Writings

[5736]

I would very much like you to publish this short article in L’Osservatore Cattolico. It is arriving a little late, because I have been ill-treated by fever in Rome and in Naples: the result of my great efforts in Africa and of living under strain for at least fourteen months, during which I almost never slept one hour in twenty four.

[5737]

At the end of last June, the Eminent Cardinal di Canossa, Bishop of Verona, visited the Institute of the Devout Mothers of Africa in S. Maria in Organo, and after a warm and affectionate little talk, all aglow with charity, he blessed the crucifixes which he presented to two male Missionaries and five new Sisters, about to set out for the arduous and demanding missions in Central Africa. No words can describe the excitement and holy enthusiasm of those chosen virgins. Formed in Christ’s school, and taught sacrifice and the cross, they see the time has come to fulfil their heartfelt vows and give themselves up to the slow martyrdom of the thorny apostolate of Central Africa.

[5738]

But their joy brimmed over when after being welcomed with supreme kindness by the Most Eminent Cardinal Simeoni, General Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, by the most Excellent Secretary and venerable Officials of that distinguished Congregation which directs the spiritual order of almost four parts of the world, they were received at the Vatican and admitted to kiss the holiest feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, presented by me on the 3rd of this month of July, at 6.00 p.m.

[5739]

Among the details the Holy Father asked me about the institutions of the Devout Mothers of Africa in Verona, I had the pleasure to mention the joy these future spiritual Mothers of Central Africa felt in their hearts when I wrote to their Superior from Khartoum, with the order to inculcate in the novices that they are destined to be lambs for the slaughter, who must lead a life among hardships privations and in the burning heat, and must subject themselves to a slow martyrdom for love of Christ and to save those souls who are the neediest and most abandoned in the world.

[5740]

The Holy Father encouraged them in affectionate tones to persist and to remain steadfast in their holy vocation, and one by one he offered them his hands to kiss. He then blessed them, and with them the Institute of Verona and their sisters who had preceded them in an earlier expedition to the parched and scorching arenas of Central Africa; all alive and healthy, they are working with tireless zeal in the laborious mission of Khartoum and the kingdom of Kordofan.

[5741]

At midday on the fifth of this month, I saw them embarked in Naples on the French packet steamer for Egypt, and they have already arrived safe and sound at the Institutes for acclimatisation in Cairo. From there I shall lead them across the burning sands of the Atmur Desert to the central missions of Africa.

[5742]

Here are the names of this small apostolic caravan, composed of 6 members of the African Institutes of Verona:

1. Fr Giovanni Dichtl from the Diocese of Secovia in Styria
2. Fr Mattia Moron from the Diocese of Breslau
3. Bro Giuseppe Avesani, from Verona
4. Sr Amalia Andreis from S. Maria di Zevio, in the Diocese of Verona, Superior
5. Sr Maria Bertuzzi from Malcesine on Lake Garda
6. Sr Eulalia Pesavento from Montorio Veronese
7. Sr Maria Caprini from Negrar in Valpolicella
8. Sr Matilde Lombardi from Malcesine

I commend these chosen souls to your prayers, as I declare myself with all my heart
Your most affectionate friend,

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa

[5743]

Our most venerable and Eminent Cardinal Bishop of Verona went to S. Maria in Organis at the end of June last, to visit the Institute of the Devout Mothers of Africa; and after addressing warm and affectionate exhortations to the five Sisters who are about to leave for Africa, he blessed their Crucifixes and bade them farewell with those sublime and affectionate words which his magnanimous heart can inspire.

[5744]

The new caravan, composed of two Missionaries, a lay brother and the five Sisters mentioned below, left our Verona in the evening of 1st July; and in the morning of the 3rd was courteously received in Propaganda by the Most Eminent Cardinal Simeoni, General Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. With words of encouragement and fatherly affection, he urged the Missionaries and Sisters to keep firm and steadfast in their arduous and sublime vocation of the apostolate of Central Africa, which, said the Most Eminent Prince, is the harshest mission of the Catholic Church, and worthy of true martyrs of the Faith.
The Sisters were just as warmly welcomed by the Most Excellent Secretary, and by the deeply learned and venerable officials of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide.

