Saint Daniel Comboni

Daniele Comboni, MCCJ (15 March 1831 – 10 October 1881) was an Italian Catholic prelate who served as Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa from 1877 until his death in 1881. He worked in the missions in Africa and was the founder of both the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus and the Comboni Missionary Sisters. Comboni studied under Nicola Mazza in Verona where he became a multi-linguist and in 1849 vowed to join the missions in the African continent although this did not occur until 1857 when he travelled to Sudan. He continued to travel back and forth from his assignment to his native land in order to found his congregations and attend to other matters, and returned in 1870 for the First Vatican Council in Rome until its premature closing due to conflict. Comboni attempted to draw attention across Europe to the plight of the people living in poverty-stricken areas in the African continent and from 1865 until mid-1865 travelled across Europe to places such as London and Paris to collect funds for a project he started to tend to the poor and ill. His mission to Africa was strengthened with his appointment as a bishop in 1877 for it allowed him greater freedom to establish branches of his order in Khartoum and Cairo amongst other locations. Comboni was beatified by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica on 17 March 1996 and his canonization came on 5 October 2003. 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. At the age of twelve, he was sent to school in Verona on 20 February 1843 at the Religious Institute of Verona, founded by Nicola Mazza. It was there that he completed his studies in medicine and languages (he learnt French, English and Arabic) and prepared to become a priest.