted with the substance of the Catholic catechism.
At last, when they joined my Mission as catechumens, they were already Catholic at heart and detested Islam, believing it to be a false religion. I personally examined them thoroughly, with care, delicately sounding out their minds, and I realised that divine grace had completely invaded their hearts.

[5340]
Their lives, their customs, their sincerity (for Muslims always tell lies), their purity and their love for God and for the faith impressed me, so that, although their parents were still alive and not far from here, I thought I ought not to delay the grace of baptism which I solemnly conferred on them here in Khartoum, at the beginning of last May.
[5341]
The apostolate of the Brothers of the Venerable La Salle in the East is the soundest and the most effective. From their schools, with the eloquence of their good example and the virtues proper to the members of this admirable Congregation, which is the most perfect and the greatest and the most deserving of the Catholic Church for young people; this marvellous, silent apostolate of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, I was saying, is preparing the East for its future regeneration and its return to the Catholic Church.
May God bless these admirable Brothers. My two neophytes were already converted when they left the Brothers’house. God’s grace had gradually produced its effects on them there. At the moment they are working in the Mission’s service, one here in Khartoum, and the other, in the kingdom of Kordofan.

[from §5342 to §5347 Comboni repeats the account of the conversion of the three Muslim concubines: see § 5308–5318].


[5348]

I leave it to you, Monsignor, to meditate on the charity of the Heart of Jesus and on Providence’s admirable paths for the salvation of the most abandoned souls, for whom it is impossible to enter Jesus Christ’s fold. They were born in the mountains of Abyssinia, were abducted and violently wrenched from their homeland by the traders and hunters of slaves and were sold in Kadaref. After the schism and the heresy of Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria who led Nubia and Ethiopia into error, no Catholic priests were sent to Kadaref. Even with the Greek merchant, their master, they were freely able to preserve Islam. Providence, who wanted to save these souls, led them out of their country as slaves, brought them together with a man protected by Austria, and led them to Khartoum where, in the Catholic mission, they found their God and their salvation.

[5349]

These events occur very often in my Vicariate, and God is preparing great blessings here.

I await your aid and Annals 179 and the subsequent ones with impatience; in our misery we pray for the Associates and for the President’s Council. We willingly accept all burdens and crosses for Jesus and for the salvation of Central Africa.
Please accept, Monsignor, my thanks and my eternal devotion, while I have the honour to remain
Your most devoted

+ Daniel Comboni,
Bishop of Claudiopolis i.p.i.
Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa


Translated from French.

[5350]
An excellent Catholic Slav, Mr Marco Zvitanovich, secretary of H.E. Emin Bey, Governor General of the White Nile and of the Equator, recently left Khartoum for Gondokoro. I gave him a letter in which I beg H.E. to use all his power to help the Missionaries of Algiers, who left Zanzibar recently for the new Missions on Lake Alberta and Lake Victoria, and also to recommend them to King M’tesa.
[5351]
I know, the Missionaries of Algiers have made the sacrifice of their lives in advance like true apostles; but foreseeing great difficulties for them, especially on the part of the English Protestant Missionaries, I thought it my duty to recommend them to Emin Bey, a very learned man and an able doctor, who has always shown me great sympathy.
[5352]
The “Missions Catholiques” has mentioned the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, established in Uganda, and of the massacre of two of them. Having found the Zanzibar route too dangerous, they are about to experiment with the other route, that of the White River, in order to penetrate to the Nyanza Lakes. Three months ago four missionaries of this Society left London for the Lakes via Suakin, Berber, Khartoum, Gondokoro and Dufile. They are Pearson, Lichtfield, Felkin and Hall, the last a doctor.
In Suakin, Dr Hall, discouraged at the sight of the desert he had to cross as far as Berber, fell ill and returned to England. The other three, who are practically boys, are here in Khartoum and will leave this evening with Zvitanovich on the steamer for Gondokoro. The Anglican mission of Uganda enjoys an annual income of 12,000 pounds sterling (300,000 francs).

Daniel Comboni


Translated from French.

