GERMAN

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The first Comboni House of what would become the Comboni German-Speaking Province was opened in Brixen (in Austria) in 1895 for candidates of German language. Just before I World War, half of the members of the Comboni Congregation came from Italy, hail spoke either German or a Slovene language. 


During and after the War, the Comboni missionaries of German origin were forbidden by the British government to work in British colonies in Africa (Sudan, Uganda and Egypt), so they opened missions in South Africa. 

For this and other reasons. In 1923 the Vatican decided to divide the Comboni Congregation into two branches: Italian and German.

At that moment, the German group had 4 communities in Europe and some missions in South Africa. 

Other communities were opened in Germany, Austria and in some eastern European countries. In 1938, the German Comboni missionaries began missionary work in Peru. in 1944, the branch had 224 confreres. 

The II World War was a veritable blow for the German branch: almost all its members were enrolled in the army; 30 of them were killed in battle; others abandoned the congregation.

For 10 years it was impossible to have any contact with confreres working in the missions. In 1961, the members of the branch were 230. 

ln 1979, the two branches joined to become, once again, one congregation. Since then, all the Comboni houses of German language formed the Comboni German Province. The number of vacations diminished drastically.

The minor seminaries were closed. in 1990 also the Novitiate was closed. in 2008, was the turn of the Scholasticate. 

New initiatives were launched. A community was opened in Halle, in the former East Germany, where only 5% of the population considered themselves Catholic, but in 2004 the community was closed for lack of personnel. in the following years, other communities were closed. 



At present, Comboni missionaries in the German Speaking Province (38 priests and 16 brothers) are committed to missionary animation of the local churches, to welcoming immigrants from Africa and Middle East, to providing young people the possibility of having missionary experiences in the various Comboni missions around the world. and to offering financial support to development projects in she various provinces of the institute. 


LONDON

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The birth of the London Province began to unfurl on 7th May 1903, through the mediation of the English Bishop of Southwark, Francis Bourne who was later to become Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Whilst on his ‘ad limina’ visit to Rome, he had mulled about the possibility of a religious order to come and work in his large diocese of southwards, South London. 

He was directed to visit the General of the Verona Fathers in Verona and his request was duly accepted fulfilling the Society’s desire to train personnel and send confreres to study English in view of their mission work in the British colonies of Africa.

This remained a priority for many years to come. 

Many communities were established In the forthcoming years in England, Scotland and Ireland. There was a constant flux of vocations through the Junior Seminary at Stillington, Yorkshire and later Mirfield, Yorkshire. Students then progressed to the Novitiate to study Philosophy, at Sunningdale, Berkshire, and then to Italy for Theology. In the late sixties, the Missionary Institute. Mill Hill, London, became the centre for theological studies with the attending scholastics housed at Elstree, Hertfordshire.



The London Province owes its development to the many confreres coming from Italy and also our own home-grown priests. Mission Appeal work has been the mainstay of our ministry and the means of fundraising and creating awareness of spreading the Gospel wherever we are present throughout the world. This has been helped with our quarterly mission magazine ‘COMBONI MISSION’ in getting friends and benefactors to pray and work on behalf of our missionary endeavours. 



As noted earlier, until the ordination of Scottish, Irish and English confreres, the London Province was very dependent on personnel from Italy. As of now In 2017, we have gradually become a more Internationally-minded group with confreres from Mexico, Togo, Ethiopia. Eritrea and of course still some Irish, Scottish and English! 

Currently. we have communities at Dawson Place, London, which offers hospitality to friends of our confreres and welcomes students of English.

Also, the Provincial, Fr. Martin Devenish resides at Sunningdale where we also have a well established church (1938. We also have the newly adopted parish at Roehampton, South London. Moving northwards. we have a community at Leeds, Yorkshire, and community Scotland. In Dublin, Ireland, there Is also a community Which also welcomes students for studies at local institutes. 

The ministry of the London Province centres around Mission Appeal works, editing our ‘Comboni Mission’ and assisting mission offices keep in touch with friends and benefactors.



Parish ministry and work with immigrants, coupled with Justice and Peace ministry form an essential part of our mission. At present, the London Province is composed of 21 members. 

As a Province, we look ahead with hope and enthusiasm, inspired and founded on our great missionary, Jesus Christ and St Daniel Comboni!.

