In Pace Christi

This obituary of Fr. Gennaro Carillo’s life is taken from the notes of Fr. Angelo Biancalana’s funeral homily.

Fr. Carillo has brought us together once more to remember and to rejoice in the wonderful things the Lord has done in his 85 years of life and to celebrate the new life that he has just begun to live and will continue to live for days without end with the risen Lord.

Fr. Carillo was a very special person. The presence of so many of you here testifies to that. He has touched our lives in a most profound way. What was so special about this short, restless, fascinating man with sparkling eyes and a magnetic personality?

He was wonderfully warm and human. He was a man of faith who welcomed and embraced people without distinction. And he was a priest who knew the heart of Christ and endeavored to walk in his footsteps.

Fr. Carillo was born on 13 December 1916 in San Giuseppe Vesuviano on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. He entered the Comboni Missionaries’ Institute and in 1935 he consecrated his life to the missions. He studied theology in Rome from 1937 to 1941 and was ordained priest in 1940, at the beginning of the 2^nd World War. From 1941 to 1947 he taught theology in Florence and Verona. He arrived in North America at the end of 1947.

From 1948 to 1953 Fr. Carillo served as parish priest in Santa Ysabel Indian Mission in San Diego County. In 1953 he became parish priest in San Antonio de Pala Indian Mission. Here he stayed for only seven years, but a large piece of his heart never left Pala.

In 1960 he became editor of the Comboni Mission Magazine, a post he left the following year when he was assigned to open a new community in Yorkville, Illinois. In 1964 Fr. Carillo moved to Monroe, Michigan, as mission promoter.

From 1964 to 1971 he became parish priest of a new Afro-American parish in the “Little Africa” area of Louisville, Kentucky: the Immaculate Heart of Mary. His next assignment was Montclair, New Jersey, where he devoted his energy and creativity to mission awareness and fundraising. In 1982 Fr. Carillo returned to California, this time to the parish of St Albert in Compton. There, he continued his work of mission promotion till 1989.

In 1990 he opened the new Mission Center of Covina. He was 73 years of age, but his heart was still on fire for the missions. From 1992 to 1999 he returned to Montclair to fan the missionary fire he had earlier enkindled on the East Coast.

On 1 July 2000 Fr. Carillo returned home to Covina to spend the last years of his life among the people he loved and to help with ministry and mission promotion. By this time a serious car accident in Italy had robbed him of much of his vitality. Yet, Fr. Carillo remained young at heart to the very end. He continued his ministry as chaplain of Rowland Convalescent Home. He was a 4^th degree Knight of Columbus and kept in contact with his Brother Knights. He believed in their ideals and their role in the Church. For a long time he had been a chaplain of the Italian Catholic Federation. Now he continued to animate and inspire them. The Comboni Missionary League was also very dear to his heart. Till the end of his life he took personal interest in its members and activities.

This is the historical background. Now I want to share with you some of my own and my community’s reflections on the reasons why we loved Fr. Carillo and continue to love him, but, more importantly, the reasons why we think God loved him and will continue to love him for ever.

Firstly, the Lord had to love Fr. Carillo because he was forever on the go. He could not be still, whether in church or in the kitchen, whether in the office or at meetings. There was simply too much to do and so very little time to do it. He built the rectory in Santa Ysabel, a seminary in Yorkville. The most remarkable monument to his creativity and ingenuity is the Mission of San Antonio de Pala. It was in ruin when he got there in 1953. With little money, but with the help of the local parishioners and the many friends of Pala Mission, Fr. Carillo rebuilt this Indian Mission and the school for Indian children. Today countless tourists visit this beautiful and unique Indian Mission that is nearly 200 years old.

I was a brand new priest then in Pala. I must confess that I did resent being treated like a child, but, at the same time, I was impressed by this “little” man who could count among his friends people like Ramon Navarro and Frank Capra and prominent people of Southern California, while he himself was living very simply, working tirelessly and serving the Indian people scattered on an immense territory. He had the gift of making friends, of charming people and involving them in the work of the mission. Some of you must know it from experience! He could not rest. And, rubbing shoulders with him, I learned a lesson that I have never forgotten: that being a priest is not an excuse for not dirtying one’s hands and avoiding responsibilities.

Secondly, the Lord loved him because Fr. Carillo loved people. He was not soft. He could be short tempered and tough on people and on me, too. That’s why lately I would jokingly remind him that it was now my turn to be tough on him. He truly loved people and people loved him.

There are two characteristics that stand out in him and these are hospitality and availability, marks of a true missionary.

Who has not experienced his welcoming attitude? Who among us has not sat at table with him, with a cup of espresso, or a piece of his own brand of pizza, or a plate of Neapolitan spaghetti or even polenta and rabbit? Who hasn’t partaken of his figs or avocados? Of his tomatoes or chicory? Who has not received a sympathy card or a birthday card or a card for a special occasion? Who has ever heard of a patient bringing a bowl of home made soup to his doctor’s office as a token of gratitude? A truly amazing man!

