Category: Frontline

The Comboni Missionary Sisters have been in Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), since 1977. In the last two decades, however, the city became a symbol of grandiosity and extravaganza with its colossal and fanciful buildings. The discovery of oil in 1966, led to a massive influx of foreign workers, quickly expanding the city by 300% and bringing in international oil interests. Although Dubai’s economy was built on the oil industry, today its main revenues are from tourism, real estate, and financial services. Visitors are mostly impressed by its construction boom. The city’s skyline is dominated by skyscrapers and cranes. About 30,000, or 24% of the world’s 125,000 construction cranes, are currently operating in Dubai. Some areas of the thriving city seem to be a building yard. The expatriate workforce outnumbers the Emiratis. They are the ones sweating to put up the fanciful towers. But, Dubai’s ostentatious investments have so high a price. At the end of last year, the city’s property market experienced a major hiccup as a result of the worldwide economic downturn and it had to be helped by neighboring Abu Dhabi with $10 billion to pay off its debts.    Cultural and linguistic Babel The Sisters’ primary activity is in the sole city’s parish, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, served by Capuchin Fathers mainly from the Philippines, India and Lebanon. It caters to the spiritual needs of the many expatriates, especially from Asia. It is a sample of cultural and linguistic diversity. There are Masses and confessions in English, French, Arabic, Konkani, Malayalam, Malankara, Singhalese, Tamil, Tagalog and Urdu. The liturgical needs of all these national communities are sung by 28 choirs.  Sister Luciana Zonta, 68, is the superior of the versatile Comboni community. She arrived in Dubai in October 2007, after having served in Ethiopia and Eritrea for 13 years. Together with Sr. Josephine Martin, she is in charge of the Christian adult formation, particularly, for those who wish to become Catholics or to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Sister Josephine Peroni and Sister Claudia coordinate the catechism office which supervises all the catechesis and the formation of catechists. Every Friday – the weekly holiday in the Emirate and in all other Muslim countries – there are more than 4,000 children coming for catechism classes. More than 200 volunteer catechists are involved in such a daunting job of imparting Catholic instruction to the youth. As many as half a thousand children receive the First Communion and as many youth are confirmed yearly. Around 30 adults are also baptized Catholic every year. They are mainly from Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, China, Malaysia… and even from African countries who hail from religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism. All of them are foreign migrant workers. The law forbids the instruction and baptism of Muslims.  Islam is the official state religion of the UAE. Therefore, Christian pastoral can only be conducted inside the parish compound which is surrounded by high walls. And discreetly!

When Comboni Missionary Giuseppe Franzelli, a native of Roccafranca, Italy, was told that Pope John Paul II wanted him to be a bishop in Uganda, his immediate response was, “No. Get somebody else.” If being a bishop is always a cross, he reflected, the situation in Lira, Uganda, would be even more difficult as the nation strained through a conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army and the unimaginable atrocities wreaked on the people, even the children. But Bishop Franzelli’s appointment came as John Paul II was dying. It was published in L’Osservatore Romano on April 1, 2005 – he sees it as a sort of April Fool’s Day joke from the Pope. The next day, in the evening, the Holy Father would die. Looking at the dying Pope, “carrying the cross for the whole universal Church,” the missionary reflected, “how could I say no?” And “the reality proved that it was not just a cross but it continues to be a cross,” the 68-year-old bishop explains.    Was it always a desire of yours to be a missionary?  – Well, I was prompted to that by a young missionary who was going around the parishes and showing us slides and this kind of thing.    And it awoke this sense of adventure in your mind. Did you have a sense of calling at that age?  – Yes, and it developed – of course, with doubts as I went along – but then it was quite strong. That is why I’m here.    Did you have any ideas and pre-conceptions about Africa?  – Only the usual, if you want, the romantic ideas at that time: lions for me as a child, and then the Africans, the slavery thing that I’ve read about and all the rest, and definitely poverty and people in need of knowing the Gospel.    You were made a bishop by Pope John Paul II and in fact, your appointment was made before the day he died. What is the significance of this appointment?  – It was a great surprise and a big shock to me and, to be honest, I didn’t want it, absolutely not, and I tried even to resist it. I was appointed by him and it was published in L’Osservatore Romano. It was done on the first of April, that’s April Fool’s Day, that is why I consider it as a kind of a joke that the Pope did to me and 17 others who were made bishop. The nomination was published in the afternoon of April 1, 2005, in L’Osservatore Romano, which was dated on the following day, April 2. That evening, the Pope died.  When I was called to Sacra Congregatio Propaganda Fide (the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) for discussing things, it was Cardinal [Crescenzio] Sepe who broke the news to me. I said, “No, get somebody else” and so on. Eventually, the Pope came into it in the sense that, first of all, the Cardinal told me that he

Born at Villafranca, a village in the province of Verona (Italy), on January 1, 1923, Giovanni Vantini was ordained a priest in 1947 and, immediately, assigned to Northern Sudan. He went to Lebanon for two years in order to learn Arabic and, in 1949, he reached Khartoum. At the outset, he taught in the schools that were founded by the Comboni Missionaries and were still under their management. Moreover, he worked as assistant to the parish priest of the cathedral. The Catholics were not many and almost all non-African: Syrian, Maltese, Palestinian, Lebanese, Italian, French, English… There was only a tiny group of Sudanese Catholics, descendants of the black Africans who were baptized by Msgr. Daniel Comboni. In 1953, the Anglo-Egyptian condominium government came to an end and Khartoum achieved a form of self-rule. People started talking of independence. Bishop Agostino Baroni, eager to positively influence the new course with Christian social principles, decided to start a paper. “And he thought of me as its editor,” writes Fr. Vantini in certain biographical notes which he gave me many years afterwards. “Thus, in 1954, I found myself in London for a course in Journalism. I went back towards the end of the following year. On January 1, 1956, Independence Day for the Sudan, I published the first issue of Assalam (Peace), a fortnightly paper with an immediate circulation of 2,500 copies.” In the meantime, in the South, a civil war that would go on for 16 years had broken out. Tens of thousands of Southern Sudanese sought refuge in the North. Fr. Vantini describes the situation: “They are masses of displaced, destitute people, in need of everything. We try to welcome them and help them. With me is Bro. Michele Sergi; he also thinks there is work for us. We set up meeting places that started being called “Sergi Clubs.” In the evening, after work, men, women, young men and children come in throngs to attend English, Arabic and Math classes… We have started also the catechumenate since most of them are non-Christian. Every year, we give 80/100 baptisms. After the breakout of the second civil war, in 1983, the catechumens from the South became thousands. In the new parish of Omdurman, we manage to baptize 700/800 people a year. Thus, since the Catholic community of the white people had disappeared, in the course of few years, we found ourselves with a new, thriving black Church… in an Islamic environment! So much so that, when, in February 1993, Pope John Paul II visited Khartoum and celebrated the Eucharist, in honor of Blessed Josephine Bakhita, in the capital’s Green Square, he found himself in front of one million Southern Sudanese Catholics.” An uprooted Church? “Apparently, it was so. In truth, these Christians are not completely foreign to Northern Sudan. Although it may appear strange, Christianity was established in this country much earlier than the arrival of Islam. From the year 500 AD to 1400, the Christian faith blossomed along the Nile Valley,

The mission of Kalongo was founded by the Comboni Missionaries in the year 1934. When the missionary doctor Joseph Ambrosoli, arrived in Uganda in 1956, he was warmly accepted by Fr. Alfred Malandra, who immediately foresaw the importance of developing a hospital in that isolated area to help its population. Up to that moment, taking care of the sick was left in the hands of the Comboni Missionary Sisters using, at first, a large tree and, later, a big but simple hut as their shelter. Sr. Eletta Mantiero was very much appreciated by all for her loving dedication to the mothers and children. She was able to assist in normal deliveries; all complicated cases were referred to the hospital of Kitgum, 70 kms away. During the years Fr. Dr. Ambrosoli was serving in Kalongo, Drs. Piero Corti and Lucille, his wife, were also developing another hospital at Lacor, in Gulu district. In 1959, Fr. Ambrosoli opened a midwifery school which, since then, has produced more than 1,250 midwives who apply their skills in protecting the health of African mothers and children. This was one of the more brilliant ideas of the young doctor. Year after year, he also struggled to expand the Kalongo hospital until it could house 350 beds. Very talented and skilled in performing difficult and rare operations in various surgical branches of medicine, he was attracting patients not only from all over Uganda, but even from Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan. Fr. Joseph Ambrosoli worked in Kalongo for 30 years and died in Lira on March 27, 1987.   