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PIONEERS |
LOUIS MATHIAS
Louis Mathias was born in Paris on July 20, 1887, and lost both his parents by December 1899. He made his novitiate and first profession at San Gregorio (Sicily) in May 1905. He was ordained a priest on July 20,1913. It was when he was Rector at Pedara that he was chosen to head the first Salesian missionary expedition to Assam in September 1921.
He reached Shillong on January 13,1922. On 12 December of the same year he was nominated Prefect Apostolic of Assam, Bhutan and Manipur. He was the first Salesian Provincial of India and continued to hold that office till 1934. He established a network of schools, agricultural and technical institutions and a printing press. When Shillong was erected as a new diocese, Mgr. Mathias was made its first Bishop on November 10,1934.
On March 29, 1923 Mgr. Mathias received a letter from an influential Mangalorean Catholic of Bombay, Mr. F.A.C. Rebello. In it he expressed the desire that the Salesians take up technical education in Bombay (to facilitate land speculation for his cooperative housing societies). Thus the idea of beginning work in Bombay was sown. But many other reasons nurtured the idea and gradually compelled Mgr. Mathias to pursue this initiative.
Bombay was the "Gateway of India" for most of the visitors, especially before the age of aeroplanes. It had the largest concentration of Catholics and the proportion of Catholics to the rest of the population at that time was very high. The total population in 1931 of Bombay Island was 1,268,306 and catholics alone in 1937 were 61,357. The catholic population including the northern suburbs and Bassein in 1937 was 129,356. Many of them could be found in all walks of life and they had a lively faith. Hence many good vocations to the priesthood and religious life could be found among the Bombay Catholics. Another compelling reason that motivated Mgr. Mathias to open a Salesian presence in Bombay was the need for a place that could serve as a stop over for those entering and leaving India.
Finally in 1927 during the extraordinary visitation of Fr. Peter Ricaldone to India the decision to begin work was finalised. The Salesians agreed to begin work at the Immaculate Conception School at Tardeo in June 1928.
This final outcome was the result of the singular diplomatic skills and persevering zeal of Mgr. Mathias who was able to circumvent the severe opposition by the Jesuit administrator of the archdiocese (of the Propaganda Fide) by soliciting the help of the bishop of Daman (of the Portuguese Padroado). A lesser man would have surrendered and the Salesian presence in Bombay would have remained a dream.
Later in 1935, the See of Madras fell vacant when Archbishop Eugene Mederlet expired, and Bishop Mathias was chosen to be the new Archbishop of Madras. The archdiocese of Madras and the diocese of Mylapore were united to form the new archdiocese of Madras-Mylapore in 1952 and Mgr. Mathias became its first archbishop in November of the same year.
During the thirty years of work in Madras he started the major seminary at Poonamallee and founded one hundred and fifty institutions with a ‘Catholic Centre’ to control their administration. He established orphanages, technical schools, institutions for the deaf and dumb and for the blind and homes for foundlings. These, together with 500 small houses for the needy, are eloquent proofs for his compassion for the poor. True to his motto, Aude et Spera, he cared for the people God had given him.
He died at Legnano on August 3, 1965. He was easily one of the greatest of the prelates of the church in India in the 20th century. Without his intelligence, diplomacy and hard work the province of Bombay might never have existed.
AURELIUS MASCHIO
Rev. Fr. Aurelius Maschio was born to Giuseppe Maschio and Orsolina Della Cia on February 12, 1909 at Vazzola (Treviso), Italy. He was the sixth of 11 children. Little Aurelius showed early signs of a vocation to the priesthood; he built his own little altar in a quiet corner of the house, and enjoyed imitating the rites of the Mass. At the age of 10 he informed his mother that he wanted to become a priest. In the year 1919, his parents encouraged him by sending him to Don Bosco Institute at Sampierdarena , Genova. After four years, he was sent from Sampierdarena to the Aspirantate of Penango in October 1923. At the end of the school year, in October 1924, he surprised everybody by asking to be sent to work in the Missions. He overcame the opposition of his mother, and went to the Salesian Mother House, at Turin, to join the missionary expedition of 1923. He was 15 years old, and looked like a little boy surrounded by the other, more mature missionaries.
