In Pace Christi

At the end of his third year of Theology in the seminary of Trento, the cleric Agostino Pellegrini decided on the step that would take him into the ranks of the Comboni Missionaries.

The Rector wrote, on 15th April 1923:

"In discharging the cleric Pellegrini Agostino, who with the Bishop's permission aspires to the holy Missions, I have the pleasure to certify that this aspirant merits the best of recommendations, for both his intellectual and his moral qualities.

"Well-gifted intellectually, he has always given careful attention to his studies in the seminary, as the annual reports demonstrate; and his attention to his spiritual formation has been equally rigorous. As he leaves this seminary to dedicate himself to the most noble missionary calling, he is accompanied by the liveliest hopes that he may, with God's grace, carry out the work that we would have expected from him in our Diocese."

Fascinated by Comboni

Agostino was born at Dambel, in Val di Non, on 21st January 1900. He felt called to be a priest while still very young, and entered the Junior Seminary of the diocese of Trento.

While still in liceo, with World War I still raging (1917), he was conscripted into the Austro-hungarian army. He was a soldier for just a few months, but they were enough for the young seminarian to leave a lot of good example behind among his fellow conscripts. Straight after the war he went back into the seminary to take up his studies again.

In the next few years he got to know the Comboni Missionaries, who had a junior seminary in Trento in those days. The heroic missionary life of their founder, Bishop Daniel Comboni, fascinated him; so much so that he decided to consecrate his own life to the African missions.

He entered the Novitiate at Venegono on 17th June 1923. He was 23 himself and, as we have seen, had just completed the third year of Theology.

The Novice Master was Fr. Bertenghi, a man in whom holiness and the ability to form future missionaries went hand in hand. He paid special attention to the new arrival, because he was not far off ordination. He wrote:

"He has plenty of good will, is pious, humble and keeps the rules. In the seminary he had completed the study of Dogma, and still had part of Moral Theology and Canon Law to study. He is studying these treatises during the Novitiate. As intelligence goes he is not brilliant, but manages quite well. Maybe he is rather run down, because the reports that came with him from the seminary are excellent under all aspects.

His character is a bit shy and awkward, but he is open and obedient. His health is not too strong; I think he must have suffered from the scarcities and from hunger during the war. In view of this I have given him an easier time-table than the rest of the novices.

He hopes to be ordained at the end of the first year of Novitiate. I would suggest he have a good rest in the Trentino air, to recoup his energies. 10th. May 1924."

It is not recorded whether he did have a long rest in the air of his native Trento. But on 16th July 1924 he made his first Vows - so after just one year of Novitiate - and was ordained priest in Milan by Cardinal Eugenio Tosi on 2nd. November 1924: the Souls in Purgatory brought him a blessing!

In the footsteps of the Founder

A few months later, he set sailed for Africa from Naples, with the new Vicar Apostolic, Bp. Tranquillo Silvestri. Following the route of the Founder, he crossed the desert to reach Khartoum. After that, another two weeks on the river-boat to land at Juba (Bahr el Jebel), the terminus in the then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It was 1st July 1925.

In those days the British were still busy bringing the southern tribes under control; to do this they drove roads through the area, and forced the people to live along them.

A certain Captain Driberg, conqueror and then administrator of part of the area (the Eastern District, towards Ethiopia, including the Toposa, Didinga, Longarin - or Boya - tribes), had asked for a Catholic mission to be based there, to help him to build up friendly relations with the people, who were still very suspicious of the new arrivals. The Captain was convinced that religious instruction and schools were the very basis of civilisation.

But the position chosen for the Mission by Captain Driberg was not down on the plain of Kapoeta among the more numerous Toposa, but next to his residence on the plateau of Naghichot, in Didinga territory, and over 6,500 feet above sea level. The man was a kind of Emperor Franz Josef, (who used to be called "King Sacristan") because he used the missionaries and religion for his own purposes. He even controlled all the movements and activities of the missionaries for evangelisation, pastoral visiting and catechesis: nothing was done without Driberg's say-so.

Fr. Agostino was sent to the new foundation, together with Fr. Molinaro and Bro. Bertagnoli.

The expedition left Juba on foot, with a dozen porters, and covered, one at a time, the 180 miles to Naghichot, making several detours around forests and swamps.