In the heart of his people Without any doubt, Fr. Ambrosoli is remembered as a great surgeon and as a doctor full of love and compassion for every sick coming to him. In every patient, he saw the suffering Christ. On his tomb, we can read the words which inspired him: “God is love. I am His servant for His suffering people.” While still living, he was considered a “saint doctor.” After his death he became even more popular. In August 1999, the Bishop of Gulu initiated the process for Fr. Joseph’s canonization by collecting documents demonstrating the heroicity of his virtues. At present, he is invoked as “Servant of God.” In the last months, reports on cases of very special healings had been sent to Rome for scrutiny by the official medical commission. As we well know, a Servant of God is declared “Blessed” only when the Church – after examining the submission of the medical commission – testifies that a certain healing is the fruit of his extraordinary intervention to God – and is beyond any scientific explanations.   One sign of hope On February 12, 1987, Fr. Ambrosoli was obliged by the government to evacuate the hospital due to the war in the north, at the time of Alice Lakwena (the “religious” rebel). Amidst moral and physical stress, he had to find a new place, on the other side of Nile (Angal Hospital), for the midwifery

Secunderabad, Andra Pradesh, India – The yellowed photo in Sr. Crocetta Thomas’ battered folder shows a tiny girl in a filthy dress, her matted hair a swirl of knots, flecked with what appears to be an errant thread or two. Swathi, then 5 years old, stares at the camera with a combination of hostility and confusion, her hands limp at her side. Standing before me is the same girl. Swathi is now 8 years old, dressed in a crisp white school uniform, with a red tie and snappy turquoise vest. She is reading – perhaps a bit haltingly, but reading nonetheless – in English. Her clean, dark hair, fixed in two pigtails, sprightly bounce as she looks up and grins. Sister Crocetta smiles, too. “The same child,” she says, “just different circumstances. That is, us: We provide the ‘different circumstances.’” Here in Secunderabad, sister city to the high-tech capital of Hyderabad in the south of India, Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, like Sister Crocetta, work to rescue girls of the slums, the beggars, the ragpickers, society’s cast-offs, the poorest of the poor. Too many of them have been sexually abused or exploited, some sold as prostitutes – as young as Swathi when she was brought to the sisters.  In the tradition of their patron saint, Don Bosco, who dedicated his life to poor and disenfranchised young people, the three Sisters, who live here, and the four at a nearby convent and school battle the overwhelming odds that condemn 500 million Indians, the most vulnerable among them girls and young women, to a seemingly unending cycle of poverty. On the day I visited the Salesians’ tiny Navajeevana (which stands for New Life), there were 75 girls in residence. The number would rise up to 100; one night there were even 125. Regardless of their cramped quarters, the Sisters always find room for girls brought to them. They know the alternatives: the street or a poorly-funded and poorly-administered government facility where food is scarce (although each child is supposed to receive a food allowance each day, they often do not), the quarters are barely cleaner than the slums they came from, and beatings and sexual abuse of girls by workers and other predators are rampant.    Adopting a birthday and a name The city of Hyderabad – like other major cities in India, especially those with a large presence of Western businesses – is trying to eradicate child labor. Government workers patrol the streets during daytime hours to find children who are not in school. Well-intentioned as it is, the approach is woefully inadequate because of lack of decent shelters, schools, and even the most basic social services.  This is where the Salesians came into the picture in a major way almost four years ago, when they agreed to take part in the National Child Labor Project. Knowing that government shelters would be only a little better than life in the slums, they made a bold promise: They would take in as