[5353]
In the Annals of the Society for aid to poor African children, whose board of directors is based in Cologne, I read with interest that many benefactors have sent donations with the express wish that several saints’ names which they indicate precisely be given at the Baptism of the Africans.
[5354]
As far as possible this has been done. Since my entry into the Vicariate in the capacity of Bishop on 12th April, and particularly at the solemn feast of the Assumption of Mary this year, during which I had the joy and the fortune to baptise 16 adults, to date the newly baptised have been given the following names:
Pietro, to an African of about 17 years of age,
Pio, to an African of about 18 years of age,
Nicola, to an African of the same age,
Maddalena, to an African girl of 26 years,
Clara to an African girl of 16 years of age and
Filomena, to an African of almost 21 years of age,
Giovanni Nepomuceno and Agostino, to two African boys of 18 years of age,
Alberto to an African of 14 years of age and to another two of 14 years of age.

[5355]
All the names mentioned were given in accordance with the wishes of the “Marianthal” Convent of Lausitz. An offering from Hausterath near the church of Gelsen in the Archdiocese of Cologne was made for a child called “Biagio”; an 8-year old African child was baptised with this name.
[5356]
The names Ugo, Adolfo, Giuseppe and Gertrude were indicated by Kircheim, a place in the same Archdiocese. Three African boys and one African girl now have these names since their baptism. I also baptised an African girl of about 15 and called her “Anna Thienel” after a pious lady in Schwartawasser, in the Bohmen. In addition to all this, I cannot but express my heartfelt thanks to a priest from the same land, who belongs to the Diocese of Breslau in the Austrian region and who sent me his offering under the motto: “Your sadness will be transformed into joy”, showing a great and cordial participation in our difficult work; I added an urgent plea that he most fervently include me and Africa in his prayers.
All the other names indicated in the annual report will also be assigned as soon as possible when new converts are baptised.
With cordial greetings, I remain in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Yours devotedly

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic


Translated from German.

