ELOQUENT SIGN

WM REPORT

UGANDA

World Mission Home

From the Editor

Where to find WMM

Subscription Rates

E-mail

Feedback on this article?

write to

mail@worldmission.ph

Remembering Fr Mario and Bro Godfrey

Two Comboni Missionaries, Fr Mario Mantovani, 84, and Bro Godfrey Kiryowa, 29, were killed recently in Uganda.
Fr Mario Mantovani had a special wish: he wanted to attend the canonization in Rome of the founder of his Missionary Institute, Daniel Comboni, set for October. He had already bought his plane ticket to return to Italy for the event, so he could also take the opportunity to visit his family.

Instead, on August 14, while traveling through the remote north-eastern region of Karamoja, a land to which he had dedicated his entire life (he arrived in 1957), he was caught in a furious exchange of fire together with his 29-year-old Ugandan confrere Br Godfrey Kiryowa.

Sadly, the two Comboni Missionaries fell under machine-gun fire during one of many cattle raids conducted on a daily basis by numerous rival Karimojong armed gangs. Br Godfrey died on the spot, struck by three bullets while still at the wheel of their vehicle, while Fr Mario was shot dead by a warrior who stole his shoes.

Extraordinary persons

“Fr Mario was an extraordinary person, able to instill optimism in all situations, even in the most difficult,” remembers Fr Walter Vidori, his close friend and confrere.

Fr Mario, an expert in the Karimojong culture, had written a grammar in the local language and was appointed by his superiors to accompany young missionaries in the period of learning the Karimojong language and culture, before starting their pastoral work. The elderly missionary was loved and respected by the population to the point that he spent long periods with them in their rural villages.

Young Br Godfrey was a professional wood-carver. He made his first religious profession last year and had a character that was out of the ordinary. Godfrey was from a very religious family of the parish community of Kasaala, south-central Uganda, that had managed to transmit to him the core of faith, creating the conditions for the seed of the Word to become an authentic project of life for him, centered on mission “ad gentes”.

Loving Mission

Karamoja, the land in which the violent crime was committed, is a region afflicted by cattle raids between rival gangs, and the phenomenon has heightened in past years with the flourishing illegal trade of light arms and ammunition. The government in Uganda’s capital Kampala had promised to stop all this and guarantee the security of the civilians, but so far these have been mere words.

The Superior General Superior of the Comboni Missionaries, Fr Manuel Augusto Lopes Ferreira, in expressing condolences to the families of the victims, recalled that with this last tragic loss, in a period of over twenty years, thirteen Comboni Fathers and one Sister have been killed in various circumstances in Uganda.

"Their sacrifice is the most eloquent sign of love for the mission of Christ and the Ugandan population," commented Fr Ferreira.

The killing of the two missionaries is symptomatic of the scourge of a nation like Uganda, where injustice and violence are a daily routine in territories such as Karamoja. The two missionaries that fell in Karamoja, as well as the thousands of missionaries throughout the world, are a perennial symbol of love and a guiding lesson of life for all - believers and non-believers alike.<WM

Beth O'Rourke