KENYA

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Kenya being adjacent to Uganda had contacts With the Comboni missionaries before the official opening in 1973. Kacheliba mission where we are until to date was being served by the Comboni Missionaries from Uganda as an outstation. Even the first community, Tartar, which was opened officially in November 1972 was still under Moroto. But the following year 1973. Kenya was quickly officially opened as a region precipitated by political developments in Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda which refreshed the sad memories of the foreign missionaries’ expulsion from Sudan. 



Today we find ourselves working in 4 zones: Pokot. Turkana Nairobi and Marsabit zones. Our priorities have developed and evolved over the years Currently, our main areas of involvements are: Pastoral among the pastoralists. urban ministry, missionary animation and formation of leaders and drivers of social transformation.

ITALY —————————————–



It is impossible in few lines to summarise what has been the Comboni experience in ltaly. It is a story 150 years long made of dedication and commitment, whose fruits are retraceable in more than 40 countries around the world. 

St Daniel Comboni opened the first house of his Congregation on 1 st June 1867 in Verona, to welcome young people willing to spend their lives as missionaries in Central Africa. The name of the Congregation chosen by the founder was “institute for the African Missions”. 



For Comboni was the first step of an ambitious project. to form, ”for the most difficult mission in the world“, a group of people (men and women, priests, religious and lay people) willing to engage in the work of evangelisation and human promotion in extremely unfavourable situations, like those of tropical Africa in those days. 

Comboni missionaries have marked the Italian society, through their innumerable initiatives and numberless centres opened in almost every comer of the country. in 150 years they have opened around 100 houses and set up as many communities that, for some time at least, made their pressure felt in dozens of dioceses. Some of these houses are still very active.

The missionary magazine, Nigrizia, founded by Comboni himself. Thousands of readers are still appreciating and subscribing to the magazine. 

Comboni missionaries have sensitised and engaged entire generations of Italians in their passion for the mission. People became soon fond of them, up to the point of coining for them the name ‘Comboniani’, from the surname of their founder. in many instances, there were open protests when the Institute closed a house or a seminary. 

vitality is a characteristic that continues.

Today, out of 1,538 Comboni Missionaries present in the world (they were 1,812 in 2000), the ltalians are 604 (11 bishops, 481 priests, 108 brothers, 4 scholastics); they were 1,200 in 1990. Those present in Italy are 280, in 24 communities, 5 of which structured as ”clinics” for elderly and sick confreres. Their average age is almost 75 years. 

Nineteen communities are mainly missionary animation and vocation promotion centres.

Two are specifically involved in assisting the immigrants from Africa and Middle East Many members are sewing in diocesan offices as coordinators of ”Justice and Peace” commission, youth pastoral care and promotion of the laity. The Province sustains development projects and solidarity activities in every comer of the world.

MALAWI —————————————–

We, Comboni Missionaries of the Malawi/Zambia Province, are entirely dedicated to the missionary service, which determines our lifestyle, our activities and organization, as well as the preparation of our candidates and the ongoing formation of our members. We totally belong to the mission and we try to identify ourselves with the people we serve. The mission reality and the charism of our Founder, St. Daniel Comboni, are the sources which free us from discouragement in front of the challenges that characterize the mission ad gentes. 



We first carry out evangelization among the poor in both rural and urban areas with particular emphasis on the Catechumenate, formation and care of Small Christian Communities, formation of catechists, leaders and lay ministers. We are also involved in Missionary Animation in and with the Local Church. This goes along with vocation promotion. Our other priority is the education of the youth together with the family apostolate that always blends with involvement in issues of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. The challenges are legion but we trust in the one who sent us. 

Fr Edward Kanyike

MEXICO

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The Province of Mexico was officially inaugurated on 24 April 1950. The first Comboni missionaries arrived at the peninsula of Baja California, there they started with the evangelization work. 

At the present moment, we are 14 communities: 5 evangelization, 3 seminaries, 1 center for missionary animation, 1 center for sick missionaries and 4 for missionary animation. 



The activities of the Province of Mexico are: evangelization among the indigenous people and urban areas, Formation and vocations and missionary animation. One of our communities is dedicated to take care of our elderly and sick missionaries. 



The number of Mexicans Comboni missionaries at this moment are around 160 profess members and many of them are present in the 4 continents where the Comboni Institute is working. Many lay people in the Mexican province are also working together with us and some of them are the Comboni lay missionaries.