When he died, we discovered that in the hospital he had his miniature-electronic pocket phone book with him with over a hundred names and phone numbers. He was, I believe, the first Comboni Missionary to learn computers and to his last days he had been using the “dos system” of a museum piece, a rare combination of simplicity and ingenuity. Sad, isn’t it, that we had to make use of his address book to notify his friends of his death. At 85 he had a unique sense of vision and the ability to dream dreams and to touch people’s hearts. That’s what being young at heart is about.

The Lord loved Fr. Carillo because he was faithful. Faithful in the sense that one could count on him, one could trust him. But Fr. Carillo was also faith-filled. He was full of faith, he trusted his God till the end, even when, like Job, he had lost his mobility in two car wrecks, even when his heart attack left him debilitated, even when his kidneys stopped functioning, even when he found out he had Parkinson disease. He still trusted his God.

For years he was faithful to a starving diet. To anything appetizing on the table he would say “veleno veleno (poison)!” But he never complained. On occasions he would cry out in pain: “Mamma mia, mamma mia!” We then knew how much he was suffering. He lived the spirituality of St. Therese, the patroness of the missions, accepting to suffer for others. She called it the “Little Way”, but it demands a will of steel.

Fr. Carillo must have wondered at times why the God he served so faithfully would prove so unpredictable. But he never took back the trust he had placed in Him. God must love Fr. Carillo because he was a great Comboni Missionary: one of my heroes.

He knew the heart of Jesus. He met the Lord daily in the breaking of the bread. He knew he did not have to suffer and to struggle alone. Mary was his middle name and she was part of his life. How many times we would find him praying the Rosary.

Another characteristic of Fr. Carillo was his attention to others, especially to the confreres of his community. He would remember personally each Comboni Missionary in the North American Province on their birthdays and special anniversaries with a “Carillo’s computer made card.”

Even when weak and in pain, he would cater for the other community members who were sick. The very Sunday he entered the hospital for the last time, he had prepared dinner for our community, though he would not eat it himself and could hardly stand on his feet. He would always put others before himself.

This is the Fr. Carillo we knew and loved. We believe that God does too. O yes, on occasions, like the Vesuvius he came from, he would have volcanic eruptions if contradicted, but he never stayed angry.

Fr. Carillo had always wanted to work in Africa, but he was never given this opportunity. Being a missionary does not depend on geography. It’s a question of the heart. And for me, Fr. Carillo was a great missionary model, in love with Jesus and driven by Jesus’ passion for the poor and the most abandoned. He spoke for them, he stood by them and he was not ashamed to beg for them. We all know from personal experience that his love and enthusiasm for the missions were contagious.

Finally, the Lord loved Fr. Carillo because he was a man of joy, of unlimited joy. We know the dark nights that must have shattered his soul. Throughout the last year of his life, every step he took, was a torture. To Fr. Giuseppe Forlani, who one evening was assisting him in getting ready for bed, revealed that at night his feet felt as if pierced by nails. His last words ten days before he died were “It hurts, it hurts”. But Fr. Carillo knew that this was a way to be a missionary and that this too was going to pass. And pass it did.

Fr. Carillo died on Saturday 12 October 2002. He died peacefully as he was having dialysis at the Intercommunity Hospital. He gave one last loud sigh that spoke of his desire to go home.

Today, two days before World Mission Sunday, we lay this restless lover of life to rest. To rest?

Not Fr. Carillo! You can bet that he will continue to celebrate with his sister, a nun who died recently, with his parents and with all his friends. He will still tinker in heaven’s kitchen. Most of all, he will continue to nudge us, push us to continue his unfinished mission, the legacy he leaves behind.

And so, my friends, Fr. Carillo has gone from us and we miss him and shall continue to miss him. We’ll miss his smile and the twinkle in his eyes. We will miss him in our chapel, at our table and around the stove. We’ll miss his evening walk along our street. Now he will walk with God.

How shall we remember you, Fr. Carillo? I believe we ought to do what we did for the late Fr. Francesco Di Francesco, when the offerings people sent us in his name were sent to Nebbi, Northwestern Uganda, to help the establishment of a new mission by the Comboni Missionaries in a totally new diocese.

With your cooperation, we would now like to open a memorial fund in honour of Fr. Carillo. The money raised will be sent to the Comboni Missionaries working in Southern Sudan, to help the thousands of starving children and the countless refugees that are victims of the civil-religious war raging in that country. I know Fr. Carillo would have liked that.

The most fitting memorial, though, must be a living memorial. You and I must be that memorial. You and I must be compassionate as he was. You and I must be people of joy and of faith as he was. You and I must live in the hope of the Resurrection as he did.

Sincere thanks to many people. […] We cannot forget our friends of Pala. Many thanks to the parish priest of Pala, Fr. Marconi, to Robert Smith, the president of the council of the Pala Indian Tribe, to King Freeman and all the people of Pala for welcoming Fr. Carillo back to Pala Mission and for letting his body rest forever among the people he loved.

Lately Fr. Carillo has repeatedly told us that he was eager to go home. At last Jesus has come to take him, whispering: “Gennaro, vieni! Come into my rest!”.