In Pace Christi

Fr. Giovanni Vantini was born on 1 January, 1923, at Villafranca (VR). He entered the apostolic school at Brescia in 1939, having been in the diocesan seminary in Verona. He joined the novitiate in Venegono in August of that year and took his first vows on 7 October, 1941. He continued his studies at Verona where, on 7 October, 1946, he made his final profession and on 31 May, 1947, he was ordained priest.

Immediately after ordination he was appointed to what was then called the circumscription of Khartoum, in North Sudan. In November he left for Zahle (Lebanon) to study Arabic.

It is not easy to speak of Fr. Giovanni Vantini since his personality was so exceptional and his activities so varied. He reached Khartoum on 9 July, 1949, and spent 58 years there. He was immediately appointed to the cathedral parish with pastoral duties and taught at our Technical School. In 1953, with the end of the joint Anglo-Egyptian ruling, Mgr. Agostino Baroni, wishing to bring social Christian principles into the new era, decided to launch a newspaper and appointed Fr. Giovanni as manager. Then, in 1954, he went to London for a course in journalism. He returned at the end of the following year. On 1 January, 1956, Independence Day in Sudan, he published the first issue with the title As-Salaam (‘Peace’). It was published once a fortnight with a run of 2,500 copies. Abuna Hanna, as people called him, lived at the Technical School from 1956 to 1958, where he was teaching, and from 1958 to 1984 at the junior seminary, now the PALICA (Pastoral Liturgical Catechetical Centre). From 1966 onwards, he was in charge of the “Sudan Catholic Information Office (SCIO)”, attending especially to the sector of news and studies.

In December, 1967, he was awarded a degree in languages and oriental civilizations from the Oriental Institute of Naples, with a thesis on the excavations at Faras. He published an extract from the thesis in English (Bologna 1972). He then gathered into one English volume all the writings concerning Nubia that hitherto had been scattered in sources written in Arabic and other oriental languages. The volume was titled: “Oriental Sources concerning Nubia” (Heidelberg-Warszava 1975). He also published a “History of Christianity in Nubia” in Arabic (Khartoum 1978) and a re-working of the same book in Italian: “Christianity in Ancient Nubia” (Bologna 1985).

In 1976 he had a heart attack and received the last rites but, after spending three months in Cairo, he regained his health and went back to work as usual. From 1968 to 1980 he worked producing radio programmes in Arabic for South Sudan. From 1981 onwards he taught history of the Arabic world and religion at the Sisters School of the Comboni Sisters, besides teaching religion at the pre-seminary of St. Augustine, in the catechumenates and at Club Sergi. He was lecturer in History of religions at the University of Asmara for three periods during 1973-1974 and in 1977. In 1978 he took the place of Fr. Attilio Laner in the weekly visits to the parish of Shendi. From 1989 to 2007, he stayed at Omdurman as assistant parish priest. He worked on translations into Arabic and in preparing catechisms and other teaching and liturgical aids for North and South Sudan. He also conducted courses in the Arabic language for Priests, Brothers and Sisters.

As regards the Catholic schools, Fr. Giovanni wrote to the Superior General, Fr. Salvatore Calvia: “In Khartoum we have, besides the CCK (Comboni College Khartoum), other schools ranging from kindergarten to secondary with a total of 10,000 children (the average for the past five years). Just imagine what great influence we have upon society. The vast majority of the pupils are Moslem and their parents themselves are the ones to entrust them to us for instruction (not without fees). After 8-10 years, almost all these pupils know both us and the Church well and regard us as friends”.

Fr. Salvatore Pacifico, provincial superior of Khartoum writes: “Fr. Giovanni was a great worker. ‘Work alone and you do the work of three’, was his motto. He found it hard to adapt to the slow pace of working in a team, and even the pace of others in general. He was reluctant to tell others of his numerous commitments. It often happened that his confreres would come to hear just by chance that he had been in Poland or in Germany for an important conference. He could never say no, especially when it was a question of teaching or accompanying a group of catechumens, to give a conference or to lead a group of confreres in a visit to the national museum, to give advice to a student or help one to prepare for a degree.