[5745]

However, the most moving spectacle was to take place in the Vatican, when I had the honour of presenting the five Devout Mothers of Africa to his Holiness Leo XIII. The Holy Father wanted to know all the details of this new foundation of Sacred Virgins consecrated to the apostolate of Central Africa, which I briefly explained to him; and he highly commended the sublime Institution as well as its aim, and the generosity of these women of the Gospel in sacrificing themselves for the salvation of the neediest and most abandoned souls in the world.

[5746]

When I spoke to the Holy Father, using the language I customarily use in my correspondence with the Superior of the Devout Mothers of Africa in Verona when I write from Central Africa, ordering her to inculcate in the Novices that they are destined to be lambs for the slaughter, to embrace the harshest deprivations and sacrifices, and to suffer a slow martyrdom etc., etc., the Holy Father turned to the Sisters moved with tenderness, squeezed their right hands in which they were clasping the rosaries to be blessed, giving each his hand to kiss and congratulating them for the courage which divine grace had instilled in them. Exhorting them to persevere in their holy vocation and to die for Christ, he blessed the Verona Institute and the Missions of Central Africa, saying that he had taken this holy work very much to heart, and that it must generate the true faith in all the millions of souls who until now have been lying in the darkness of death.

[5747]

Finally, having obtained a free passage from Naples to Alexandria from the Government of the French Republic, on the 5th at midday the caravan from Verona sailed from the port of Naples and reached Cairo safely, to be acclimatised in my Egyptian establishments.
Here are the names of the small caravan from Verona:

[5748]

1. Rev. Giovanni Dichtl, a student of the Institute for African Missions in Verona, born in the Diocese of Secovia in Styria.
2. Fr Mattia Moron from Prussian Poland, from the same Institute.
3. Bro Giuseppe Avesani, from Verona.

[5749]
Sisters from the Institute of the Devout Mothers of Africa in Verona:
1. Sr Amalia Andreis from S. Maria di Zevio, Superior.
2. Sr Maria Bertuzzi from Malcesine.
3. Sr Eulalia Pesavento from Montorio.
4. Sr Maria Caprini from Negrar.
5. Sr Matilde Lombardi from Malcesine.

[5750]

This is the second expedition to Central Africa of Sisters from the African Institute in Verona.
I accompanied the first expedition in December 1877, and I took five to Central Africa; there, facing thousands of dangers, they are all fit and strong and working with tireless zeal, ready to die a hundred deaths for the salvation of those souls. Two of them are at the Principal Mission in Khartoum, that is:

Sr Teresa Grigolini from Mambrotta, Superior.
Sr Maria Giuseppa Scandola from Chiesanuova.

[5751]
Then, in the Mission of Kordofan, at the head of that great Establishment which I founded at the gates of Black Africa, there are:

1. Sr Vittoria Paganini from Asiago, Diocese of Padua, Superior.
2. Sr Concetta Corsi from Barletta.
3. Sr Marietta Caspi from Verona.

[5752]

Please request fervent prayers for this new-born Verona Institute, which is destined to create in Central Africa all the feminine works of the Catholic apostolate in Central Africa which are so abundant in Catholic Europe: God chose the weak things of this world to confound the strong etc., etc., as the Apostle said.
I am all yours
Most affectionately in the Lord,

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

[5753]

In my rapid visit to Verona, I found your most appreciated letter (I understood everything about that little angel, and I did according to your wise instructions), in which you kindly invited me to spend a day in Monteforte. It was most sensitive of your excellent kindness, and in another letter from Rome awaiting me, I received the various connections for reaching the high mountain of Pejo. However, since the Bishop of Piacenza, in accordance with my advice (we had agreed to leave together on the 20th of last month) had arrived a week before me, as I was not ready for the 20th and so as not to upset the pre-established plan, I continued my journey to Pejo with the idea of staying there briefly; because thinking about how best to set up the Verona Institute robs me of sleep.

