In Pace Christi

Fr. Riccardo Novati was born at Cisano Bergamasco on 19 January, 1933. After Junior school at the Paolo Sarpi School, Bergamo, he entered the novitiate at Florence and then did the Senior school in Verona. From 1953 to 1958 he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Propaganda Fide in Rome. He was ordained priest on 1 March, 1958.

He completed various formative courses and taught history at the Comboni Senior school, Carraia (Lucca), from 1959 to 1961. He studied English in London and earned a Scout Master certificate at Gilwel Park. He spent from 1962 to 1967 as a missionary in Uganda, an experience that had a profound effect on him. He returned to studies and obtained a Certificate of Periodical Journalism at the London Polytechnic in 1969. He was in Uganda from 1972 to 1975 where he founded the parish of Aloi, together with a technical school, a dispensary and a maternity hospital. He returned to Italy where he worked as assistant to the ACSE-Milan (Comboni Assistance to Foreign Students) until 1984. He founded the New Africa Institute for technical cooperation in Milan (MAE). Up to 1985 he participated in various missions for cooperation projects in Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Togo, Gabon...). Then came the turning point: in 1985 he founded, literally from nothing, the Comboni Centre at Sogakope in Ghana. The adventure would last right up to the day he died: 31 July, 2015.

“When I arrived in Ghana in 1985, I had to set to work to get a small piece of land for the mission. Having made an agreement with the paramount chief and the families of Fievie, I obtained almost 65 hectares of land”. It was on this land, on the river Volta, in the town of Sogakope, not far from the Comboni parish (opened on 22 August, 1981) that the various works began to spring up: a Vocational School a kindergarten, primary and middle schools, a printing school and buildings for in-service training. “I started a small farm, solely for didactic purposes, where the students may learn to cultivate better the local traditional crops. I tried to improve the work by keeping livestock”.

Eventually, other departments were added for computerised layout and information technology. “My goal in the field of training, once the basics had been taught to the students in the vocational schools, has always been, as is the case in the health department, to bring in whatever is more useful and innovative that can be inserted in the national context of development and modernisation of the country”.

“One thing leads to another and needs become apparent with the passage of time. The modernisation of the country in which we work also helps the growth of the structures”. And then you have a dispensary that will become, little by little, a real hospital. And next door: buildings for visiting relatives of the sick, hostels for the students, small houses for teachers, medical staff and the like.

The Comboni Centre became Fr. Riccardo’s way of realising the Comboni mission. With creativity and courage, he sought to carry out the plan of Comboni to “Save Africa with Africa”. He involved friends, benefactors, medical volunteers and professionals from Italy and Europe to realise his dream for a New Africa. The Eucharist celebrated at the Centre, the catechesis offered to the young people, accompanied, day by day, the thirty years of his mission at Sogakope. They were not easy years, a commitment that was not always understood or shared by all but which, certainly, did good to many people. The memory remains of a missionary who was coherent and generous, purified for the last three years by sickness: he stayed in the silence of his room, watching over that dream he loved so well and which continues to come true for the Local Church of the Diocese of Keta-Akatsi.

Testimony of Fr. Ruben Awuye – “Fr. Riccardo Novati, director and founder of the ‘Comboni Centre’, was convinced that human promotion and development should go hand-in-hand with the proclamation of the Good News. He was a man of dreams and of action. He was a quiet man, spiritual and generous. He was a great man and a faithful priest who touched and transformed the lives of many. He was often criticised for his imposing works but he never became discouraged or gave up. And he never bore a grudge against anyone.”

From the newspaper “Giornale di Merate” – The Last dream of Fr. Riccardo – “In 1985 Fr. Riccardo arrived in Ghana where he founded the mission of Sogakope (Diocese of Keta-Akatsì), that today has 8,000 inhabitants, in an area of great poverty. Fr. Riccardo started a school and a printing department and, more importantly, the Comboni Centre, which he understood from the point of view of the Founder of the Institute: “Save Africa with Africa”. This multi-purpose Centre is equipped with vocational schools, a hospital, a hostel for students, houses for local workers and volunteers. As Fr. Riccardo often said, these works should “free the African from the low condition of the poor provider of raw materials. He himself must become capable of manufacturing and providing services, without depending on the white man». Today, the Centre is frequented by 1,600 students and the hospital has 50,000 patients a year.”

«He used to be happy when he came to stay with us, his relatives – his brother Mario recalls – but he was even happier to leave again for Africa, his new homeland». Some of the volunteers wrote on the Comboni Centre Facebook: «Thank you for having taught us to love Africa and thank you for all the lessons of life you gave us». Following his express wishes, his funeral took place at Sogakope where he was also buried.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 266 suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2016, pp. 85-89.