He went to public schools all the way through high school. When he went to a Catholic college, he was still wondering what he would do with his life. He was getting older and felt that it was time to decide: “I was really uncomfortable. I had finished my first year and I still didn’t know what I was going to do for my life’s work. On the second year, I was enrolled in Political Science. Perhaps, I could become a lawyer. I really had no idea what I was going to do with my life. But I wanted to do something good. The priesthood never occurred to me.” The idea of becoming a priest and a missionary came to him like lightning. He was walking back home, after attending a students’ retreat at the Jesuits University of Seattle on October 29, 30 and 31, 1956, when the inspiration suddenly struck him. His life began to have a new meaning. He recalls: “I was making good grades in college, I had a good part-time job and was earning good money, everything was OK, but I was miserable because I didn’t know how I was going to spend my life. But on that day, October 31, 1956, that inspiration, that attraction from God was so immense that it motivated me and does so up to now. I remember that experience every day. God touched me.” The date was memorable: “When the call came, I was 19 years, four months and ten days old.” It was a very unique experience. His description of what God did to him on that day is clear and vivid: “God attracted me in a way I had never been before by anyone or anything. That attraction continued for a couple of months while I was in the process of getting into a missionary society. Then on June 21, when I was in California for my first seminary engagement, I realized that the feeling of attraction was gone.”  The feeling disappeared, but the decision remained and its effects are evident: “I knew I was doing the right thing. So I didn’t need the attraction anymore. God gave me a push and the momentum lasts until now. I keep that momentum fresh through prayer. Every morning, I offer my openness and availability to God and I tell Him that I love Him for His sake and I thank God for having done so much for me.”  Before seeking out Maryknoll, Bob had seen an advertisement of the PIME – the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions in a newspaper. He made an inquiry and started corresponding with Father Henry Bell. A classmate at the university, Charles E. P. Simmons, learned that Bob wanted to become a missionary and told him: “You are an American, you should become a Maryknoller.” He had never heard the name before. So, he started asking about Maryknoll, got in touch with them and did join them. Later on, he asked Charles: “How did you

Iowa, the birthplace of Fr. Bob, is one state, out of two, in the United States that has the same surface area of Bangladesh, 55,000 sq miles. In Bangladesh, there are an estimated 156 million people; in the 55,000 sq miles of Iowa, there are only 3 million people. In other words, in Iowa one person lives in the same land area that in Bangladesh is inhabited by 52. Fr. Bob uses this statistics to tell people about the richness of their country, when they complain about its poverty. He tells them: “This country is not poor, this country is extremely rich. How else could a place like this support 156 million people? It couldn’t. This is the richest soil in the world. It is very fertile. If one throws a seed out of the window, it will grow.” As far as bureaucracy is concerned, the country doesn’t seem interested in promoting tourism. An application for a tourist visa in the Philippines should be accompanied by the following supporting documents: Notarized original request letter from the sponsor addressed to the Embassy; copy of the sponsor’s passport, valid visa, work permit and work contract; itinerary, bank certificate, hotel booking, employment certificate with leave given, or application letter of the applicant addressed to the Embassy (if unemployed). One wonders which genuine tourist on earth is ready to gather all these documents to visit Bangladesh. The requirement of a local sponsor is particularly bizarre to a foreigner’s eyes! The alternative of getting a visa upon arrival is easier, even though more expensive. Besides the US$50 that the visa costs, one has to pay a good tip to the immigration officials who are there very ready and willing to help, especially to tourists with Caucasian features. They speed up the procedures and lobby openly their immigration colleagues so that their “sponsored” tourists overtake all others applying for a visa at the immigration desk. After bargaining for a substantial tip, they ask, looking straight at the tourist’s eyes: “Are you satisfied?” Upon the supposedly affirmative answer, they continue: “We are satisfied too. You got the visa pretty fast. Know that it can take up to two hours. We made you overtake all those in the queue.” If the tourist doesn’t seem much convinced, they will likely insist until they get a clear answer: “Are you happy?” If they hear a compliment of the kind “You are very efficient and kind,” to dismiss them because the luggage belt has already stopped, they will conclude: “Good! You got a good service.” The impression a visitor gets from the start is that Bangladeshis are good actors, genuinely interested in other people’s lives and very welcoming. 