On November 2, 1924, he set sail from Venice to Bombay, where he would begin his first Salesian training. Fifteen days later he and his companions touched the shores of Bombay, never thinking that he would spend the major portion of his life in this city. After a few hours of rest he boarded the train for Calcutta and then for Guwahati. He finally reached Shillong to begin his novitiate.
On Christmas night of 1925 he made his first religious profession as a Salesian and a year later he began his study of philosophy. He learned Khasi, the local language, so fast and so well, that he was entrusted with the editing of the local religious magazine, Ka Ling Kristan. Sundays used to be heady days, with music, games and classes for the youth of the villages.
After the study of philosophy, Brother Aurelius did his practical training at Don Bosco Technical School, Shillong, and was very successful as a teacher. He began his theological studies in 1930 and was ordained a priest by Mgr. Ferdinand Perrier, Archbishop of Calcutta, on April 29, 1933. He was just 24 years old.
Soon after ordination Fr. Aurelius began his work at Cherrapunjee together with Fr. Mlekus, his superior. This mission station had been vacant for 20 years; the residence was a ruin, the area was hilly, full of rivers and without roads. The two missionaries had to cover kilometre after kilometre on foot, climb steep hills, cross rivers and streams. Within a few months, Fr. Mlekus died of sheer exhaustion at the age of 31, and Fr. Aurelius was entrusted with the responsibility of the mission.
Without slowing down his missionary tours, he bought a plot of land, rebuilt the residence, bought another plot where he settled the Salesian Sisters and began setting up village chapels. He showed himself a good organizer, a great fund raiser, a man with a great capacity to win friends and collaborators.
Meanwhile in the western part of India, work in Bombay was taken up by Salesian Fathers Joseph Hauber and Adolph Tornquist. They were in charge of the Mary Immaculate Institute, a small school and boarding for poor Goan boys situated in Tardeo. Fr. Tornquist was expected to develop the institution but due to his failing health he was too ill and left the house without a superior for several months. It was then that the Salesian provincial, Fr. Egidius Cinato, called the twenty-seven-year-old Fr. Maschio who was Rector at Cherrapunjee to head the Salesian work in Bombay.
Fr. Aurelius came to Tardeo on February 19, 1937. He and his boys were evicted from the building used by the Mary Immaculate Institute. He temporarily rented a building and bought a plot of land in Matunga, which at that time was the northernmost quarter of Bombay.
It was a marshy, uneven ground. Its price - Rs. 2,30,000, was beyond Fr. Aurelius’ financial possibility; but he stuck to his plan, started a campaign of fund raising, conducted a lottery, sent appeals to well wishers. He got low interest loans and levelled the land with the debris brought in after the explosion at the Bombay harbour. With the help of many influential friends like the Tata family, he built the first blocks of a huge school and a hostel for boys.
Soon he had a famous brass band, spacious playgrounds, good results in sports, competitions and good academic results. His success was crowned by his election as delegate to the General Chapter of the Salesians in 1947 and 1952.
Fr. Aurelius had been the Rector of Don Bosco , Matunga for 16 years when, in 1953, he was replaced by Fr. Mauro Casarotti. He remained at Matunga and continued his role of provider for the Salesian institutions in Western India. He established his office, built the Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, and published the now famous Don Bosco’s Madonna. He expanded the circle of his benefactors and well wishers by typing out thousands of letters everyday.