He ended up with 32 periods to teach in a week when a teacher would usually have around twenty. After school there were extra periods. He was asked to teach the Christian religion to Hindus from India so that they could gain the Sudan Certificate. In his spare time he taught Arabic to newly-arrived missionaries. He was available for the sick and for visits to families. He took an active part whenever there was a community celebration. For some years he was term professor at the Comboni Sisters University in Asmara. Even so, he never refused to teach in the primary schools and did this for decades. He explained things very clearly: he made himself understood both by the refined intellectual and by the illiterate catechumen. He knew Arabic so well he could adapt to any situation.

His true vocation was that of an evangeliser. He came to Africa as a missionary and that is what he was. He had a passion for proclaiming the Word, even though not all noticed this. Brother Michele Sergi could immediately count on him when he opened what was later given the popular name of Club Sergi: a meeting place in the centre of Khartoum where newly-arrived southerners could gather, learn to read and write and study the catechism.

Even when he took part in the excavations in Nubia, in collaboration with a Polish archaeological mission (1960-1964), he did so in the context of his vocation as an evangeliser: he considered it important that the Sudanese should re-discover their own Christian origins and become aware that the Sudan was great long before it was Islamised, unlike what some history books would like to teach.

He witnessed the birth and the daily growth of the Church in North Sudan. When he arrived in Khartoum in 1949, Catholic numbered around 50.000, almost all foreigners, mostly Syrian or Lebanese. Fifty years later they were almost a million. By then many foreigners had left and a Sudanese Church was born with people from the South and from Nubia. In the fifties, the diocese opened a centre for hospitality close to the market in Khartoum called “The Welfare Centre”. It was open to those coming from outside, Nuba people initially, but then also to the Southerners who were arriving in Khartoum with nowhere to go. Fr. Carlo Muratori, Fr. Elio Soriani, Fr. Igino Benini and others also worked there. The Welfare Centre became, in 1958, the residence of Fr. Giovanni who lived there for 26 years. It was there that he started the SCIO (Sudan Catholic Information Office). With the minimum of equipment he prepared programmes which he broadcast on Radio Omdurman. He continued to publish the Catholic newspaper As-Salaam, founded two years earlier at the Technical School. At the same time he kept in touch with the Polish archaeological mission of which he had been a member.

All he did, he did with care and competence and always in the spirit of the evangeliser. He was never an abstract intellectual. In 1989, when he was appointed to Omdurman as assistant priest, the provincial asked him, in his letter of appointment, to “collaborate especially in the catechumenate and to use well his experience in Biblical catechesis and his knowledge of Arabic, and to take to heart the formation of the catechists”. He was also Parish priest of Shendi (150 km from Khartoum) for many years where a Christian community was being formed. He would go there regularly two weekends every month, from Saturday to Monday. Unable to live on the spot, he made sure the catechist would carry on the work responsibly. Fortunately, he could count on Anselm, an excellent catechist. He read and studied much and knew how to find the right books. There are still six cupboards in the provincial house of Khartoum containing his books. He had a remarkable memory and remained lucid right to the end: he was a walking library”.

His final work was La Missione del Cuore - I comboniani in Sudan nel ventesimo secolo, published in May, 2005 (Emi, Bologna). In 992 pages, Fr. Giovanni covers the history of the Comboni Missionaries in Sudan, the fruit of his personal experience and knowledge of the ecclesiastical and civil situation. It is a mine of information. At the end of this immense work Fr. Giovanni laconically expressed his impression: Digitus Dei est hic (the finger of God is here).

In 2007 he had to return to Italy due to illness and went to the CAM at Verona where he spent his last years, still busy with historical research. He died in Verona on 3 May, 2010. His funeral took place in the Duomo di Villafranca and he was buried in the family vault.