His neighbors respectfully call him “uncle,” simply “uncle.” But along the countryside roads, as he relentlessly rides his bicycle, the most heard greeting is “Bob bhai,” that is, Brother Bob (bhai is Bengali for brother). The greeting is addressed to Father Bob McCahill, an American Maryknoll missionary who has been serving the Bangladeshi poor for 35 years. For the last three years, he has been living in Narail, a town in the southwest part of the country, in the Khulna Division, 130 kilometers away from Dhaka. The fastest way to arrive there from the capital is by boarding at least six transportation means – 4 buses, a launch, a motorized river boat, a normal boat and an eight-seater auto rickshaw. In such a way, the distance is covered in about seven hours, if there are no hindrances or if one doesn’t doze off and miss the right stops and the connections. The normal bus takes longer, more than 9 hours, because of the long queue to board one of the ferries.   Ascetic lifestyle The people’s greeting to Fr. Bob bhai defines the lifestyle of the unpretentious missionary. His house, a makeshift hut made of jute sticks over a foundation of clay soil, cost 3,000 takas (around US $45). The roof is reinforced with a polythane sheet to protect it from the rain. Like the huts of his neighbors, it is exposed to all kinds of insects and crawling animals. Venomous snakes, especially during the rainy season when they look for shelter in dry spots, are the most dangerous. But mosquitoes are the most common and unavoidable annoyance. During his sleeping hours, Fr. Bob can avail himself of a mosquito net. When he is out of bed, before and after sunset, he can count a bit on the repellent coils’ protection. But, to a certain extent, he has to stoically put up with the mosquitoes’ bites and face the ever present threat of dengue fever.  The small hut’s size (3 x 2.5 meters) can easily keep the few things the missionary needs. A wooden double-deck bed made to accommodate any eventual visitor and the seminarians who have been staying with him for their month-long yearly pastoral experience. The other existent piece of furniture is a low stool on which Fr. Bob sits to pray, read or write. If a visitor comes along, he may ask for a chair from the nearest neighbors. There’s also a little shelf to keep a few essential books far from the reach of the mice; a one burner kerosene stove; a so-called hurricane lamp; and a pail of water. The residual food supplies (rice or bread) hang from the roof in plastic bags as a means to prevent the mice from sharing it. The hut also shelters his bicycle during the night. There’s no table, no clothes cupboard in the tiny dwelling (the bed’s upper deck serves as a storing place most of the year when no guest is around); the bed has neither a

I look out of the window and I see Jamil. He is a very lively small boy with extremely black eyes and hair, always well dressed. He arrives almost always first at the Comboni Sisters’ nursery school here, at Bethany. The window of my room looks on the area used as nursery for the children of the Palestinian village of Al Azaryia, at the foot of one of the many hills that rise along the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. We live right on the hilltop of this village that was once called Bethany by the Christians. Today, it is inhabited mostly by Muslims.   In the Gospel’s account, Bethany reminds us of the two sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus, Jesus’ close friend. Here, Jesus saw the love and the tears shed for Lazarus by his two sisters, friends and relatives. And Jesus also cried (John 11:33-44). And thus, He brought Lazarus back to life… a sweet prelude of what would happen to Jesus Himself on the day of His resurrection. Let us imagine Lazarus’ feelings after he came back to life four days after his death. And goodness knows how he lived his life after realizing that he had come back to it because of his great friend, Jesus! Bethany is also Simon the leper’s village who, precisely in order to thank Jesus for his healing from leprosy, had invited Him with His disciples to have supper in his house. Here, a woman came into the room and poured unto Jesus’ head an alabaster vase full of expensive and fragrant nard oil. All the disciples were shocked by this “wastage” but Jesus reproached them saying that the poor would always be with them, but not He, Jesus. And that this