In Pace Christi

“He decided to devote his life to others, travelling relentlessly around the world, visiting Africa, Europe and America, always eager to be among the people to contribute especially to helping the poorest. Fr. Enzo Tavano, a Comboni missionary originally from Udine, died at the age of 93. He had a brilliant mind. A specialist in languages, he had graduated at Oxford in English and French. Over the years he had worked in many countries, including Uganda, Malawi, Spain, Mexico, California and Ecuador. He was always on the move and continued to participate in mission activities so that he could always be at the side of those in need.” This was the announcement of his death, published in the “Messaggero Veneto” of October 26, 2016.

After his vows, taken nearly a year in advance, Enzo was ordained priest in Verona on 6 June, 1948, and sent to Sunningdale (England). In 1950, with his assignment to Khartoum as a teacher, he began his long missionary life – more than sixty years – in various Comboni provinces. He returned to Italy for health reasons in 2012. He stayed first in Verona and then in the Bro. Alfredo Fiorini Centre, in Castel d’Azzano, where he died on 25 October, 2016.

Fr. Claudio Zendron, his Provincial in Ecuador, wrote: “I knew Fr. Enzo Tavano during my term as Provincial and at that time he celebrated sixty years of priesthood in the parish of San Gabriel de los Chillos, of which he was taking care with the permission of the Institute as a commitment ‘ad personam’. Fr. Enzo liked the people who lived in the residential neighbourhoods around the parish. He took very great care of the chapel and of the dimension of his personal prayer. He also liked visiting families, even though he was not following a pastoral plan. He came to the provincial house every Monday morning and returned to the parish on Wednesday. He always cultivated friendships, even those in the areas where he had worked previously and, thanks to his US and Italian benefactors, was able to sustain the formation of candidates in the Comboni postulancy in Quito. Even with his advancing age and precarious health, he continued to visit especially a family that he had helped with their daughter’s education. He suffered a lot when, at the Cardinal’s request, he had to leave the parish he had been administering for so long, partly because he could not carry out all the commitments the ministry demanded and partly, perhaps, because he would have liked a bit ‘more gratitude’.”

In the homily at the funeral Mass, Fr. Renzo Piazza said: “The man Enzo, once defined as ‘the man from Friuli of prickly character’, with the advancing of physical weakness and illness became milder, less demanding, often grateful to those who attended him. His inner man was renovated and became more amiable, more lenient, and when I told him: ‘Now you have become sweeter’, he replied: ‘but I’ve never been bitter!’”

Fr. Enzo has been called a gentleman, one who did not sing in the choir but wanted to be a soloist. Definitions are wasted on him. We prefer to call him what he has been in his life: a Comboni missionary who served the missionary Church in many places for about 60 years. He liked to be remembered for some original gestures: lunch with the wife of the president of Ecuador; the only Comboni who managed to get some money from the archbishop of Quito for the renovation of the church; the first to paint in a church a picture of Comboni when he had not yet been beatified.

Of him we remember, in particular, his sincere love for Comboni, his love for the mission in which he remained as long as his health allowed him and his personal fidelity.

Old age was Fr. Enzo’s Cross and by the Cross he found Mary, the Mother of Christ, whom he welcomed and embraced. He eagerly sought refuge in her. He turned to her in prayer without ceasing.”
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 270 suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2017,  pp. 145-148.