In Pace Christi

Giuseppe was born on 19 October, 1919, at Bagolino, in the province of Brescia, the child of a family of small farmers with strong religious traditions. Once he finished elementary school he asked to enter the seminary and was sent to Padua where the Comboni Missionaries were just finishing the building of an apostolic school. It was 1932. He also studied at Brescia before moving on to the novitiate in Venegono. He was ordained priest on 29 June, 1945.

After a year of ministry in Verona and another in the London Province to study English, Fr. Giuseppe left for Uganda, travelling by boat from Naples and reaching the mission of Gulu on Christmas Eve. He spent eighteen years in Uganda. After two months at Kalongo, where he had a “close encounter” with a lion, he went to the Seminary of Lacor (Gulu) “to train priests and bishops, the future pillars of the Church”. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception of 1950, at the end of the school year: “I held – he writes in his diary – my first and only puppet show in Uganda. It was a howling success. Afterwards, some of the seminarians, who had been overcome with laughter, would remind me of it every time we met”.

In 1951, Fr. Giuseppe was sent to the mission of Kitgum, “one of the first missions in northern Uganda (1915), situated within a broad sweep of the Pager River with its dark and dangerous waters, full of crocodiles and hippopotami”. The following year he went to West Nile, first to the mission of Pakwach, “the land of the leopard and which then consisted of a straw-covered hut and a similar building for a church”. After ten years in Africa, Fr. Giuseppe was allowed to return to Italy for rest and holidays. On his return he was appointed to Angal, among the Alur. There he had to do all sorts of building: the hospital, the school, the chapels and three new parishes. He was also persecuted, especially after independence which came in 1962, and was made to appear in court more than once. The trials took place under a fig tree and once he was condemned to six months in jail commuted to a caution and a fine of 500 Ugandan shillings. He appealed and was acquitted by Indian judges in Kampala.

In an effort to avoid having his name appear on the list of those to be expelled by President Obote, the bishop Mgr. Angelo Tarantino, suggested that he returned to Italy for a period of holiday after 8 years of work in Angal. While he was doing the renewal Course in Rome in 1966, he met nine confreres arriving from Uganda. They had been expelled. There were actually ten names on the list: the tenth was his!

In 1968 Fr. Giuseppe was sent to Ethiopia, where he stayed for 33 years, working at the missions of Fullasa, Dongora and Miqe.

When he first arrived in Ethiopia, Dongora did not yet exist. Even the land had still to be bought. It took two years of bureaucracy to get approval for the purchase. On the 25th anniversary of his ordination, Fr. Giuseppe went to the place where the mission was to be, to celebrate Mass there. With the help of a worker he managed to bring what was necessary, including a folding table. They had to cross a swampy area, often walking on shaky trunks of trees. The Mass for the future mission was celebrated under a large “podocarpus” tree which seemed the ideal shelter.

What Fr. Giuseppe did not know – and this only came to light thanks to a testimony collected by Fr. Sebhatleab Ayele Tesemma years afterwards – was that that tree was considered “special”. A local prophesy even said that, “from that podocarpus salvation would come for the whole region”. It was the exact spot where the great mission of Dongora developed with a beautiful church and a catechetical training centre for the formation of ministers of the Word.

After seven years spent founding and developing the mission of Dongora, Fr. Giuseppe returned to Italy for a period of rest.

Once he returned to Ethiopia, although he still belonged to the mother mission of Fullasa where he spent the weekends, he dedicated all his energy and missionary commitment to the mission of Miqe which became the “mission of his heart”. For some time he used public transport and travelled the final 11 km on foot. “At first”, - he said - “Miqe existed only in my imagination and in my dreams. There was already a group of baptised people, 28 people in all, both adults and children, whom I had inherited from the Lutherans, as well as the little church”. However, a few years later he could write: “During all those years the Lord blessed Miqe which was growing in every way: there were now thirteen buildings, great and small, all built of stone, as well as the church-Shrine and the attached parish hall. There was a large house for the Sisters and a dispensary for their work; there was a nice house for guests with a standing invitation to all who wished to spend some time at the Shrine of Our Lady of Miqe; a spacious and well-equipped carpentry shop; a large store for goods to help the needy; a garage and workshops. Finally, I must mention the jewel in the crown: the youth group of St. John Bosco, the first in the diocese”.

In 2003, appointed to the Italian province for health reasons, he ministered for some years at Bagolino, his home town. He always remembered with affection the missions where he had worked and, whenever possible, he would help carry out their projects.

In 2006 he was transferred to Milano for treatment. He wrote in his diary: “I was convinced that every missionary, in order to be really a missionary, must have the spirit of self-denial even regarding his own choices and his own ideas: it is enough to feel oneself anchored to a greater Love. One departs with the enthusiasm of youth in one’s heart  but it often happens that, together with the joys of the greatest achievements, one finds oneself in a situation that is much different from what one foresaw, one which draws blood. However, for me here on the second floor of Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli Retirement Home, apart from room number 13 which may well be the launch pad for a journey of no return, there is also the chapel for close encounters with the One who waits for you, here below and up above. Reality, not poetry. One may also depart happily from room number 13”.

Fr. Giuseppe died in Milan on 12 March, 2011. After the funeral, the remains were taken to Bagolino, his home town, for burial.

Fr. Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie, who knew Fr. Giuseppe, remembered his 33 years of service in Ethiopia and his generous dedication to the poor and expressed, in the name of all the members of the province, his “thank you” in a beautiful testimony from which we have taken these few words: “Thank you for the example of life in solitude and full of prayer, and for your friendship with Our Lady, for your apostolic zeal and your love of the poor”.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 249 suppl. In Memoriam, ottobre 2011, pp. 40-48.