[5357]
This time I have taken longer than usual to write because I have greatly suffered, struggled and worked. I felt deep anguish at the sudden loss of a young and robust missionary, Fr Policarpo from the Tyrol, from a rapid, mortal attack of typhoid fever. After a few days of merely feeling unwell, he was suddenly overcome by a sudden attack of typhoid and died in less than half an hour, barely allowing me the time to give him the sacraments. Sixteen days before, the same fate had befallen my butler or manservant whom I had brought with me from Rome to make him an excellent catechist: he was young and healthy, about 16. Lastly, the Superior of the Sisters of St Joseph in Kordofan, Sr Arsenia Le Floch, also died. She had been pious, good, judicious and full of love and zeal for souls. Her death greatly discouraged nearly all the Sisters of this Congregation who are in the Vicariate, and I was and remain most afflicted by it, both because I relied greatly on this Superior and because of the consequences I foresee, that is, that the said Congregation (of which I am very fond because it was the first to offer generous assistance, and because the Sisters possess extraordinary self-denial and charity) may become discouraged and get tired of sending Sisters to Africa.
[5358]
I have also suffered a great deal because my representative during my absence from the Vicariate, Canon Pasquale Fiore who, due to the famine, and also of course because of not being an expert administrator, having accumulated 46,472 francs of debt without letting me know, asked, insisted and obtained my permission to return to Trani because of his mother, just at the time when I most needed his assistance. However, it is now 36 days since he left, and the mission is getting on better than before; and he told me that he would return to the Vicariate later. I have also suffered in spirit because of the persistent famine which, although we are beginning to have a good rainfall, has obliged me to run up new debts to maintain the mission and to relieve extreme cases of want. The problem is that the most essential items cost from ten to fifteen times their normal price, and at the moment most of them are completely lacking.
[5359]
Wheat bread has not been seen in Kordofan for two months and my oven is idle: we live on durrah, maregh, dokhon, etc. Since I have not purchased wheat for some time, I have not been concerned with the price. Now Cavaliere Hansal, the Imperial Royal Austrian-Hungarian Consul in Khartoum tells me that wheat, which used to cost from four to six scudi the ardeb (a sack of 88 kilos) is now being bought for seventy two scudi; and durrah (the local maize) for which I formerly paid one scudo an ardeb, and which is the staple food of our students and orphans, etc. who are more than a hundred here in the mission, is bought for 24 scudi. Your Eminence can now imagine the difficulties in which I find myself, having no money and having to keep the Missions in the Vicariate, the small establishments in Egypt and the two in Verona, with the astronomical prices of essential foods.
[5360]
I have never heard here that parents are eating their children or that the corpses of the dead are being eaten, as happens in China and in the Indies according to Missions Catholiques: but the poor are dying in hundreds like flies: the nation of the Berberins or Barabras (Dongolese) has been decimated by hunger and typhoid; in Kordofan thousands have died of thirst, etc., etc. Nonetheless, thank God, the missionaries, the Sisters, the coadjutor brothers and all the members of the Mission never lack what they need. However, having depleted all the resources just received from Lyons, Cologne and Vienna, I have no money in my pocket and debts of more than 300,000 francs. Oh! What shall I do to keep on going, to maintain the whole Vicariate, the Mother Houses in Verona and the houses in Egypt?
[5361]
This, O Most Eminent Prince, is my last concern, and which does not in the least disturb me. My late Superior, Fr Nicola Mazza, who was a father to me for 24 years from when I was a boy and who died a holy death, always used to say that Christ is a gentleman. I have always interpreted this to mean that, as surely as a note comes from a piano when you touch a key, so if you say and repeat the petite, quaerite, pulsate with the proper conditions, there always comes the accipietis, invenietis, et aperietur. Let the world prattle, as it will, this is a real truth. Now on 12th May, the feast of my Bursar, St Joseph, and a day sacred to him as our patron, I told him clearly that by 31st December next he must let me have 100,000 francs in several instalments. If God spares us, Your Eminence will receive the official report that St Joseph has let me have the money.
[5362]
Further, I told him that within a year (that is, by 12th May 1879), he should let me have the true, real and complete payment of all the debts of the Vicariate. I don’t mean anything like the much vaunted but never attained balancing of the books offered by the financiers of the so-called Kingdom of Italy. What I mean is a real extinction of every debt whatsoever, together with a generous credit to support the Vicariate and its activities. Your Eminence will receive a regular report of all this if I am alive, by the dear month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus next year. Crosses, afflictions and tribulations are necessary and they strengthen the works of God and cause them to flourish: and my Work is a Work of God.
[5363]
Although all this is true and although I am certain that everything will happen as I have said, I cannot hide the fact that I have suffered a great deal on account of all the difficulties I have described. My soul was and is torn. I have suffered deeply, and I myself have struggled with the many illnesses and infirmities with which I and my other missionaries have been afflicted: now I am a little better. But I spent three months in great suffering; every time I was called to the refectory, I felt as though I were going to my death. For three months, in addition to a terrible lack of appetite, I was so extremely weak that I did not have the breath to stand up and keep on my feet for half an hour to say Mass, although I made great efforts and said it often. Furthermore, I only managed to sleep one hour in 24.
[5364]
All this was caused by the internal suffering and heart-wringing problems I have mentioned to you, and the suffocating climate, the great evils and miseries which I have seen and my sorrow at not being able to put them right as I should have liked.
In addition to everything else is the constant work which I have done despite my spiritual and physical ailments, in directing both the Vicariate and all the Stations, and settling the contradictions which my above-mentioned representative, Canon D. Pasquale Fiore, had had with the local Government, which while I was in Rome provoked Gordon Pasha’s recourse to the Holy See to which your Most Reverend Eminence, as Secretary of State, responded on the Holy Father’s behalf. I have also had to act as catechist, Parish Priest, assist the sick, and fulfil the other functions of the Priestly ministry.