In 1972 the Province of Bombay was formed with Fr. Dennis Duarte as its first provincial. Father Aurelius continued to provide the means for the expansion. He made it possible to buy plots of land in the important cities of Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat, to build institutions, to provide equipment for schools and technical institutes. Today more than 40 impressive institutions and charitable works are fully operating, catering approximately to thirty-thousand young people per year. They range from churches, parishes, academic schools, hostels, formal and non-formal technical institutes, rural development projects, media centres, catechetical centres and institutes for drop-outs and street children. All of them exist due to Fr. Maschio’s hard work, organizational genius and deep faith in God’s providence made available as he always repeated 'through the maternal hands of Our Blessed Mother'
Fr. Aurelius’ genuine love for the poor, the orphans, the leprosy patients, did not restrict him to the mere construction of buildings. He subsidised hospitals and homes that cared for them. He directly sustained them through the distribution of food, clothes and money. He gave generously to those who turned to him for help. Together with the late Fr. Antonio Alessi, his close companion, he chose the Society of Helpers of Mary to build a leper hospital and colony at Velholi, approximately 100 kms from Bombay.
As his activities made him known internationally, he was recognized by the European Community as the Head of a non- governmental organization and entrusted with the distribution of thousands of tons of food every year to worthy social projects.
The Italian government acknowledged his philanthropic activities by conferring on him the Knighthood of the Italian Republic in 1970 and the title of Commendatore in 1973. Indian organizations conferred a number of awards on him, and a "Fr. Aurelius Maschio Award" for humanitarian persons was started in the year 1993 by a lay group of volunteers who formed his Diamond Jubilee Committee.
On September 9, 1995, he fell victim to the dreaded Parkinson's Syndrome and a series of other illnesses followed. His body was worn out from the sheer exhaustion of putting service before self for 65 years. In February he began to show signs of worsening and was rushed to Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai, where he succumbed to the illness at 11.45 a.m. on September 9, 1996.
Fr. Maschio’s body was brought to his beloved Shrine and laid for public homage for three days. Hearing the news of his death, many sympathetic people came forward with a generosity that was unprecedented. Queues flocked to pay their respects in thousands and to register their thanks in the condolence book. Many offered to give their services free of cost for the services to follow.
The Funeral Mass and burial service was held at 5.00 p.m. with much solemnity. His Eminence Simon Cardinal Pimenta celebrated the liturgy and gave a touching homily. People left the Don Bosco premises consoled and comforted, knowing in their hearts that their beloved friend and benefactor for so many years was now closer to them than ever before.
JOSE LUIS CARRENO
Jose Luis Carreno was born in Bilbao, Spain, on October 23, 1905. His father was Rogelio and his mother, Teresa. He was baptised on October 28, and was assigned a most revered teacher: his mother. "The initiation was as profound and radical as a kiss from God."
One senses the intimate friendship that united him to God from early childhood. With this spiritual grace of uninhibited surrender to God and the eyes of a poet, he was able to see constantly the beauty of God in creatures, the providence of God in every circumstance, the mercy of God in forgiveness and he was happy to be a reflection of God’s goodness and gentleness to his fellow humans.
"One morning", he recalls in his memoirs, "my mother took me to Mass. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘in a little while the priest will raise a small white round thing. That’s Jesus!’ Sure enough, shortly after, there was the sound of a small bell and in the semi darkness a small round object began to rise slowly in the hands of the priest. I must have given a sharp cry because I immediately felt a soft hand covering my mouth. That round object was forever riveted on my soul. It was the ‘personal revelation’ of the mystery of transubstantiation."
He entered the Salesian school of Santander in November 1913. "To enter the House of Don Bosco meant to settle permanently within the gravitational pull of the ‘Real Presence’."
He entered the aspirantate at Campello. He recalls: "A congregation like ours, for which we were preparing ourselves at Campello, is made up of men dedicated to God to whom they are going to lead countless generations through the apostolate of christian education. To educate, however, is to elevate, and to christianize is to divinize. Those men must then be superior in everything, especially in the refinement of the spirit. That’s why all the Campellos in the world must get the very best education."