PERU —————————————–

In1938 the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith invited the Comboni Missionaries of the German branch to take up evangelisation activity in Peru, in 
Pozuzo, Huanuco diocese.

The zone was inhabited by Peruvian citizens of full or partial German ancestry. Frs. Luis Ipfelkofer, Andres Riedl and Miguel Wagner answered promptly. Within months, the bishop assigned Wagner to the diocesan seminary. In 1940 Fr Riedl took up the role of rector. 

In Europe, 12 more confreres were preparing to go to Peru, but the II World War began and all were ordered to join the army.

Only in 1948 three of them could join the confreres in Peru, and the Comboni group were able to take full responsibility of the running of the seminary till 1952, when Spaniards priests arrived to replace them. 

Free from that commitment, the 14 Comboni missionaries soon accepted the care of some parishes: Llata, Hacaimbamba, Cristo Rey San Pedro and Panao. In 1954, they began a parish also in Lima diocese. 

In 1958, Pope Pius XII created the ”quasi-diocese” of Tarmay Pasco, and nominated Fr Anton Kuhner first Prelate; in 1964, he was ordained bishop and Moreover, in 1980 he would be sent to govern the diocese of Huanuco

In need of personnel, bishop Kuhner asked the general direction of the ”Italian branch” of the Comboni Missionaries to send to the new Prelature some priests for pastoral work In 1966, 2 Italian and 1 Spanish Comboni priests took charge of the parish of St Peter in Yanahuanca; another group was sent to take up the parish of St Juan in Cerro de Pasco. 



In 1969, Fr Lorenzo Unfired was nominated auxiliary bishop of Arequipa and he, too, asked Rome for personnel. In 1969 the Provincial House was opened in Monterrico. 

In 19705 and 19805, the Province knew an extraordinary development. In 1979 a Missionary Animation Centre was inaugurated in Lima. Two missionary magazines were launched (one for children). Vocations began to stream in and the Postulancy (1979), the Novitiate (1983) and the Scholasticate (1985) were opened. 

Meanwhile, the two branches of the Comboni Family had united (1979), and in 1984 the first mission was opened in Santiago de Chile (Chile).

The number of personnel creased allowing new commitment in both countries. In December 2016, Fr. Luis Alberto Barrera Pacheco, a Peruvian Comboni missionary, was consecrated bishop of Tarma. Today, the Comboni missionaries working in the Province are 46 (1 bishop, 4i priests and 5 brothers), of 12 nationalities. The scholastics are 4.

PORTUGAL —————————————–



The Comboni Missionaries arrived in Portugal 70 years ago in April 1947, after accepting a missionary commitment in Mozambique. Fr. Giovanni Cotta who started the Comboni presence in the British isles in l936) was entrusted with the foundation.

From Viseu, where Fr. Cotta laid the cornerstone at what is today the Portuguese Province in the centre of the country, the institute opened new communities for formation and mission animation. it also started publishing two missionary magazines: Alem-Mar and Audacia (for the young).

Today, the Portuguese province has seven communities in Portugal dedicated to missionary animation, mass media, formation and parish work. The Comboni missionaries from Portugal are 88.39 live in the country, including seven who retired due to age and health. 49min Africa. South America Asia and Europe. The biggest group is in Brazil (1l). Mozambique (6) and Italy (6).

SOUTH AFRICA

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For the last ninety-three years, the Comboni Missionaries in South Africa have been committed to primary evangelization working with peoples first subjugated by colonialism and then by its evil twin, apartheid, until the present where this fledgling democracy is being tested to the ninth degree. Our missionaries face the tensions of the day as they encounter the root causes of xenophobia, inequality and discriminatory practices in ordinary pastoral work.

Missionaries accompany families wracked by poverty and unemployment. They accompany pregnant teenagers, victims and perpetrators of domestic and gender~ based violence, and the staggering numbers infected or affected by AIDS. in the firm belief that the works of God flourish at the foot of Calvary, our missionaries take their stand among the poorest and most abandoned of South Africa. Building the Kingdom of Jesus Christ continues, though the fruits are sparse and slow in showing themselves.

In a country with very high levels of asylum-seekers, migrants, and refugees and living with impoverished South Africans, our missionary presence testifies to the Living God who is still drawing light out of darkness, still bringing hope where despair has set in, and manifesting the Resurrected Life that overcomes the forces of death and darkness.