anonymous woman’s gesture would remain forever in memory of her. She was doing nothing but anticipate the tradition of anointing with oil the bodies of the deceased for their burial. And Jesus was referring to His own death…(Matthew 26:6-13). In short, this little village of Bethany was the place of a great friendship of many people with Jesus. Many people were accustomed to seeing Jesus passing through the narrow village streets, because every time Jesus came to Jerusalem, he would pass by His friends to greet them. Bethany is very close to Jerusalem and even closer to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where Jesus lived the last moments of His agony and loneliness, before being arrested (Matthew 26:36-46). They are very important places for us, Christians, because they have written the history of Jerusalem, the Holy Land, Christianity and the entire world.   In the shadow of the wall Today, Bethany, once the friendship village, is called Al Azaryia and belongs to the Palestinian Autonomous Territory i.e. the area under the administration of a Palestinian government that is not, however, recognized as a sovereign state within the State of Israel. It’s a long story that I will perhaps tell you another time, but

I met the Comboni Missionaries in 1984. At that time, the Comboni magazines made us dream of a new way of being missionaries. Their brave denunciations, their unmistakable standpoints stirred our desire to work together to build a really new and more brotherly society, where spirituality doesn’t turn into an esthetic and anesthetic instrument at the service of the prevailing culture, but a communion with the Risen Christ, present in the people who are crucified by social injustices. My encounter with the experience of the Latin American and especially the Brazilian Church, through the GIM (Gioventú Impegno Missionario: Committed Missionary Youth) of Venegono was also another fundamental fact. To learn of an Episcopal Conference capable of putting the poor and the last ones at the center of evangelization stimulated us to discover new forms of service and action. For instance, the Conference uses fraternity campaigns that yearly propose a social theme to deepen and, at the same time, facilitate the synthesis between faith and life. This opens a way for a political participation of the Church in the service to the marginalized. These “seeds,” cultivated over several years of my theological and psychiatric formation, have today become fruits in the Bom Jardim (Good Garden) Communitarian Mental Health Movement (MSMCBJ). The Comboni Missionaries started their work at Fortaleza, the fifth major Brazilian city, with the formation of a group of Basic Ecclesial Communities (CEBs). The Bom Jardim Pastoral Area, an alternative proposal to the traditional parish model, has been a workshop of experiences that have stimulated the community leaders to take their responsibility as evangelization protagonists.   The burden of poverty and depression The activities of MSMCBJ started by welcoming and listening to people troubled by psychic and existential problems. The aim was to transform suffering into growth and wisdom of life. Mental health of people is one of the problems that, at present, worries the World Health Organization (WHO). Depression is considered the fourth most debilitating illness in the world and it is foreseen to become the second by 2030. The exponential growth of the use of psychotropic medicines, especially against anxiety, is another worrying factor. The economic, ecological and value crises produce a substratum that favors the development of several mental disturbances. The absence of adequate structures for accepting and treating such afflicted persons magnifies the size of the problem. Many people who have mental health disturbances may easily become prey to certain religious institutions and sects that promise spiritual healing against the devils who are thought to be responsible for the said diseases. How can we face the challenge of this new category of excluded people? How can we conjugate the psychiatric and psychological knowledge with the dimension of a spirituality that liberates and doesn’t close in by the fear of being possessed by a malign spirit? How can we stimulate the community to take an active part within the context of the public policies and convince the authorities of the urgency of the problem that requires adequate