One begins to understand his preoccupation in India and the Philippines for the establishment of high calibre centres for the formation of native vocations.
From Campello he went to the novitiate at Carabanchel Alto in 1921, then made his profession on July 25,1922. After a brief military service, he made his perpetual profession in Sarria on December 11, 1928. He was rated as "an excellent young man of solid piety, bright, jovial, greatly attached to the Congregation. One can expect great things from him."
He was ordained to the priesthood in Gerona on May 21, 1932. On that solemn occasion he took as his motto the words of St. Paul "Omnis Christus-Christ is All" (Col 3:11). On the eve of his ordination he wrote to the Rector Major, Fr. Peter Ricaldone asking him to send him to the missions. "I want to offer myself unconditionally to my superiors to work in the missions in accordance with my desires and prayers during the last seven years. I only ask you that my destination be also in accordance with my weakness. I am not afraid of Bolsheviks or pirates but I am afraid of myself. Likewise I want to express my liking for the missions of Asia. I am ready, however, to go to any place on earth as obedience may dispose of me."
He spent the following year at Cowley, England, studying English. Then he set sail for India. He arrived in Bombay in 1933. At that time salesian India had only one province, the provincial house being located at Shillong, Assam. The provincial was the future bishop Mathias. In the south, in Madras, the Archbishop was the Salesian Eugene Mederlet.
The following year, 1934, a second province was formed. It was established in the South with its provincial house at Vellore.
At the death of Archbishop Mederlet, bishop Mathias took his place in 1935. The Provincial in the South was Fr. Eligio Cinato.
Fr. Carreno, a priest not yet 28 years old, was sent to the novitiate of Tirupattur where as the first novice master he began to form new missionaries, almost all from different European countries.
From this novitiate came those who were to build the Salesian presence in India. Fr. Luigi Di Fiore, one of his novices and later the Provincial of Madras writes: "Without a doubt the most precious legacy that Fr. Carreno handed on to us was the salesian spirit in its essential characteristics: thirst for souls, fraternal charity, family spirit built on prayer, work, cheerfulness, healthy optimism, hospitality."
In August 1939, India felt the echoes of World War II. All foreigners, including missionaries who belonged to countries at war with Great Britain were taken to concentration camps in 1942. Fortunately Fr. Carreno belonged to a neutral country and was able to help and serve as an intermediary for them before the authorities.
Being an authentic missionary he sensed the need to "indianize" the Salesian presence in India. Therefore he took great pains to look for and form native vocations. Furthermore due to the blocking of the Suez Canal, the flow of missionaries from Europe was even further hindered. Salesian works were in disarray. Of the 400 missionaries in prison camps, 136 were Salesians. Moreover in 1947, India proclaimed its independence from Great Britain and the new government adopted a policy of not granting visas to new foreign missionaries. God was writing straight on crooked lines.
Fr. Carreno would go around schools and talk about Don Bosco. He would make everyone enthusiastic with the ideal of saving souls and would attract them with his simplicity and his cheerfulness.
Meanwhile in the midst of the war, Vatican Radio sent a message ordering Fr. Carreno to take charge of the Salesian Province of South India. He had to take the place of the Provincial, Fr. Eligio Cinato, and was given the faculties of a Provincial. Bishop Louis Mathias invited him to be the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Madras thus conferring on him the title of "Monsignor".
His workload doubled and so did the presences in the Province: Kotagiri (1946), Poonamallee (1947), Nagercoil (1947). He travelled to several countries in Europe asking for help for his apostolic works. He even communicated his message in songs. He would ask for three things: prayers, sacrifices and material help. He even got certain banks to fund donations and scholarships for missionary undertakings under the title MISALMA (Salesian Missions of Madras).
In a report to the Rector Major, which was mandatory for all provincials, on the state of their provinces, Fr. Carreno writes of the development in his province and especially in Bombay:
"In Bombay the progress has been almost miraculous. The land there is the most expensive in India but, in spite of difficulties, Fr. Maschio has been able to buy land and build a magnificent modern two-storey building which has drawn the attention and the esteem of the people for the work of Don Bosco in India."