UGANDA —————————————–



Attempts to reach Uganda had been made by the Comboni Missionaries working in Egypt and Sudan already in 1890. but the British Foreign Office kept saying ‘no“ until 1906. 

in 1910. Bishop Geyer, two priests and one brother reached Kobe. on the east bank of the Nile, south of the present-day Pakwach. In March that year, they raised a big cross as a symbol of faith and hope. 



In January 1911, Fr John Fornasa arrived at Omach, passing through Kenya, crossing Lake Victoria, the Kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro. Three weeks later, with a confrere he started the first mission among the Acholi, in close collaboration with the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers).

Some catechists from Homa helped the new corners in the process of insertion in the new reality of the mission. 

in 1917, the missions of Angal and Nyapea were opened. Other missions were soon opened, thus completing the Combonl presence among the three main ethnic groups of the West Nile: Logbara, Alur and Madl. 

The first Comboni Sisters reached 6qu in December 1918. That same year Comboni missionaries moved to Kitgum (where the two catechists blessed Daudi Okelio and Jildo Irwa were killed).

Later on, Kalongo mission was opened, together with other stations in the region of the Langl (today Lira Diocese), reaching Karamoja (1933-1955). 

In 1960. the Comboni missionaries established Mbuya parish (Kampala) and the mission and vocation promotion centre in Namugongo. Later they expanded to the dioceses of Kasana Luwero (Kasaala, with the College Daniel Comboni, today run by the Comboni Lay Missionaries, and Katikamu) and of Kabale (from where they left in 1990). 

in 1970, they took up commitments in Hoima diocese, and in 1990 in the Mbarara archdiocese, focusing on missionary and vocational promotion and opening the Postulancy in Jinja. 



Among other institutions linked to the Comboni Missionaries, it is worth mentioning Angal Hospital, ”Radio Pacts” stations in Guiu and Arua, the Major Hospital of St Mary in Lacor, the Centre for Spirituality and the Professional institute Daniel Comboni in Layibi, the Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital in Kalongo. the Catechetical Centre in Lira, and Matany Hospital. 

Comboni missionaries present today in Uganda are 103 (3 bishops, 70 priests, 16 brothers and 14 scholastics).

POLAND

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Among the first missionaries who worked in Egypt and Sudan together with Comboni there were Polish priests Later on, others kept m either the Italian or the German-spam branch of the Comboni Missionary Congregation 

Modem history of the Institute in Poland began in 19805, with the Polish edition of the biography of Italian Comboni Brother Giudo Giudici.

The country was still under communist regime, yet the book raised in many Polish youths great interest for missions in general and for Comboni Institute in particular, Therefore, the General Administration decided to dispatch to Poland confreres to meet the many young people who had in enquiry letters. Soon some of these joined the Postulancy in Florence (Italy). 

With the fall of communism, a true vocation promotion programme was launched, sustained with initiatives of missionary animation of the local church. The first Comboni house was erected in Warsaw in 1990, which functioned also as a Postulancy. 



More personnel were sent to Poland and the numbers of candidates increased. At the end of 19905 the first 3 Comboni priests were ordained and sent to Africa 

In 1999, a second community was opened in Cracow. In 2004, the Postulancy was moved there. The candidates were more than 20. That year, Poland joined the European Union. 

In 2005, however, the number of the postulants collapsed all of a sudden. Several novices and scholastic: interrupted their formation process. Moreover, some Comboni missionaries working in Poland abandoned the Congregation; among them were the first two Comboni Polish priests. 



Even the magazine in Polish, Misjonarze Kombonianie. saw its readership halved in a short time: from 12,000 copies to 6,000! 

In 2009 the TUCUM (Missionary Youth Movement) was launched. In 2010 the group known as Comboni Lay Missionaries was restructured, and today 8 of them are working in African missions. Between 2008 and 2012. 7 

Polish Comboni priests were ordained; in 2014 and 2016 two Comboni Brothers made their perpetual vows, bringing the total of Polish Comboni missionaries to 13, in 2011, Anna Kozuszek, a Polish (Zamboni sister, made her final profession: today she is working in Sri Lanka.

At present, 8 Comboni priests and 1 brother are present in Poland and continue with determination the work of missionary animation and vocation promotion in parishes and schools.