MISSION Magazine Winter 2024

8
I went and was inspired. I joined the major seminary in Addis Ababa, where
I studied philosophy for three years.
The novelty of the pastoral year
After finishing philosophy, I returned to the diocese, and our bishop,
Anthony Pagano OFM Cap, told me that I would do a year of pastoral work in
the parishes. Never having done this before, I saw it as a waste of time: some
of my high school friends had finished university and were working, while I
was being told to stop my studies for a year. Angered, I decided to leave the
seminary and find a job.
But my bishop didn’t give up on my vocation: he called me one day and
asked that I join him early the next morning on a pastoral visit to a new parish
that was being dedicated in the Somalia region of our diocese.
This was the day it all changed for me.
Hundreds were attending the dedication of the parish. It is customary in
Ethiopia for people to come from far and wide for an event like this. In the
assembly were women, children, and elderly men as well, who had come
for the feast from various parts of the country; the church wasn’t big enough
to fit everyone, so some of us followed the celebration from outside. As the
celebration proceeded with songs and praises to God for the gift of the new
church, roughly 50 young Muslim men came up to the parish armed with
guns, sticks, and stones, ready to kill us.
They first entered a neighboring Orthodox church: killing the priest and
burning the Church to the ground. They then came after us, killing some and
severely injuring others. I had never witnessed such cruelty: some were burned
alive, others had their eyes ripped out, and others still had their backs broken
and left paralyzed in the middle of the road.
Imagine the agitation, the pain, the crying that reigned over us at that
moment.
Seeing that many people lose their lives that day, simply because they were
attending Mass, made me realize that God had a plan for me. I swallowed my
pride, accepted my bishop’s call to spend a year working in the diocese, and
went back to my studies. I am in my last year, studying not in Addis Ababa but
in Rome, where thanks to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, I have a
scholarship to study at the Pontifical Urban University.