Comments to “A spicy answer” of Fr. Christian Carlassare

by Fr. Francesco Chemello Odiongo Gatwic. mccj.

First of all I have to say that I have appreciated very much the comments of Fr. Christian Carlassare to the paper “LIAB of ADOK” because he really touched important issues already outlined in it but in need of deeper study and research, which I hope other people will be challenged to take up.

Then, starting with the “funny provocation” I will also take the chance to start in the same way pointing out that Daniel Comboni, as well, somewhere in the letters of somebody whose name I do not remember well, was describing him as “quel trombone” = “that trombone” of “Comboni”. May be “LIAB”, with its “unique event” was already destined to follow the same “exaggeration pattern” when Comboni landed in LIAB at the end of February 18581 and, as it was not the case for Comboni to be just “a trombone”, as he widely demonstrated with his life, so it may also not be the case for LIAB event. Anyway, let us put the jokes aside and let me tackle the important points of the “A spicy answer”.

Just to start, as I said in “LIAB of ADOK” reflection, “the Grace of God” builds upon the nature of every person and people, in this case, the “Nuer Nature itself”. In other words, I could say that “the Spirit of God makes the lines straight also where they are twisted”. Many vocations (also in religious life) may have started with doubtful reasons, but along the process of growth and purification, they either collapsed completely or found deeper reasons which enabled the genuine call of God to come up. This is how I see it: James Duol Kai and Joseph Pal Mut started their Catholic experience in Khartoum, (Yoynyang Mission of the Comboni Missionaries was already there before, see diary)2 they carried on with the light from God and their human experience as Nuer, as they were, and by the end, the Nuer group felt that the right direction to be taken was the “ Authority” and the presence of the Priests who were missing in their Catholic Communities.

I think it was a journey both spiritual and human which brought them to the awareness that, without priests, their “Catholic Christian Communities” were lacking something very important. Now, almost 20 years after the arrival of the Priests, there is the need to continue in a dialogue which “builds up” and purify former deficiencies without creating other new ones.

As I said in a lesson on “Pastoral Skill” to the catechists in the catechetical centre of LEER, based on the historical research of Fr. A. La Braca and Fr. Fernando G. Galarza, “A big number of people entered the Catholic Church and were baptised (at that time). NOW the catechists find themselves with a huge task in front of them. Not only have they to proclaim the Gospel to people who are not yet baptised, but they have the great challenge to make the already baptised Christians to grow in their Faith and to live it in depth with love and joy. This will prove your ‘Pastoral Skill’ and should be your “Pastoral Concern”. 3 The work “was done”, but it is not finished, the tree needs a wide range of cares to grow as the dream of God for them.

The “A spicy answer” says: “They (the Nuer) can’t apply to a standard model. They need to put in their originality and own it. Otherwise it would be a failure.” I fully agree with it. How all these human components played and will play along this process of growth would certainly be a topic by

1 Comboni, The Writings nn. 288-291 2 DIARY OF YOYNYANG STATION from Nov. 1923 to Nov 1935 (I part) From Nov 1935 to March 1939 (II part). Archivio Comboniani Roma A/145, 16. 3 Nuer Witnesses No. 1, “The Catholic Evangelization of the Nuer People” (Western Nuer)by Fr. Francis Chemello Odiongo Gatwic.

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“Brave/fierce character or spirit”, the understanding of “authority”, the “prophetism” and even the “Protestant Presbyterian environment”, are all realities, together with what “a spicy answer” adds, that is, the matter of “Leadership”, would possibly need a study by themselves, especially in connection with the Catholic understanding of them. Such further study would help to understand in a deeper way how they played in the whole matter in the past and how they play and will play in the process of building up a true Catholic Reality among the Nuer People. I do hope somebody may take up the challenge.

What is then written in the “Day of Devastation, Day of Contentment”: “It is disappointing to witness indigenous leadership being replaced by a community of expatriate missionaries”,4 I feel that, in this case, the “disappointment” was totally and only of the “writer himself” and his own way of thinking. He, most probably, lacked a deep experience of what being “a Catholic” really means and what it meant for those catechists who, instead, “tasted it a bit in their experience” and “in their desire”, and were looking for it. That may be the reason why he “could not understand them deeply (the Catholic Nuer)”. So, he may have failed to understand “the reality of the Catholic Church”, because of his non Catholic background and because he was probably looking at it under the angle of a “clericalistic Church”, without space for the “Laity”, and “Laity” as a reality in contraposition to the “Church”, or a “church with the taste of colonizers in a time of search for freedom” in a time when “the Local Sudanese Church” (and Churches) started standing on their own feet, in which case this “replacement by a community of expatriate missionaries” would appear as a step backward.