[5365]
On top of all this, comes my lively and diligent correspondence with Europe, keeping up my many personal relations to obtain material donations, to encourage the fearful, the weak and the lazy, and to make a good impression on my sweetest Bursar, St Joseph, so that he sends me the 100,000 francs in the proper time and obtains the perfect and real extinction of all debts for me, as I have implored him.
[5366]
I am grateful to the divine bounty of the faithful and powerful assistance given by my dear and saintly confrère who is my right arm, Fr Antonio Squaranti, my General Administrator of the temporal goods of the whole Work, who is always beside me and whom I had the honour of presenting to Your Eminence in the Vatican. He begs me to convey his respects to Your Eminence, to Monsignor your Secretary, to the good and excellent minute-writer, Zitelli, and to His Eminence Cardinal Franchi, Secretary of State.
[5367]
Now that I have told you of a good many of the crosses that have afflicted my spirit, and declaring myself ever ready and willing to suffer for Christ and for the salvation of the neediest and most abandoned souls in the world, may I briefly mention to Your Most Reverend Eminence the blessings of God and his grace, which reward the missionary’s heart twice a thousandfold for the crosses and afflictions which he has suffered in order to do his duty.
[5368]
After my arrival in the Vicariate, in addition to what I have told you about the three concubines of Kadaref with a child, gained by the marvellous ways of divine Providence for the Church and for heaven, I solemnly conferred baptism on three other concubines who for many years had lived in concubinage with three Catholic merchants, full of vices and virtues, who were here for their business. I was wonderfully helped by the Arab Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. Also with the full consent of their paramours, Christian marriage followed their solemn baptism, and with it the legitimisation of their progeny. Now another three concubines are taking a course of instruction with the consent of their billy-goats, who in the midst of their madness have kept alive a spark of that faith into which they were born in Syria; and I hope that everything will be ready for Our Lady’s feast in September.
[5369]
Thus, while when I arrived in the Sudan as Pro-Vicar Apostolic I did not find a single union living legitimately and all the others were living in concubinage, now there are only five couples living in concubinage, two of whom are European Freemasons, and one Egyptian. We have fought; we also had good hopes of them: but we continue. We shall go on fighting. Moreover, all the others have been settled in a Catholic way, and go to church, and I am happy about it.
[5370]
I received the abjuration of a well-off Greek heretical merchant, our creditor. The contact he had with the mission and with the good Sisters, also due to his health, was the spark that enlightened him. I supported and encouraged him and he yielded to grace. To preserve the good opinion he had of the Catholic Church, two months after his abjuration, as soon as I could, I paid him off completely.
[5371]
I do not know whether I mentioned to you in my last letter the conversion and solemn baptism I administered to two adult Muslims who are now model Catholics. But the whole merit of these illuminating conversions is due to the Brothers of the Christian Schools of Cairo, whom these two fortunate ones served for six years, and it was there that they received God’s enlightenment and grace. I only fostered and gradually developed these gifts; and they responded faithfully to his grace.
In Kordofan too, six adults were baptised, some of whom have taken Catholic wives, and in Jebel Nuba baptism has been conferred on eleven individuals.

