The gold rush had already begun. It was the early 1850s and thousands of people from every part of Australia and also Europe and China were flocking to the streams in New South Wales and Victoria, frantically seeking gold nuggets.
This fever did not infect everyone. "A great deal of gold is being found here, not far from us; everyone is rushing to grab it and we are distancing ourselves from it", commented a young Italian priest on the recent occurrence in Australia, from on board a ship bound for the missions on the oceanic Islands of Woodlark and Rook. "This is not our kind of thing. For us it is souls. Oh yes, these are worth far more than gold. The acquisition of a single soul is of far greater value than all the gold in the world".
The missionary from the Lombard Seminary for Foreign Missions — which in 1926 became the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) — was called Angelo Ambrosoli. He was born in 1824 in Madonna in Campagna, a subdivision of Gallarate. A study recently published by Virgilio Cognoli and Paolo Labate for the historical archives of the PIME (solitario di Sydney, Studi e documenti dagli archivi del PIME) reconstructs the long period that Fr. Ambrosoli spent in Sydney after his tragic missionary experience in Woodlark and Rook which ended with the martyrdom of Fr. Giovanni Mazzucconi.
Fr. Ambrosoli's stay in Sydney should have been temporary, a brief respite to recover from ailments before sailing for other missions in Oceania or Asia.
Things turned out differently. Persistent health problems and the wish of Benedictine John Bede Polding — Archbishop of Sydney since 1842 — to keep the Italian priest for the service of the Archdiocese obliged Ambrosoli to abandon his vocation to evangelize "savages" in the "boundless horizons of the Pacific Ocean".
At Polding's request, Ambrosoli became chaplain of the small Italian community in Sydney and the spiritual director of the Benedictine sisters in the Subiaco Convent at Parramatta, near Sydney, which was founded by the Benedictine nuns in honour of the famous Italian Benedictine monastery.
The nickname "Little Saint" was far more than a recognition of the extraordinary spiritual and moral qualities of Ambrosoli; at his death in 1891 the Sisters of Charity contacted the Vicar Apostolic of Hong Kong to discuss with him the possibility of beginning the cause of beatification for their chaplain. They were discouraged by the realization that the thought of an Italian priest beatified would have caused "opposition, jealousy and other miseries". However, in the early 1970s, the Archdiocese of Sydney contacted the PIME, requesting relevant material to initiate the process of Ambrosoli's beatification. Nothing appears to have happened since then, but time will tell whether the study by Cognoli and Lobate has contributed to nurturing the Sisters of Charity's hope.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 11 March 2009, page 13
Read lessThe gold rush had already begun. It was the early 1850s and thousands of people from every part of Australia and also Europe and China were flocking to the streams in New South Wales and Victoria, frantically seeking gold nuggets.
This fever did not infect everyone. "A great deal of gold is being found here, not far from us; everyone is rushing to grab it and we are distancing ourselves from it", commented a young Italian priest on the recent occurrence in Australia, from on board a ship bound for the missions on the oceanic Islands of Woodlark and Rook. "This is not our kind of thing. For us it is souls. Oh yes, these are worth far more than gold. The acquisition of a single soul is of far greater value than all the gold in the world".
The missionary from the Lombard Seminary for Foreign Missions — which in 1926 became the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) — was called Angelo Ambrosoli. He was born in 1824 in Madonna in Campagna, a subdivision of Gallarate. A study recently published by Virgilio Cognoli and Paolo Labate for the historical archives of the PIME (solitario di Sydney, Studi e documenti dagli archivi del PIME) reconstructs the long period that Fr. Ambrosoli spent in Sydney after his tragic missionary experience in Woodlark and Rook which ended with the martyrdom of Fr. Giovanni Mazzucconi.
Fr. Ambrosoli's stay in Sydney should have been temporary, a brief respite to recover from ailments bef... More
