In Pace Christi

Fr. Pasquali Carlo arrived in Uganda in 1965, with a group of confreres most of whom had been expelled in 1964 from Sudan. Fr. Carlo was sent to the south of the country, in Kabale Diocese, to start a new mission in the region that was the traditional evangelizing territory of the Missionaries of Africa or White Fathers. There he went to stay in a community of White Fathers for almost one year, in order to learn the language and to be introduced both to the culture of the Banyankole and to the pastoral methods of the Diocese.

Outline of his life
Fr. Carlo was born on 25^th January 1925 in Verona where he joined the Comboni Missionaries. He made his first profession in Venegono in 1946 and then he served as prefect in Rebbio and in Troia. He completed his theological studies in Venegono, where he was ordained priest in 1952. Immediately after his ordination he was sent to Southern Sudan for ten years (Palotaka, Lafon, Tali and Kwörejik) and then recalled to Italy in 1961, where he worked for five years. The expulsion of scores of missionaries from Sudan gave him the chance to return to the mission. Though he himself was not among those repatriated by the Government of Sudan, since he was in Italy at the time, he could not return to his first missionary field, so he joined a group of his confreres who were re-directed to Uganda. Here he spent almost the rest of his life (working at Makiro, Nyamwegabira, Pakwach, Kambuga, Kyamuhunga, Kigumba and Lacor Hospital), except for a short period spent on rotation in Italy (1990-1992) and his final return to his home country in 2003, on account of age and illness.

Life in Kabale
At the beginning life in Kabale diocese was rather tough. His letters at the time underline the lack of structures, of money and of essential means to begin an altogether new mission in a place previously unknown to the Comboni Missionaries. The period of time spent with the Missionaries of Africa was sufficient to pick up the basics of the local language but not to make the confreres coming together as a viable community. A certain tension erupted between those coming from the Sudan and those directly assigned to Uganda. The tensions were instrumental in shaping the communities in Kigesi and in the choice of methodology. Fr. Carlo’s letters to the provincial superior during his first 10 years are interesting and show the desire to grow and move on to a better community life and apostolic activities. He took his first holidays in 1971. He soon wrote that he felt bored with so little to do and so many priests around and he expressed his longing to go back to his mission. He returned with new enthusiasm as parish priest of the Makiro community.

Makiro, Nyamwegabira and Pakwach missions
In 1977 he was due for holidays, which coincided with the silver jubilee of his priesthood. He held celebrations first in Milan, where he had been ordained 25 years earlier by Cardinal Schuster, then in Venegono and in his home parish in Verona. These were just a shadow of the celebrations he had in Makiro with his beloved people, organized by Fr. Mario Salvatore Cisternino. The mission had become his new motherland. Before returning to Uganda he had joined a group of pilgrims from Verona to the Holy Land together with his sister.

Meanwhile, the time had come also for Makiro mission to be handed over to the local clergy and readily Fr. Carlo manifested his disposition to go anywhere obedience would assign him. He moved to Nyamwegabira mission, where he stayed till the handing over of the parish, which was fixed for July 1980. He then went again for a short home-leave. At home he spent his holidays looking after his father who was seriously ill and in need of constant assistance. He wrote: “This mission is more difficult than the one in Kigezi”. In the meantime the unrest and the war in West Nile displaced many people and several Comboni Missionaries followed them into exile in Zaire. The proposal of the provincial superior to send him to Arua Diocese on his return from holidays, at the beginning of 1981, literally scared Fr. Carlo who had to face what was for him a new diocese, new confreres, new people and new language, besides the insecurity and violence of the area (two years earlier two confreres, Fr. Silvio Dal Maso and Fr. Antonio Fiorante, had been killed in Pakwach mission). The example of Comboni gave him the courage and the faith to say a difficult “yes”. And so he went to Pakwach, among the Alur people, although a bit of his heart remained always in Kigezi.

Rome and Kambuga
During the first semester of 1983, he was in Italy to attend the Rome-based renewal Course. On his return to Uganda, he was once again assigned to Kigezi, to the new Parish of Kambuga, where he was appointed superior of the local community. Bishop Baharagate wrote him a nice welcoming letter which shows the genuine esteem the people of Kigezi had for him. Fr. Carlo was basically a man of peace and tranquility who shunned conflicts, because they had a heavy bearing on him. The construction of the community house in Kambuga was a headache for Fr. Carlo, but he endured it to the end, when the house was officially inaugurated on 1 May 1985, feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

During the second part of 1985 the civil war was particularly fierce and the communities of Kigezi were cut off from the rest of Uganda. Communication, though reduced to the minimum and rare, was maintained through the help of UNICEF and the Red Cross via Kigali. In January 1986 president Museveni took over the country and the civil war in the south subsided, then Fr. Carlo was allowed to go on home-leave to recover from the stress accumulated during the last two years. Meanwhile the building of the church entrusted to Bro. Alessandro Bruno Rizzo caused Fr. Carlo new challenges and new headaches, but by the middle of 1987 this work was also finished. At this time rumors went on about the demise of the Comboni Missionaries in Kigezi. They moved to the Diocese of Mbarara, which was in a better position for future work of missionary animation. Fr. Carlo referred to the decision as “a cause for personal agony”. The handing over of Kambuga parish was celebrated on 21 December 1988 and Fr. Carlo left the mission on 9 January 1989. He went to Rome for a course of renewal and a service to the Italian Province in the field of missionary animation. This rotation coincided with the serious sickness of his mother to whom he could pay occasional visits during the year 1990.

Kyamuhunga and Kigumba
In July 1992 Fr. David Glenday, the Superior General, assigned Fr. Carlo once again to Uganda. The provincial superior, Fr. Vittorino Cona, sent him to the newly established community of Kyamuhunga, near Busenyi, in Mbarara Diocese. Fr. Carlo accepted with joy the new assignment because of the improved social and economical situation in the country and the closeness of Kyamhunga to Kigezi and its language. He arrived at Kyamuhunga in January 1993 and he was appointed bursar of the community. The following years were marked by a lot of activity with the support of some confreres, particularly of Fr. Paolo Tomaino: the building of a mission hospital, the opening of dispensaries, the foundation of a primary and a secondary school, the organization of chapels and local cooperatives. All these things did not happen smoothly, in fact jealousy, envy and corruption caused a lot of problems and even conflicts with the local administration. In January 2001 Fr. Carlo, aged 76, was transferred to Kigumba. New community, new people, new language, new traditions and new pastoral methodology were the hard things he described in his regular letters to the provincial superior. His health began to weaken and he was asked to work for a while as chaplain at the Lacor Hospital where he was assigned on 10 October 2002, feast of St. Daniel Comboni.

His final years
In April 2003 he developed heart problems and was advised to undergo an operation in Italy. The journey back home was long and painful both physically and morally. Shortly after arriving in Verona he wrote back to the provincial of Uganda: “I am not well, I am in Verona for medical check-ups. … I am almost 80 years old now, my 50^th of priesthood, celebrated in 2002, marked the end (of mission life) and now a new type of missionary life begins, the hardest one”. The Superior General, Fr. Manuel Augusto Lopes Ferreira, assigned him to Italy in July 2003 and the assignment was taken by him as a terrible blow, so great was his attachment to the mission and to Uganda. For the last five years he has been in Verona, fighting against his own sickness and occasionally attending his sister who was impaired by a malignant cancer. It has been difficult for him, in his old age, to let someone else guide him where he did not want to go. At last he surrendered and found his peace. May he rest in the peace of the Lord!
(Fr. Giuseppe Filippi, mccj)
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 239 suppl. In Memoriam, ottobre 2008, pp. 17-21.