Institute of the Consolata Missions

ISTITUTO MISSIONI CONSOLATA. — In 1891, ALAMANNI (v.), nephew and continuator of the work and spirit of s. Giuseppe Cafasso, intending to respond to the needs of not a few missionary vocations, particularly among the Piedmontese clergy, submitted to the S. Congregation de Propaganda Fide a plan for the establishment of a missionary institute in Turin. Encouragement for its implementation came from Rome, but, owing to circumstances independent of Allamano, the foundation of the I.M.C. had to be postponed until 1901. On 29 January of that year, following the collective approval of the foundation plan by the Piedmontese episcopate, which had already taken place on 9 September 1900, Cardinal Agostino Richelmy, archbishop of Turin, issued the decree establishing the I., appointing Allamano himself as its superior; he remained in this office until his death (1926).

The members of the new I. did not take religious vows, but were bound by an oath to devote themselves to the foreign missions for a specified period, after which they could return to their respective dioceses. In 1909, however, the S. Congregation of Religious, in granting the decree of praise on 28 December, gave the I. its present form as a religious congregation with simple vows. Thus constituted and possessing its exclusively missionary character, the I., by decree of the S. Congregation Consistorial of 8 January 1911, came under the authority of the S. Congregation de Propaganda Fide, which definitively approved it, together with its Constitutions, on 7 September 1923; these were subsequently modified by decree of 17 January 1950 to bring them up to date in view of the division of the I. into delegations.

The first missionaries departed for British East Africa in 1902, settling around Mount Kenya under the authority of Msgr. Allgeyer, apostolic vicar of Northern Zanguebar. They had as collaborators in the apostolate the Vincentian Sisters of the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza, later replaced by the Consolata missionary sisters, founded by Allamano in 1910. In 1905 the S. Congregation de Propaganda Fide separated the Kenya mission from Zanguebar and entrusted it exclusively to the I. M. C.; shortly afterward, in 1909, it established it as an apostolic vicariate. Subsequently various other missions were entrusted to the I.M.C.: in 1913, the apostolic prefecture of Kaffa (in 1937, the apostolic vicariate of Gimma); in 1922, the apostolic prefecture of Iringa, now an apostolic vicariate; in 1924, the apostolic prefecture of Benadir (in 1927, the apostolic vicariate of Mogadishu, later transferred to the Franciscan Fathers); in 1926, the apostolic prefecture of Meru (Kenya); in 1948, the nullius prelature of Rio Branco (Brazil); in 1951, the apostolic vicariate of Florencia (Colombia). The I.M.C. has also been present since 1925 in Portuguese Mozambique, under the authority of the bishops of Lorenzo Marques and Nampula, and since 1937 it has sent groups of missionaries to assist the bishops of the territories of Formosa in Argentina and Magdalena in Colombia.

African missions generally require that strictly missionary activity be prepared for and accompanied by extensive work to raise the physical and social conditions of the indigenous populations. For the missionaries of the Consolata, this requirement became a constitutional characteristic of their existence (v. C. Vanzin, Nasce un missionario, Parma 1943, p. 115). Following the directives of the Holy See, they combine apostolic work with an intensive effort at civil improvement (land reclamation, vocational instruction, schools). In connection with this method and program of work, and in order to make the work of evangelization more effective, the I. provides for the training of its members through theoretical and practical studies in medicine, ethnology, anthropology, and the arts and trades.

During its first half-century of existence, the I.M.C., in addition to its considerable achievements in the field of the apostolate, due in large part to its strong unified spirit of action—notably, first of all, in the African missions, the foundation of seminaries and indigenous religious congregations—made a decisive contribution, through extensive publications, its periodical, and other active forms of propaganda, to the penetration and spread of the missionary idea in Italy and particularly in the dioceses of Piedmont. Also directed toward this end are the two associations which the I.M.C. established in Italy and abroad: the Unione Dame missionarie della Consolata (founded in 1923), with the specific purpose of providing for the liturgical needs of mission churches, and the Associazione Amici Missioni Consolata (founded in 1947), a broad organization extending across every social class and condition, intended to arouse the widest and most active interest around the missionary question.

Among the I.M.C.’s most eminent figures, Perlo (v.), the first apostolic vicar of Kenya and Allamano’s first successor, the following should be remembered: Gaudenzio Barlassina (born in 1880), who in 1913, in the guise of a merchant, accomplished the arduous and adventurous penetration of Kaffa, subsequently bringing the apostolic prefecture, within a few years, to unexpected development (v. GIMMA, apostolic vicariate of), and who later served for two decades as superior general of the I.; Gabriele Perlo (1879–1948), the first apostolic vicar of Mogadishu; Francesco Cagliero (1875–1935), to whom is owed the reorganization of the Mission of Iringa after the First World War; Giuseppe Perrachon (1886–1944), apostolic vicar of Niery, known for his linguistic studies and for the skillful organization of the schools in his vicariate; Giovanni Balbo (1887–1937), whose contribution to the natural sciences is appreciated, particularly his discovery of a considerable number of new species of tropical flora (the genus Jobalboa of the family Icanica-

cee is dedicated to him); Giovanni Bisio (1903–47) and Domenico Fiorina (born in 1904), to whom is due, in little more than a decade (1937–1948), the extensive expansion of the I.M.C. in Brazil.

The General Curia is based in Turin, but the I. is spread not only throughout many dioceses of Italy, but also in Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, the United States, Canada, South Africa, and England. It is not divided into provinces, but retains a single general administration, although it has delegations established by the Holy See according to a dual criterion of region and activity.

The I.M.C.’s publication organ is the monthly periodical Missioni Consolata, founded by Allamano in collaboration with the canon G. Camisassa (original title: La Consolata) in 1899. The I. now numbers 440 fathers, 102 lay coadjutors, 202 clerics, and more than 600 aspirants.

Already Leo XIII, with the aim of safeguarding and administering the capital of pious foundations, had established, on 11 February 1887, a Cardinals’ Commission, under the name of the Commission ad pias causas, and approved particular regulations, which remained in force until 1904, when Pius X, with new regulations, gave the Commission ad pias causas the name of the Cardinals’ Commission for Religious Works. Further changes and newly arising administrative needs induced His Holiness Pius XII to establish the new I. for R. W., with its own juridical personality, while retaining the purpose of the preceding administration, which was thus absorbed by the I. (cf. autograph letters of His Holiness Pius XII, 27 June 1942, in AAS, 34 [1942], pp. 217–18; and 24 January 1944, in AAS, 36 [1944], pp. 45–46). Celestino Testore