In Pace Christi

Fr. Paolo Grumini, or rather “Fr. Gurumini” as he was called by the Sudanese, was born in Italy, completed his studies in England and worked and died in Khartoum, Sudan.
Arriving in Sudan in 1956, the year of that country’s independence, he started his work in education, which he continued till his last days. He had always being involved with schools and all the activities that went with it: teaching, supervising, administration, youth groups (for years he had been one of the most knowledgeable person about the scout movement in the Catholic schools as well as at national level). Whatever he did, he always did it as a Comboni Missionary priest. Fr. Paolo, taking his inspiration from Comboni, trusted the Sudanese people. He did not “work for, but with them” in education, looking for and treasuring their collaboration.
As school director and teacher, every year he was in contact with over 600 youth of various nationalities and of a variety of religions and cultures. About thirty Sudanese teachers, the majority Muslims, were working with him, which required a collaboration and an understanding based on reciprocal respect. The teachers were following him with commitment and admiration, bound by a deep sense of friendship, a friendship that was extended to many of the students’ families.
He was tireless at his work. Though always busy, he managed to find time to take care of people’s special and difficult requests. He faced the various events without over reacting or showing fear. He was one of those Comboni Missionaries who knew how to relate to everyone, from the president of the country to the minister of education and to the “most simple and unremarkable” people.
Though he was a great organiser of activities and of sport competitions, he gave the impression of not being personally involved in any sport, instead he was a very good tennis player. Music was another one of his interests, as he conducted the cathedral choir and the school musical groups. Outside the school, he assisted religious people, Sudanese as well as foreigners, with catechesis and religious instruction.
Fr. Paolo became identified with the Comboni College and has contributed to its history. In 1964 there was the expulsion of all the Comboni Missionaries from Southern Sudan. The Comboni College gave hospitality to the 203 priests, Brothers and Sisters who, expelled from the South, were waiting for the plane to fly them to Europe. The Khartoum government had signed the decree of expulsion also for the missionaries of Northern Sudan, but the document had providentially remained locked away in a drawer, allowing the Christian presence in Northern Sudan to care for the seed hidden under the sand and which, in time, produced the good fruits that we are witnessing now.
In October of that same year (1964) there were demonstrations that led to the massacre of thousands of Southern Sudanese who had run away from the South and found refuge in Khartoum. On that occasion the American mission was burned down. This was very near the Comboni College, which, though, did not suffer the same fate only because some Sudanese students convinced the revolutionaries not to enter the school grounds and burn it down. It was a very near escape also for an unknown large number of people from Southern Sudan who had found refuge in the school. On that occasion Fr. Paolo was among the last ones to leave the College and only because forced by some students who got him into a car that took him to the safety of the cathedral, one of the few buildings not touched by the upheaval. The school was also saved, but the project already in progress to introduce courses at university levels had to be procrastinated.
In 1970 the schools were being nationalised. By direct intervention of the president of the republic, Numeiry, the “Comboni” schools were not nationalised. For Fr. Paolo, principal of the CCK and secretary of the Catholic Schools, began the subtle diplomatic game with the ministry of education, which was controlled by the Muslim Brothers, an extremist religious group that did not see well the work of the Christian schools.
In the 1970’s the migration of the populations from Southern Sudan to the north, and especially to Khartoum, had started: first a trickle, then a river, creating serious problems to the aid structures of the Church, in particular to the secretaries of the schools who had to find a way to offer the possibility of education to the children of the immigrants, in the great majority Christian or Christian-oriented. In 1985 famine and war caused the migration of millions of people to Khartoum from Western and Southern Sudan, looking for security and food. It was a migration of biblical proportion. Just in Khartoum the UN Organisations calculated that in 1987 there were 300.000 school age children. The Catholic Church rose to the challenge with the project “To Save the salvable”. Fr. Paolo was the one responsible of the education’s sector from 1991 to the day of his death.