19th century
Feast: October 10
His plan to ‘Save Africa through Africa’ — training African catechists instead of relying on European missionaries — was considered radical in the 1860s and normal by the twentieth century.
Daniel Comboni first saw central Africa at twenty-six and was shattered by it. The suffering, the slave trade, the death of fellow missionaries from tropical disease — four out of six in his first expedition died. He went home to Italy, and most people expected him to stay there. Instead, he wrote a plan. His ‘Plan for the Regeneration of Africa’ was revolutionary for its era: instead of sending waves of European missionaries who kept dying, train Africans themselves to evangelize their own continent. He proposed establishing schools, seminaries, and workshops along the edges of the continent, staffing them with African and European teachers working as equals. He presented the plan to the Propaganda Fide in Rome. They liked it. He founded the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus to carry it out. He was named Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa — essentially bishop of an area larger than Europe — and based himself in Khartoum. He fought the slave trade directly, ransoming slaves and sheltering fugitives. He trained catechists. He opened schools for girls. He worked himself to exhaustion and died of malaria and overwork in Khartoum in 1881, at fifty. He was buried there. His missionaries continue to work across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.