[5754]

Nonetheless, I am very comforted by your fatherly suggestion of asking two Stigmatine Fathers to stand in at least until the Jesuits can come. In brief, with tears in my eyes I beg you to come to my rescue; and God will bless your Eminence and the Diocese of Verona. There are some excellent subjects in the female and male Institutes there; and I hope that God will set everything right.

[5755]

On Wednesday I shall leave Pejo with the Bishop of Piacenza and I hope to be in Verona by Thursday or Friday. If Your Eminence were to go to Verona, or were already in Verona now, wouldn’t it be a good plan discreetly to sound out the intentions of Fr Vignola, the Superior of the Stigmatines?… I want to form true apostles, and spurning every criticism, in this most important matter I am Jesuit and Stigmatine to my very fingertips.
I commend myself to your charity, and as I kiss your sacred purple, I declare myself
Your most devoted, affectionate son

+ Daniel Bishop.

[5756]
The Bishop of Piacenza sends you his heartfelt respects, as does Fr Luciano Rosa of Lonigo who is here.

[5757]

I have received your dear letter with the episcopal authorisation for the consecration. I have never heard from anyone that you might be contrary to this function: quite the opposite. In fact I believed, as I still believe, that you were the first to want it, because it is seemly to your bride. A certain person’s gossip (I did not hear even this) is so petty that it cannot reach our level.

[5758]

Now to do everything well (because it is a difficult ceremony which always meets with confusion) we must choose a leader who will conduct everything smoothly. We from Limone have the fortune to have one in our incomparable patriot, Fr Giovanni Bertanza. If I had to celebrate this august ceremony not in Limone but in Verona or Venice, I should summon Fr Giovanni to Verona or Venice to direct it; he has studied it several times and is continuing to study, to do it well. So let us put ourselves under him. So we really need to have a chat with him. Oh! How gladly I would drag myself to Dalco to spend a week there with my dear relatives! But my life is a life of sacrifice. The doctors in Rovereto and in Verona have ordered me to take arsenic baths in Roncegno: if I delay, the cold will set in there.

[5759]

Therefore you must be in Rovereto by Sunday evening. On the evening of the 17th and the morning of the 18th, you, Fr Giovanni and I will hold a decisive confabulation there on the matter, the form and the time.
So that is how it is arranged: I bless you, give Fr Luigi my greetings, and I remain your most affectionate

+ Daniel,
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

[5760]

Oh, what a large heart you have to have granted me a generous pardon for my blameworthy silence, which was not caused by lack of remembrance or affection but by bad health (not an hour passed that I did not think of you and pray for you, for Auguste and his dear wife). I arrived in Verona, I was ill; I was demolished by terrible fevers in Rome and in Naples (where I embarked five Sisters and two Missionaries for Egypt) and even in the high mountains of Pejo, in the Tyrol, where I went with the Bishop of Piacenza to drink the iron-rich waters. Smitten with fever I stopped in Verona, where the fever left me only after four days.

[5761]

The cause of it all are the enormous efforts and worries, the interior and exterior suffering of the whole year. I spent 14 months without ever being able to sleep a single hour in 24. I suffered everything: in a word, I assure you, Madame, that Job just sailed through joys and delights in comparison with me. He had more patience than I do, but I have suffered more than him.

[5762]

But however depleted I am by efforts, disappointments and so many losses and troubles, I feel as brave as a lion and have even more trust and hope in God since it was God who first visited Central Africa, in Propaganda’s opinion the most difficult and demanding Mission in the world. God’s Work must proceed on the royal road of the Cross and we must thank God. You, who are a woman of faith, will understand this language.
I had thought in Khartoum of describing to you the famine, the drought and the epidemic of Central Africa, showing that they were far more terrible and dreadful than those of China and India, but I couldn’t.

