Birth and ordination Daniele Comboni was born on 15 March 1831 at
Limone sul Garda in
Brescia to the poor gardeners (working for a local proprietor) Luigi Comboni and Domenica Pace as the fourth of eight children; he was the sole child to survive into adulthood. At that time Limone was under the jurisdiction of the
Austrian-Hungarian Empire. It was there that he completed his studies in medicine and languages (he learnt French, English and Arabic) and prepared to become a
priest. On 6 January 1849 he vowed that he would join the African missions, a desire he had held since 1846 after reading about the
Japanese martyrs. On 31 December 1854 in
Trento he received his
ordination to the priesthood from the
Bishop of Trent,
Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim. Comboni made a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land from 29 September to 14 October 1855. In 1857 – with the blessing of his mother – he left for Africa along with five other missionaries, also former students of Mazza.
Missionary Four months later, on 8 January 1858 he reached
Khartoum in
Sudan. There were difficulties including an unbearable climate and sickness as well as the deaths of several of his fellow missionaries; this, added with the poor and derelict conditions that the population faced made the situation all the more difficult. He had written to his parents of the conditions and the difficulties that the group faced but remained resolved. He witnessed the death of one of his companions and instead of deterring him he remained determined to continue and wrote:
"O Nigrizia o morte!" (translation:
"Either Africa or death"). By the end of 1859 three of the five had died and two were in
Cairo as Comboni himself grew ill. Comboni was in his new surroundings from 1858 until 15 January 1859 when he was forced to return to Verona due a bout of
malaria. He taught at Mazza's institute from 1861 until 1864. He soon worked out fresh strategies for the missions while back in his native land in 1864. He visited
Saint Peter's tomb in
Rome on 15 September 1864 and it was while reflecting before the tomb that he came upon the idea of a "Plan for the Rebirth of Africa" which was a project with the slogan
"Save Africa through Africa".
Episcopate and death On 9 March 1870 he left Cairo for Rome and arrived there on 15 March where he took part in the
First Vatican Council as the theologian of the
Bishop of Verona Luigi di Canossa; he formulated the "Postulatum pro Nigris Africæ Centralis" on 24 June which was a petition for the evangelization of Africa; this received the signature of 70 bishops. The First Vatican Council was terminated due to the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War and the dissolution of the
Papal States before the document could be discussed. In mid-1877 he was named as the
Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa and received his episcopal consecration on 12 August 1877 from Cardinal
Alessandro Franchi. His episcopal appointment was seen as a confirmation that his ideas and his activities – which some deemed to be foolish – were recognised as an effective means for the proclamation of the
Gospel. In 1877 and again in 1878 there was a drought in the region of the mission while mass starvation ensued soon after. The local population was halved and the religious personnel and their activities reduced almost to nothing. On 27 November 1880 he traveled to the missions in Sudan from
Naples for the eighth and final time to act against the
slave trade and though ill, managed to arrive in Khartoum on 9 August in summer and made a trip to the
Nubia mountains. On 10 October 1881 he died in Khartoum during the
cholera epidemic at 10:00pm; he had suffered a high fever since 5 October. His final words were reported to be: "I am dying, but my work will not die".
Pope Leo XIII mourned the loss of the bishop as a "great loss". == Legacy ==