In Pace Christi

Fr. Francesco Grotto was born at Malo, a small town in Vicenza province, on 11 April 1919, the second of seven children. He had been working for more than a year when he felt the desire to become a priest and he enrolled in the gymnasium. He later joined the seminary at Vicenza where he finished secondary school and in 1940 he began to study theology. In 1942, having heard a missionary speaking, he decided to be a missionary. After his ordination he was sent to the parish of Santa Maria del Colle, at Bassano del Grappa.

Five years later, with the permission of the bishop, he joined the Comboni novitiate at Florence. In 1952 he took his first vows and was immediately assigned to Sudan.

His first mission was that of Torit (1952-1956), close to the southern Sudanese border, among the Lotuho people. He managed to begin religious instruction for the soldiers and en masse they declared themselves to be Christians, reacting against the Islamist government of Khartoum. In 1955 he witnessed the revolt of the soldiers of the South against those of the North who wanted to move them to the North. During that revolt 261 Arabs and 50 Southerners died, mostly women and children who were drowned in the river during the initial panic. Order was eventually restored with the arrival of Northern troops.

Fr. Francesco was sent from Torit to Kapoeta (1956-1958), a small centre about 100Km away, among the Topossa, a pastoral tribe. The size of the mission, which had a radius of about Km50, forced the missionaries to adopt an itinerant lifestyle: while one missionary stayed at Kapoeta, the other would visit the villages for a period of about two weeks. Meanwhile, the government authorities became more strict with the missionaries and the Christians and confiscated the schools of the mission.

Fr. Francesco returned to Torit in 1958. There he was accused of insulting the government on the evidence of a snapshot taken at random which showed him standing to attention near four children who were playing at soldiers. When the Moslem prefect of the province saw the photo he condemned him to be expelled because it showed him insulting “the glorious army of Sudan”. Only the intervention of the superior succeeded in convincing the functionary of the good faith of Fr. Francesco. He was then simply moved far away, to the mission of Palotaka (1958-1964), in the vicariate of Juba, among the Acholi.

Meanwhile, the political situation in Sudan was becoming more and more hostile towards missionaries. The process of Islamisation was in full swing and life in the Christian communities of the South was becoming increasingly uncertain. Unjust laws were passed which were arbitrarily enforced. In 1964, the feared expulsion order was issued against all the men and women missionaries of South Sudan. Fr. Francesco had to leave the country and return to Italy.

His new assignment was to Togo and his first mission there was that of Afanya (1964-1972), a town close enough to Benin where the Ewe language was spoken. The mission contained tens of villages and a population of over 80, 000 people. Here, too, he had to be an itinerant missionary, travelling around the villages on his bicycle since he had no other means of transport.

He opened schools at Aklakou, Anfoin, Ganave, and Afanya, and also founded an agricultural centre. With the permission of the archbishop, he started a community of young people who took vows and assisted in evangelisation and catechesis. That was how, in 1969, the “disciples of Jesus” group was founded. This experience was suddenly interrupted when Fr. Francesco suffered from a detached retina. He immediately went to Italy for an operation but when he returned he had lost the eye. It was impossible to save it due to damage suffered also during the journey back to Italy.

In 1972 Fr. Francesco was sent to Togoville, on Lake Togo. When he came to know that the territory of Togoville was sacred and that the local fetish religion had five centres of cult, he decided to dedicate to Our Lady a chapel near the lake, in the hope that it might become a place of pilgrimage, even if on a small scale. In preparation for the opening, the bishop organised the celebration on a diocesan level. So, at the ceremony, which took place on 3 March, 1973, thousands of people were present. They came from all over eastern Togo, including the capital, by every means possible. Many came on foot, others by bicycle or crossed the lake by boat while others arrived by train. The chapel became a very important place of pilgrimage and centre of worship and remains so to this day (thirty years later). This development was, perhaps, assisted by some apparitions and miracles occurring in the area. At the same time, the work of Fr. Francesco continued. Every year he built some sort of structure and he also founded a second agricultural centre and a craft centre.

 In 1985 he was asked to take on another challenge: Anfoin, in southern Togo, which until then had been part of the mission of Afanya. The bishop asked him to build a parish there, starting from scratch. The work kept him busy up to 1993. In eight years he built many chapels, founded primary schools and had the joy of assisting many people struck down by polio.

In 1994 he returned to Italy where, having had another operation on his eye, he celebrated his golden jubilee of priesthood and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Back again in Togo, he was assigned to the mission of Aklakou. There, too, he built mainly churches and was very busy assisting the victims of polio and the lepers of the area by his tireless work. Also in his next mission of Asrama, he threw himself into the work where the church of St Teresa of the Child Jesus was under construction. There he found a different local language, Aja, the seventh indigenous language that Fr. Francesco had to learn. He sought help from Italy to drill deeper boreholes at Asrama as the lack of clean water meant that many people would drink from muddy and polluted pools. He then bought fifty hectares of uncultivated land on the banks of the river Mono and, in May, 2003, he began his last project in Africa: The Agro-Mono, an agricultural centre for growing food production exclusively for the survival of the people.

In 2004, at the age of 85, Fr. Francesco returned to Italy. He was appointed to the community of Arco near Lago di Garda, to assist in the parishes. In November, 2005, he was sent to Thiene where he continued his priestly ministry up to July, 2007. He then returned to Arco and continued his missionary work in various ways, especially through his prayers. Fr. Francesco died at Verona on 29 October, 2009.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 242 suppl. In Memoriam, ottobre 2009, pp. 77-85.