[5763]

I asked and obtained from His Holiness Leo XIII a special blessing for you and for the happiness of Augusto and Paolina, so that God will grant them children. Let us pray and trust in God. With all my heart I embrace my dear friend Augusto and I bless Madame Villeneuve and you with all my heart. I am infinitely grateful to you for your offer: I would gladly accept it, but there are difficulties.
At the moment the doctors have ordered me to go to the baths in Roncegno in the Tyrol; give me your news and continue to write to me in Verona. I thank you infinitely for the welcome you gave Bouchard in Paris; thank you for everything. My respects to Paolina’s most venerable mother, to all her Breton nephews and nieces, etc., etc., and I am and will be eternally
Your most devoted friend,

+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa.

Translated from French.

[5764]

I am tempted to leave Verona and rush to Dalco to spend a week with you all; but my doctors are against it, and tomorrow I am going to the baths of Roncegno with Fr Bertanza etc., and I hope afterwards to pass by Limone.
I send you my little wedding present, for your and my Teresina. It is a work in pure gold from Mussellemieh, made by a deaf-mute of El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan in Central Africa.
Remember that, come what may, we must spend at least a week together this autumn, possibly in Dalco. I prefer Dalco with my cousins to Paris and London with princes.
A kiss to Teresina, Beppino, Enrico, your Father and everyone from
Your most affectionate cousin

+ Daniel
Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

[5765]
I received here your revered letter of the 14th of this month, in which you question me about the Priest Carmino Loreto, who had the nerve to write to Your Eminence that I had suspended him a divinis and who left the mission for ill health, etc., etc.
[5766]

Since the doctors forbid me to do anything, I beg Your Most Reverend Eminence to grant me only three days to give you a detailed and conscientious answer regarding this ex-Dominican impostor, which is what the aforementioned Carmino Loreto is. He was expelled from that illustrious Order by the current exceedingly wise Vicar General of the Dominicans, the Very Reverend Father M. Giuseppe M. Sanvito. After having sneaked Sacred Ordination with three long years of simulated holiness, although he was the only one of the Missionaries who had never had any fever or illness, and despite his perfect health, in agreement with other Neapolitans he returned to Naples, after great expenses had been made for him by the mission.

[5767]

Although he has been back in Naples for about three months, he has never written to me; and therefore I have not written to him: far less have I suspended him a divinis, although he deserved it a thousand times.
The person who suspended him was the Archbishop of Naples (I therefore do not understand how Loreto’s petition came to be recommended by the Vicar General of Naples), prompted by a wise and most prudent decision of Mgr Salzano of the [Order of] Preachers, Archbishop of Edessa, who was once the protector of these young men, including Fr Carmino Loreto.

[5768]

In 3 days I will give you a satisfactory reply.
After leaving Rome I was shattered by fevers. With the Bishop of Piacenza I took the waters of Pejo in the Tyrolean mountains: but I was again racked with a fever which attacked me as violently as in Africa. Finally after a consultation with three distinguished medical professors it was decided to order me a treatment of arsenic waters and baths, an antidote to fever, in Roncegno here in Valsugana in the Trentino; and this remedy seems to me to be the crucial one that will cure me in the end.
In the certainty of giving you a report on what you asked me in three days, I kiss your Sacred Purple and declare myself
Your most devoted son,

+ Daniel Comboni Bishop

[5769]

I was extremely pleased that you remembered me on your express visiting card. It is the first time in 48 years that I have taken a radical cure; and it remained for you to hit on the precise radical remedy for the mysterious complication of causes that have been affecting my health. From the results of the 12 arsenic baths I have had in a week, it seems to me I have grounds for concluding that I shall obtain a real recovery of my health with your most wise prescriptions. Praised be to God, and to the most wise Dr Manfroni; and please accept my sincerest thanks and eternal gratitude, with a deep, constant and unchanging friendship with which I have the honour to call myself à jamais
Your most grateful and affectionate servant and friend


+ Daniel Comboni
Bishop of Claudiopolis
and Vicar apostolic of Central Africa

Please offer my affectionate respects to the most worthy and illustrious Prelate, Monsignor the Dean, and to his most worthy sister.