[5372]
On the feast of the Assumption last week, here in Khartoum I solemnly conferred Baptism and Confirmation on sixteen adults, nine males and seven females. It was a holy and great joy to us. Dressed in pontifical vestments at the sacred ceremony, before pouring the baptismal water on them, I asked each publicly in Arabic if he was truly determined in his resolution to be Christian: those present were deeply moved by some of their responses.
[5373]
Others are being prepared. But my system is to proceed very cautiously, because of the special danger that in order to earn their bread here they must serve Muslims. I generally succeed in assuring myself that converts can be certain of preserving their faith before I admit them to Baptism. These dangers disappear in countries where there are no Muslims or where Islam is detested, such as among the Nuba peoples, etc. Missionaries still have another colossal task to undertake there: that is, the compilation of dictionaries and grammars of those new languages, which requires much time.
[5374]
I received your venerable letters of 1st June and of 16th July; and I realised that to paralyse the efforts of the Anglican Protestants, Propaganda authorised the good Missionaries of Algiers to spread their activity to Equatorial Africa, and I was very glad about this, because it seems precisely that Providence is preparing all the ways to call Central Africa to the Faith. I will send Your Eminence the detailed and logical Report which I promised you, as you warmly recommended in your letter of 1st June. But since I am sure that the Sacred Congregation will not address the definitive establishment of the planned Prefectures Apostolic of Equatorial Africa in a full general meeting of the Most Eminent and Reverend Fathers until it has received formal notification of the results of the preliminary explorations in those territories of the above-mentioned Missionaries of Algiers, I therefore have time to think out my observations and studies on this topic. I will of course always be pleased to follow the decisions of the Sacred Congregation, because I want to to live and die in obedience to the divine will alone.
[5375]
Meanwhile it will be my task to say and to have said many assiduous prayers for the successful outcome of the expeditions of those good Missionaries of Algiers, who were found by the most devout Prefect Apostolic of Zanzibar, venerable Fr Horner, to be motivated by the true Spirit of God, to be ready to die for Christ and to bear all the immense efforts and deprivations which are inevitable in the Apostolate of Central and Equatorial Africa, and all the immense trials which are inevitable in these Missions, which I am convinced are the most laborious and difficult in the world. Therefore, since I was presented last July with an appropriate opportunity to be of use to the Missionaries of Algiers, I wrote a fervent and warm letter of recommendation to the Governor General of the White Nile and the Equator, the most learned and scholarly Emin Effendi, my friend and benefactor; and I warmly exhorted him to receive, protect and help the French missionaries sent to the Nyanza Lakes by my venerable confrère Mgr. Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, and to receive and treat them as he would receive and treat me myself and my missionaries and Sisters, and to recommend them warmly to the King of Uganda and that of Unyoro, and do for them whatever he would for me myself.
[5376]
Since the above-mentioned Governor General of the Egyptian possessions on the Equator sent his secretary, Mr Marco Zvitanovich from Dalmatia, to Khartoum, for business with His Excellency Gordon Pasha and to ask me for seeds and plants from my garden, as well as for two blacksmiths and carpenters for King M’tesa of Uganda, I gave him the letter of recommendation for Emin Effendi, with the seeds and plants (the two artisans later), and warmly recommended the above-mentioned missionaries also to him. He was supremely pleased and told me he would do for them what he would do for his own family.
[5377]
I was prompted to make these warm recommendations not only by my heartfelt, sincere and ardent desire for the success of the Missionaries of Algiers for the good of those unfortunate souls for whom Jesus Christ paid the price of his Blood, but especially because I have experienced here the obstacles those good missionaries will encounter with those Anglican Protestant ministers who have settled in the Kingdom of Uganda on Lake Victoria, who have a particular abhorrence for the Roman Church and Catholic priests. The well-equipped expedition made by the Church Missionary Society of London up to Nyanza Victoria, as is certainly known by Your Eminence, came to grief; since with the exception of the head, Dr Wilson, who took refuge with King M’tesa of Uganda, they all died, and two Missionaries, Smith and O’Neil, together with their escort of more than a hundred persons, were massacred on the Island of Ukerewe in Victoria, by its chief.
[5378]
The aforesaid Anglican Society was not to be put off by its disasters, and immediately sent another 4 (four) English Missionaries there via Suakin and Khartoum, that is, Dr Hall, Dr Felkin, Pearson and Litchfield. When the former arrived in Suakin he fell ill, and terrified by the desert which it takes 14 days to cross to reach Berber, he returned to London, while the other 3 continued, equipped with recommendations to the Government. When they reached Berber, the Governor there sent an official to the Superior of our mission, begging him to allow the three English gentlemen to stay at the home of the deceased Madame Lafargue (who died a Catholic death after receiving the sacraments from our hands), of which we have the custody and the keys.
[5379]
At the Governor’s invitation, the Superior took the keys and, with another missionary, accompanied those gentlemen to the house himself, showed them the rooms and the beds and put two servants, the caretakers, at their disposal, etc. Then those three gentlemen, turning to the Superior, asked him his name and profession. Hearing that he and his companion were Catholic missionaries, the three Englishmen immediately turned their backs on him, and did not speak to him again. They stayed in Berber 20 days, and never came to meet our people who treated them with such kindness. Even Muslims came to tell me: homma Aadákon (these are your enemies). They arrived in Khartoum, where the only grandiose monument of a European kind that exists in Sudan is the mission, which all foreigners come to visit. Well: those Protestant gentlemen (and they claim to be very tolerant and accuse Catholics of intolerance) who stayed ten days here, never came to the mission. I told all this to Gordon Pasha who replied that he too had noticed qu’ils n’ont pas de politesse.
[5380]
Now if they behaved like this with us who treated them kindly, how will they treat the Missionaries of Algiers, their rivals? The Secretary, Mr Zvitanovich, without telling them anything, came to tell me that if these gentlemen behaved again as they had here in Khartoum, he would make them disembark on the banks of the White Nile or send them back; and he repeated to me that he, instead, would do all he could for the Missionaries of Algiers and that he is very glad they are coming to Nyanza.
[5381]
This Secretary will take six elephants from Gondokoro to carry a steamer destined for Lake Victoria; there has been a steamer on Nyanza Albert since 1876, under the direction of Captain Gessi.
As I ask you for your holy blessing, I kiss the Sacred Purple and declare myself, with full submission and reverence,
Your Most Reverend Eminence’s most respectful and devoted son,

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop of Claudiopolis,
Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa