In Pace Christi

“My most vivid memories of my earliest years lived – Fr. Galli wrote in his diary – in a village in Lombardy inhabited by good citizens, mostly working in the textile industry, are those of an ideal family and parish. We were a poor family but united in the faith and in work. The parish was run by two fervent, zealous priests and united in a real community of two thousand souls, the cradle of many vocations. I remember I was only seven years old when I first heard the call to the priesthood, a call that, even then, was like a firm ideal with no doubts...In 1931, at the age of eleven, I joined the seminary of St. Peter the Martyr at Seveso where I attended the Gymnasium and then went to the Diocesan Seminary of Pius XI at Venegono Inferiore for the Higher School. I was happy and content with my linear education with its discipline and serious atmosphere and ...excellent superiors and spiritual directors with many years of formation. Those were happy days and years. At the age of twenty five I was ordained priest at Como on the feast of Ss. Peter and Paul. I spent my first three years as a priest (1945-1948) at Crema, as bursar of the minor seminary, where there were 120 boys. In the autumn of 1947, the General Superior, Fr. Antonio Todesco, appointed me to the United States. I was not very keen on going there but I prepared all the documents necessary. In early 1948, though, the same Fr. General sent me a postcard asking if I had any objections to going to Khartoum to study Arabic. I liked that proposal and willingly accepted it. The missions at Khartoum consisted in the Cathedral Parish and the Parish of Omdurman. At Khartoum North there was just a Procure. I left from Genoa on 2 October, 1948, with Fr. Antonio Calaveso who was also going to Khartoum, Fr. Giazzi, who was returning to Uganda and Fr. Binda who was going back to Egypt. When I arrived in Alexandria I immediately felt the need to face that new world with its impenetrable Arabic language”.

Fr. Galli, however, was sent for a year to Zahle (Lebanon) to study Arabic; then in 1951, he returned to Khartoum where he was charged with starting St. Joseph’s Technical School. The school was inaugurated on 12 January, 1952 and Fr. Galli dedicated himself to it entirely until the summer of 1955, the year that marked the end of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan.

In July, 1955, after seven years of mission, he returned to Italy for holidays. During that same month, there began the troubles and revolts in southern Sudan against the Northerners.

A year later, when he returned from his holidays, he was appointed chaplain to the Government Secondary School of Rumbek that had been transferred from the south to Khartoum due to the troubles. He resided at the Welfare Centre of Khartoum and taught religion to the Catholic students.

From 1958 to 1968 he was Secretary to Mons. Agostino Baroni about whom he wrote that “he was a true prophet, especially for the dialogue with and respect he had for the Moslems, whom he held in great esteem”.

In 1970, Fr. Galli was appointed Parish Priest at Wad Medani until 1978 when he was transferred to Kobar, Khartoum North, as Diocesan Procurator.

During that period, the meeting centre was built. Initially, it was meant to be a meeting-point for dialogue at all levels – religious, social, etc. – but, just when the work was finished, the need to move the National Seminary to Khartoum caused a change of plan. Fr. Galli continued his service in the financial administration of the Archdiocese with Cardinal Gabriel Zubeir Wako, until the year 2000.

In 2003, after more than fifty years’ work in Khartoum, he had to return to Italy for health reasons. He went first to Rebbio where he stayed for a number of years and then, in 2012, he was transferred to the Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli Centre, Milan, where he died on 13 January, 2017, at the ripe old age of ninety six years.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 274 suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2018, p. 17-20.