“Why the Comboni Missionaries”? Maybe because they were their “Primigenia Inspiratio”, the first inspirers in Yoynyang and Khartoum, and also because Dr. Riek Machar and Mr. Lam Akol (SSIM/A)5 heard of or knew the Comboni Missionaries personally through Fr. Renato Kizito Sesana. Lam Akol himself and his wife Rebecca, in those years, were at home at “New People Media Centre” (Another human factor). So, where a person got the first positive experience, there he/she will go to look for help in time of need… (Grace of God…?) The grace of a “caring and trustful presence/reference” (both also human and spiritual) which is just a “living and truthful witness to the Gospel and of the Gospel values”.

For the rest, in the paragraph “A Challenge for the Future, on one side and on the other side” 6 it is already outlined what may happen if, along the journey, a good “blending” and a good “dialogue” will not happen. So let us pray that the Holy Spirit may lead us along it with the right attitude on both sides.

Regarding the “Plan of Comboni”, as I said under “Joseph Pal Mut”, “he (God) also empowered them to implement it, even though they did not know what Comboni wrote.” 7 Surely “they did not go to read the Plan of Comboni”, but what they did was just that. They did not know about the “Basic Christian Communities”, but what they did was just that... How many human or spiritual components contributed to make the whole thing viable needs also a deeper research, but “that was precisely what happened” by the mysterious grace of God. Anyway, in Khartoum, they got in contact with the Comboni Missionaries like Bro. Michele Sergi, Fr. Carlo Plotegheri and Fr. Mario Castagnetti, who certainly did not fail to make them perceive the “Spirit of Daniel Comboni”. However, it is the task of the present people working in the Nuer environment to make it grow on the right way.

4 “Day of Devastation Day of Contentment”, by Roland Werner, William Anderson, Andrew Wheeler, Paulines Publications , 2000, second edition 2010, p. 407. 5 SSIM/A = South Indipendence Movement/Army 6 “Liab of Adok” by Fr. Francesco Chemello Odiongo Gatwic 7 Ibid.

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Regarding the main point of the article which is “A Prophetic Model”, the article “A spicy answer” concludes with these words: “I think that the prophetic model is still ahead of us”. I would like to point out that what I called “A Prophetic Model” of LIAB of ADOK is in relationship to the “Plan of Comboni” of “Saving Africa with Africa” and not a dissertation on Spirituality or Ascetics, but on “How African Nuer People”, after their first experience of encounter with Jesus in the Catholic Church, felt that “They Themselves” had to take upon their shoulders the “task”, the call of Jesus, “To announce what they themselves had experienced” and bring their Nuer fellow citizens into it. So my topic deals “with the beginning of a journey” more than with a fully mature one or a “perfect vision”.

I want to recall the words of Catechist Joseph Pal Mut to Fr. Renato Kizito Sesana which are found in the book of Rev. Andrew C. Wheeler “Announcing the Light”,8 who gives his evaluation of the “Catholic Event” within that historical context, but also from a “non- Catholic perspective”. At Fr. Kizito’s provocation, the Catechist Joseph Pal Mut answered: “Can you announce the darkness after you have seen the light”? Rev. Andrew C. Wheeler took these very words as the title for his book considering them so meaningful for the whole of that historical period. The same approach can be applied to the Liab-Adok event.

Surely the journey was at the beginning and much walk was and is still laying ahead but, with their start, they indicated the way, others will bring it “to perfection”. In this way, that “Prophetic Model” will have the chance of growing more and more in depth and in breadth and be “transfigured” into a true “Prophetic Perfect Model” and into a “Perfect Missionary Paradigm”. Challenges are still there but the “uniqueness”, of this “Liab-Adok” Catholic historical experience remains a reference point to be looked at and studied better and, surely, also a very important reference point for the future in relationship to the Africans as the “Protagonists” of their own “Evangelisation” and “Inculturation” of the Gospel message into their cultural environment.

Finally, I say again that I am very happy that my reflection stirred up another very sharp reflection to be deepened and widened under the many aspects which were pointed out, possibly with a “Catholic insight”. I hope that somebody else will take up the challenge in writing, from different angles, thus contributing to a better understanding of that wonderful event and go beyond it. It happened in a recent past and it can help to find true wisdom and inspiration to deal with our present journey in a positive way, with the eyes pointing towards a successful future of the Catholic Church’s Evangelisation in the Nuer land and elsewhere.

Now, I end with my best wishes.

Fr. Francesco Chemello Odiongo Gatwic, mccj

8 “Announcing the Light”, by Andrew C. Wheeler, Paulines Publications Africa, 1998, 1st reprint 2000, p. 106

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