It took them a week to reach Torit, the main centre among the Lotuko tribe, and site of one the early Catholic missions. From there they travelled for another week, crossing a vast and virtually trackless savannah, a paradise of wild animals: antelopes, zebra, giraffes lions, leopards, wild boars...

Hopes and disappointments

The little group arrived at Naghichot exhausted. The Captain had built them a log cabin. At that height, it was cold!

"We looked for moss to plug the gaps between the logs," Fr. Pellegrini reported. Their poverty was extreme.

Naghichot would have made a fine spot for well-equipped tourists or campers. But not for people with little or nothing. The local people lived much further down, where it was milder. But the Captain ordered the local chiefs to send up the children to school, and periodically send soldiers down to round them up.

"Those little children, with no clothes, used to huddle round the fire to try to keep warm; and when any of them got the chance, off they would go!" Fr. Agostino recalled.

Following Christmas 1925 Fr. Vignato arrived to visit his confreres, and reported to Fr Meroni, the Superior General, on 15th January 1926: "I found Fr. Pellegrini all fresh and lively, perfectly happy in his solitude. The mission is on a magnificent rise on the plateau. They can grow all the vegetables one finds in Europe; even potatoes have given a good crop. But the mission is really desolate: 17 Didinga children, constantly huddled against the cold, a few Dongotono catechists, a couple of houseboys, and nothing else."

The few essentials brought with them ran out, and Juba was too far away for any realistic contact. Things could not go on like that, and after a year the Fathers, abandoned the mission and withdrew to Torit, leaving a mission among the Didinga to wait for better times.

Nine years at Torit

Fr Pellegrini worked at Torit from 1926 to 1935, first as assistant priest, then as superior. He learned Lotuko perfectly, and the people responded well to the missionaries' efforts. They would spend days visiting the villages, spending hours among the people. Catechumenates sprang up, and primary schools appeared, along with a technical school, and workshops for mechanics, carpentry and shoe-making.

Holidays and... prison

In 1935 Fr. Pellegrini returned to Italy for his first leave, five months of which were spent in England to learn the language. In 1936 he was posted to Isoke, among the Dongotono of Torit District. He stayed there a year, then returned to Torit as superior and parish priest (1937-1940).

Then came the hiatus of World War II, which caused personnel and supplies for the missions to dwindle to nothing. The missionaries themselves were interned at Okaru, under the watchful eye of British troops. The missionaries were able to get back fully to their work only at the end of hostilities.

Fr. Pellegrini spent 1942-3 at Kapoeta, which was among the Toposa, but included some Didinga and Boya. He had Fr. Lino Spagnolo and Bro Giuseppe Galli with him. Kapoeta had been founded by Fr. Sisto Mazzoldi, who pushed on to Chukudum, about 60 miles from Kapoeta, at the foot of the Naghichot hills. There, in 1946, the new mission was built.

Return to his first love

Fr. Pellegrini was chosen for the parish when Chukudum was started. It was a great joy to return among the Didinga he had left 20 years previously, but had never forgotten. And at Chukudum the climate was very good, there was plenty of water, there were villages dotted all round, the land seemed fertile, and a bamboo forest promised good supplies for future brick and tile kilns.

Fr Michele Rosato, who had just arrived from Italy, was sent as assistant. The two worked hard together for four years, and obtained very encouraging results. Life was not without its hardships, though. Their only transport was a cart, drawn by asses. The missionaries lived in huts infested by jiggers. Their life is described by Fr. Rosato in his book: "50 Years in Africa", and at times sends shudders down your spine!

After the first six months Bro. Lazzari arrived, sent from Juba to see how the two were managing. He wrote: "I felt I was meeting Robinson Crusoe & Son! Long hair (never a haircut), wild beards, calloused hands, clothes in rags, limping on both legs because of the jiggers under their toe-nails..."

Donkeys are not stupid

Since half the territory could only be visited by hiking among the mountains, Fr. Pellegrini tried to organise things by using three donkeys as pack animals - but without success. On the first trip they trotted off quickly enough, but as the slopes became steeper they became more and more difficult to drive. In the end they all turned round and went trotting off back home, braying with relief, and leaving their poor master alone, and "neither up nor down"! And people will say that donkeys are stupid!

The three fathers at Chukudum were able to move into a new house only in 1950. And then the Sisters arrived, and things began to improve.

