DE JACOBIS, Justin, Blessed. - Titular bishop of Nilopolis and first vicar apostolic of Abyssinia, b. in S. Fele (Potenza) on 9 Oct. 1800, d. at Eidale, near the Alighedé valley, on 31 July 1860. He entered the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul, and, ordained a priest at Brindisi on 12 June 1824, he immediately revealed himself as a most zealous missionary; he was a true angel of charity during the cholera that decimated Naples in 1836-37.
At the invitation of Propaganda Fide he set out for Abyssinia in 1839, as apostolic prefect, and labored there indefatigably for 21 years for the conversion of the heretics, whom he brought back by the thousands into the bosom of the Catholic Church. In Abyssinia he erected the first institute for the formation of the native clergy, calling it the College of the Immaculate. Having overcome many refusals, he was consecrated bishop on 7 Jan. 1849 by Massaia; and the first one ordained was a hero of the faith, the native Bl. Gebre Mikiël. In Abyssinia he endured labors, privations, sacrifices and persecutions of every kind. The impious Salama wrote of him to King Theodore: "Drive out the abuna Jacob... but do not kill him: he is a saint, and no one observes the law of the Lord better than he." On 31 July 1860 he peacefully passed away. "Thus died - wrote Massaia - the founder of the Abyssinian Mission, the tireless apostle of East Africa, the Master of missionaries, the model of the courage and self-denial indispensable to the success of the sacred ministry among that people." On 25 June 1939, on the 1st centenary of the founding of his mission in Ethiopia, he was beatified by Pius XII.
Bibliography
Giuseppe Scognamillo