In Pace Christi

“Fr. Giovanni was a missionary who lived his Comboni missionary vocation in great simplicity and managed to sow the seed and the love of God quietly, leaving a wonderful impression in the hearts of those he met” (Fr. Enrique Sánchez G.).

Fr. Giovanni Fumach was born at Pieve di Colognola ai Colli (Verona) on 5 January, 1927. He attended the public schools and gained a diploma in surveying. At the age of 27 he joined the Comboni novitiate at Gozzano as a late vocation and took first vows in September, 1956. He completed the four years of theology at Venegono and was ordained at the Duomo of Milan on 2 April, 1960 by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. His novitiate and scholasticate companions remember him as one full of fervour, punctual in everything and enthusiastic, well identified with his missionary and Comboni vocation. He spent the first fourteen years of his ministry in Italy where, among other things, from 1965 to 1969, he provided valuable and competent assistance at the new seat of the General Curia in Rome.

In 1974 he was appointed to Mexico where he stayed for thirty years except for a brief stay in Costa Rica (1983). Those were years of intense work and apostolic activities carried out with enthusiasm. His first appointment in Mexico was to the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe, now in the hands of the diocese of Nezahualcoyotl. It was there he learned Spanish and had his first experience among the poor.

In June, 1975, the Provincial, Fr. Gianmaria Pietro Piu, appointed him to the mission of Chiltepec, now in the diocese of Tuxtepec, where they still remember him as an exemplary parish priest, full of energy and able to turn his hand to anything. “I have many memories of Fr. Giovanni – writes Fr. Enrique Sánchez G. – but the most vivid of these is surely his joy and his ability to form good relations with people. He was always a missionary with great simplicity and so was at home with the humble and poor. He had a great ability to be with people without pronouncing solemn discourses: it was just his example that left a good impression on those he met. This greatly helped him during his time among the indigenous people of Chinantla, in the diocese of Tuxtepec, where he must have lived the best years of his missionary life in Mexico”.

In March, 1978, he left for his first holidays at home. In June, 1980, the new Provincial, Fr. Jaime Rodríguez S., now Bishop of Huánuco, in Peru, asked him to lend a hand to Fr. Giampiero Pini at Holy Family Parish in the capital of Costa Rica and found in Fr. Giovanni a person who was eminently available.
After a few years, he was asked to replace Fr. Giorgio Dorin (appointed formator at the Postulancy of Xochimilco) at the mission of Jalapa de Diaz and the community of Ojitlan, where he was appointed superior in May, 1984. In July, 1987, a cherished dream came true: a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

When he returned he was sent to the Postulancy at Xochimilco to replace the exhausted Fr. Sergio Pendin. As soon as Fr. Pendin was able to resume his work, Fr. Giovanni was appointed to Baja California, where he encountered new people and the desert climate of Vizcaino. This considerable change did nothing to diminish his invincible and constant priestly and missionary enthusiasm. Let us once again read the testimony of Fr. Enrique. “The last time I saw him in his desert mission of Vizcaino in Baja California, he was alone, in charge of the small parish. He had a lot of work to do and felt he should do it all. He did this well and without losing his inner peace... His great concern was to organise the work so as to penetrate the vast plantations of tomatoes and other vegetable being cultivated in that area, where hundreds of indigenous people worked: they had come from the state of Oaxaca where he had worked before being transferred. These people lived in very poor conditions and Fr. Giovanni tried to help them in some way. He did it with such great love that no one could stop him being there among the people”.

In 1995, he was again appointed to Tuxtepec. As the years passed, his strength began to fail and the inevitable aches and pains of old age meant he could no longer continue his “apostolic raids”. Consequently, he was appointed to Mexico City as Assistant at the Comboni Chapel of the Martyrs of Uganda.
It was there that Fr. Giovanni first showed signs of a rapid form of Alzheimer’s that forced him to move for good to the Italian Province. After eight long years spent on the second floor of the Mother House in Verona, he passed away on 6 November, 2012. His funeral took place at Pieve di Colognola ai Colli (VR), his native town.
(Fr. Sergio Pendin)
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 254 suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2013, pp. 89-93.