St. Comboni and Lay Missionaries

For St. Comboni, Mission was catholic in the full sense of the word ~ for everyone ~ he was deeply convinced that the subject of mission is the entire Church in all it's aspects; "The work must be catholic, not Spanish, French, German or Italian. All Catholics must help the poor... and with our plan we hope to open the way into the Catholic faith to all the tribes in the entire territory inhabited by Africans. To accomplish this, I think, all activities must be united."

At the same time he had a deep faith in the ability of "all Catholics the world over" to take an interest in and to pledge themselves to mission and to find it within their hearts to give "support and help, taken up by the spirit charity, that embraces the vastness of the universe, and that the divine Saviour came to bring on earth."

St. Comboni believed and invested in lay people, who in the missions by word and example, witness in ways different from the sister, brother or priest. The formation of lay people is one of the defining aspects in the commitments of Comboni who wanted to Save Africa through Africa; "All my efforts are aimed at strengthening these two missions where we prepare good individuals indigenous to the central tribes, so that they will become apostles of faith and civilisation in their own country. I was able to train competent African teachers and catechists, plus shoemakers, masons, carpenters, etc. and supply the stations of Khartoum and Kordofan. Indigenous people so prepared are essential to the very existence of a mission."

St. Comboni was seen as ahead of his time in many ways and lived what would later be spelled out in Vatican II, "Lay people are called to bring the life and activity of the Church in those places and circumstances, where the Church cannot become the salt of the earth without them" (LG33). "Many people cannot hear the Gospel and know Christ without the presence of lay people who live next to them (Apostolicam Actuositatem 13) and their presence is all the more essential where "the Church is not free or where Catholics are few and scattered" (AA17).