In Pace Christi

Mario was born in Lecco, in the diocese of Milan, on 9^th February 1928. While still a boy, he entered the diocesan seminary of Venegono Inferiore. He remained there until the end of the secondary biennium which he left with excellent marks. He should then have begun his first year of high school, but he had other plans; in a letter addressed to the superior of the Comboni community of Venegono Superiore, dated 12^th September 1945, he wrote: “For some time now, I have felt a strong impulse to become a missionary of Monsignor Comboni. Now, finally, with the approval of my superiors, my parents and also of His Excellency, Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, I am applying for admission.”

On 14^th October 1945, Mario entered the Comboni Novitiate of Venegono Superiore. “Mario is a young man of great activity and vitality. He is lively, active, good, and generous. Good piety and great generosity. Well-liked and loved by all,” is how his superiors saw him.

On 9^th September 1947, he took his first religious vows and was sent to the Philosophical Scholasticate of Rebbio (Como). In 1948 he went to the Apostolic School of Crema as prefect: he took care of the young seminarians (‘apostolini’) and followed the theological courses in the diocesan major seminary. In 1951, he was prefect at the Apostolic School in Brescia and attended the third year of theology in the diocesan major seminary of Brescia. For the fourth course, however, he went to the Venegono Superiore scholasticate, where on 20^th September 1951 he made his perpetual religious profession. On 7^th June 1952, he was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Milan by Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster.

After ordination, Father Mario was assigned to the community of Trento with the role of vocations promoter (or ‘recruiter’, as they used to say at that time). He stayed there for two years. In July 1954, he was assigned to South Sudan and Mbili mission, in the then Bahr-El-Ghazal district. In 1957, he moved to the Nyamlel mission. Three years later, he went to Aweil, and moved to Mayen in 1964, with the role of superior of the community and parish priest of the mission.

In July 1964 he returned to Italy, assigned to the Novitiate community of Gozzano as bursar. After continually pestering his superiors for just over a year, they allowed him to return to the mission, this time to Arua in Uganda. He spent a few years at the Comboni House in nearby Ediofe. Then, in 1969, he was sent to Gulu, until June 1974, when he was recalled to Italy, assigned as superior of the Bari community.

However, his ‘patience’ lasted less than three years: in 1977 he was allowed to leave again and was assigned to Kenya. A place was ready for him in the north, in Katilu, Lodwar diocese, in the Turkana district. South Sudan was a little further north, and he made frequent visits there. Five years later, in 1982, he returned to Italy, to the community of Naples, for the ministry of missionary animation. In 1984 he spent a sabbatical year at the General Curia in Rome. A year passed and he was once again back in Kenya, in the north. But the problems were in South Sudan, where he continued to go very often, so the superiors hurriedly assigned him to that Province. One year in Meridi, three years in Tombora, two years in Yirol, one year in Arua-Ediofe to take care of Sudanese refugees in Uganda... always on the move.

Father Francesco Chemello wrote in his testimony: “In 1990, he was assigned to the diocese of Torit. He then moved to the Yirol mission, in the diocese of Rumbek. Immediately afterwards, he went to the immense refugee camp of Kakuma (Kenya), to take care of the tens of thousands of young Dinka and Nuer people, who had arrived there after having already been displaced people in refugee camps in Ethiopia. From Kakuma he participated in numerous exploration attempts – all characterised by countless unknowns and terrible dangers – in search of places that could allow our Comboni presence in the territory of the diocese of Rumbek.

In July 1993, while he was helping the displaced Dinka people in Northern Uganda in dramatic situations, I went to see him and tried to convince him not to risk too much: ‘Your life matters to us’, I repeated to him. But he did not seem to hear: he only ever spoke to me about the impossible conditions in which those displaced people were forced to live. ‘How can I abandon them?’, he repeated. He lived with people; he spent the nights with them, never in a permanent and safe place.”

In July 1995 he went to Rumbek, South Sudan, where he remained for five years, until the end of 2000. In January 2001, he went to Rebbio (Como); in July he moved to Casavatore where he remained until 2004; he then returned to Rebbio for a year.

In August 2005 he was in Mapuordit (South Sudan), where he dedicated himself to all sorts of pastoral ministry, but reserving a lot of time for the translation of liturgical and scholastic texts into local languages. From mid-2007 to 2012 he was constantly on the move; he would go wherever there was suffering to alleviate and people to help: you find him in Agang-Rial, in Malwal-Kon (where he opened a new mission), and again in Mapuordit and Rumbek.

Father Mario definitively returned to Italy in 2012 for health reasons. He was 84 years old. He was hosted in the Comboni communities where there are centres for elderly and sick missionaries: Milan (2012-2013), Rebbio (2013-2020) and Castel d’Azzano (Verona), from 1^st December 2021.

In recent times, his health became increasingly fragile, with moments of crisis from which he always managed to recover. However, on the night before 12^th January 2024, he suffered a serious general deterioration. Around 8.00 in the morning, he went to paradise, lovingly assisted by members of the Castel d’Azzano community and by the staff.

His funeral was celebrated on the morning of 16^th January, in the community of Castel d’Azzano. In the afternoon, at 3.00 pm, a funeral mass was celebrated in the parish church of Valmadrera (Lecco).