In the meantime, Chukudum had become a centre for the Didinga, with a dispensary, a primary school, the catechumenate, advanced agricultural methods with the introduction of new seeds and a plough pulled by... donkeys. The missionaries had got bicycles. Various kinds of fruit-trees had been planted: paw-paws, oranges, lemons, tangerines, guavas, mangoes, as well as bananas. Nearly all plants unknown to the Didinga, who cultivated only sorghum, maize and finger-millet.

Pipe and Rosary

In Holy Year (1950) Fr Pellegrini returned to Italy for a well-earned rest. But the holiday did not last long. His passion was for Africa. He went back as soon as he could, and was appointed to Isoke, where he stayed two years; then in 1953 returned to Torit. The missionary safaris among the Lotuko were less wearing than among the Didinga, with all the up-and-down mountain paths.

But after spending three more years at Isoke (1956-1959) he asked to be sent back among the Didinga; and in 1960 we find him at Chukudum once again. He looked forward to ending his days there. He had put on weight, and found it harder to get around on foot, so he concentrated on the catechumens, on overseeing the cultivation and the fruit trees, and on prayer. He never went anywhere without two objects: his rosary and his pipe.

Persecution

But Moslem pressure was growing in the South. The Khartoum government saw the missionaries as an obstacle to the spread of Islam in Southern Sudan. In 1957, only a year after Independence, the schools and dispensaries had been taken from the Christian churches; permission to open new missions or begin new projects was denied.

In 1962 the "Missionary Societies Act" was passed, designed to hobble all missionary activity (when Pope John Paul II went to Khartoum in 1993, he expressly asked the government to abrogate the Act as a sign of goodwill - without success). The missionaries found themselves practically under house arrest, since they needed written permission each time they wanted to move.

The expulsions began in 1962 (as we saw, Fr Negrini was one of the first victims). In 1963 others followed, one of them being Fr Pellegrini; he left Chukudum on 18th January 1963. He was anguished and bewildered; he could not take in the fact that he was being thrown out of the land where he had exhausted all his youthful energies, putting up with hardships of all kinds, for the love of the people.

Before leaving the mission, he asked everyone to kneel for his blessing. The Arab official overseeing his departure asked: "When did the father come to Chukudum?" "Before you were born!" they answered. The soldier fell silent, acutely embarrassed by the duty he had to perform.

In Italy

On his return to Italy on 21st September 1962, Fr Agostino was sent to the junior seminary at Barolo, as confessor. Then, when that seminary closed, he moved to the Mother House for ministry. After some medical attention there, he went on to the community at Arco, where he spent his remaining years, before having finally to return to the Centre for Sick Confreres in Verona.

Fr. Rosato provides this picture of him: "Fr. Pellegrini was calm, rather deliberate, but very steady. He had a lot of common sense and a great zeal for the salvation of souls. He did not hesitate to dirty his hands cultivating fields of sweet potatoes for the ever-increasing numbers of catechumens. And he was tireless in building work, too. At times when he was free from ministry he would tread mud for bricks or tiles, along with the young men and boys.

He loved spending time talking to people. He learned the traditions and customs from the elders, and told stories from the Bible to the children; and because he had learned the language perfectly, this was a pleasant task for him. He would visit the sick, and help those in need. All this made him much loved by the people, who counted him as one of themselves. He too loved the people very much, and would certainly have preferred to end his days in Sudan. He had a good command of Lotuko, Didinga, Bangala, English and German.

He was mild and friendly towards confreres. He held the office of superior for a number of years, and for him it was always a service. In community he fostered distension and good humour with his intelligence and wit. He was one of the great pioneer missionaries who, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, took privations and hardships in their stride. I am sure that the Lord has given him a rich crown of glory."

A Letter

In April 1995 Fr. Petri received a letter from the Didinga group in Juba, describing their celebrations for the 70 years since Christianity had been brought to their tribe. Father was asked to take the news to Fr. Pellegrini, who was then in the CAA in Verona. "I went to see Fr. Agostino," writes Fr. Petri, "and told him about the letter from Juba, the greetings and the thanks from his Didinga. He livened up for a moment, raised his head, looked at me and said Abunnà gerret!, which in Didinga means `That is very good'."

He died of heart failure, rich in days and merits. He was 95 years old. After the Requiem in the Mother House he was taken to Dambel, where he is venerated as one of the pioneers of the Faith in Africa, and a protector of the parish. (Fr. Lorenzo Gaiga)