In Pace Christi

Fr. Eugenio Magni was born at Legnano, in the Province of Milan, on 12 July, 1941. In 1961, at the age of twenty, he joined the seminary at Crema as a ‘late vocation’. There he successfully completed secondary school. Eugenio was considered an exemplary young man. Not only did he keep all the rules of the seminary but he even seemed to “anticipate the unexpressed desires of his superiors”. At Crema he studied together with Fr. Luciano Perina whose testimony we have used for the years Fr Eugenio spent in basic formation and the period he spent at Lomin, in South Sudan.

Together they were sent to the Novitiate in Sunningdale (UK). Being the only two novices in the first year, they were always together: in the kitchen, the garden and when they would polish the floor of the refectory on Saturday mornings. In those days there was meant to be silence during the morning work but our two inseparable novices found it impossible to keep this rule very well! Thus it was that Eugene, during the happy years of the Novitiate, learned that there are more important things in life than the strict observance of rules. His goodness and the unchanging kindness of his nature were becoming the main traits of his personality. He took his first vows on 9 September, 1969.

During the scholasticate, the two great friends studied for four more years together. Fr. Eugenio was ordained priest in the Duomo of Milan on 28 June, 1973, by Cardinal Giovanni Colombo. He was appointed to the province of Ethiopia but, due to difficulties in obtaining a visa, he was asked to work in Troia as formator. In February, 1977, fearing he would have to work for another year in that post, he wrote to his superiors asking that he should not be forced to delay his departure for the missions since, as he put it, “His hair was already turning grey”.

In 1979, he left for Uganda. He spent nine years there, first at the mission of Ajumani and then at Moyo, both among the Madi. Moyo mission had been established many years previously, in 1917 and had undergone extensive development. Fifty years after its foundation, Fr. Luigi Molinaro wrote: “Moyo is now fifty years old. In 1917 this place was nothing but bush. Today the mission has many important buildings and 93% of the population is Christian”.

Fr. Eugenio, having returned to Italy for a Sabbatical, was appointed to the London Province as superior at Dawson Place. He stayed there for nine years and was then appointed to South Sudan.

He arrived there in 1995 and stayed for fourteen years, until 2009. During all those years he dedicated himself to the education of the people, right up to his sudden death. Ten of those years he spent at Lomin. When he arrived there, there was a nursery school and a small primary school. Comboni College secondary school was the result of his bold vision and conviction that education was the essential means for the betterment of society. In the mind of Fr. Eugenio, the purpose of education was to impart a sound formation in order to prepare the youth to become the new leading class committed to the good of the country. He was very happy at Lomin. He was even happier when his students got good exam results.

In 2009, he felt unwell and decided to return to Italy for a period of rest. In early October, 2010, he returned to Lomin for the tenth anniversary of the Comboni College. At the end of the month, Fr Eugenio, who was diabetic, found his condition had worsened. On 31 October, while travelling home to Italy, he was admitted, in a serious condition, to Kampala International Hospital where he died on 3 November, 2010, due to kidney failure. His niece, Roberta, gave permission for him to be buried at Lomin, in South Sudan, the mission he loved most.