He was then asked by the Rector Major to put the Cooperator’s movement back on its feet in Spain.
Later, after the war, in October 1952, he was sent to Goa. "Goa was love at first sight" wrote Fr. Carreno in his "Warp in the Loom."
At the end of World war II, after years in concentration camps, most missionaries were allowed to return to their work. The more troublesome ones were forced to return to their countries.
Fr. Carreno flew to New Delhi to talk to the Viceroy but His Majesty’s Government did not listen. "Very well, then" he said, "those men have come to India to serve Christ. If you don’t want them in British India they’ll go to Portuguese India." And so, seven of those missionaries went to Goa and began to work among the children.
Fr.Carreno stayed there eight years. This is how he summarized the work being done there: "Two technical schools; a high and elementary school; two public churches, one built in Panjim to the Pilgrim Virgin; the care of more then 600 poor boys provided for with the help of the Patriarch and the Portuguese Government; the publications that came out from our presses; the "Catholic Hour’ over the government radio station; and above all, the work for vocations of which God was a real mine."
Soon after, the Indian Government broke diplomatic relations with the Portuguese Government and Fr. Carreno was called by Pandit Nehru as an intermediary in the liberation of Indian prisoners in Goa. At the end of the interview Fr. Carreno confided to Nehru: "Mr. Prime Minister, I’m not being very diplomatic." "No Father," replied Nehru, "but you are a sincere man."
Four months later Goa granted amnesty to the Indian prisoners through the mediation of the Church. The Indian Government did not give anything in exchange. Later Indian troops occupied Goa.
The Portuguese Salesians expressed their gratitude and admiration for Fr. Carreno: "The Oratory at Panjim, with its high school, technical school and Youth Centre and the Oratories; the start of the aspirantate next to the boarding school for abandoned youth; the spread of the devotion to Mary Help of Christians and devotion to Don Bosco; the collaboration with the native clergy and the prestige of the salesian work, are sufficient proof of the real worth of Fr. Carreno."
At the end of his term as rector of Panjim in 1960, as he was about to leave for Europe, the students told him: "If we knew you wouldn’t come back, we wouldn’t have let you go to the airport."
A proof of his dedication and achievement was the medal given to him by the Portuguese Government.
Between Madras and Goa Fr. Carreno had spent almost thirty years in India. The Salesians loved him dearly. In him they found the best and most complete replica of Don Bosco: a loving father with a big heart, a man of initiative, always smiling, highly intelligent, a man with his eyes on the future.
From Goa he was assigned to work in the Philippines and later back again in Spain where he lived till his death. He departed for his heavenly home on the feast of Corpus Christi, on May 29, 1986. More than fifty concelebrants attended the funeral mass. All were convinced that Fr. Carreno had attained Eternal Life.
On his golden jubilee of priestly ordination he wrote on his souvenir card "If fifty years ago my motto as a young priest was ‘Christ is All’ today, old and overwhelmed by his love, I would write it in solid gold because in reality CHRIST IS ALL."
VINCENT SCUDERI
Vincent Scuderi was born to Gaetano and Carmela Calcaterra in Ramacca, a rural town 40 km south west of Catania, on May 30, 1902. He was the first of the three children. He grew into a handsome intelligent boy moulded by his wise mother. On discovering that he was a child who showed great promise his parents entrusted him to the Salesians at the St. Phillip Neri School at Catania. The first months were not easy for him, but he soon overcame the difficulties presented by the new kind of life and became a brilliant student and a leader among his companions.
When, at the end of his high school, he opted to enter the Salesian novitiate, no one was surprised. His parents objected at the beginning because of his young age, but he soon convinced them that his choice was the will of God. Later this almost uncanny gift of persuading people developed and made of him a wizard at winning people over to his side even in most controversial situations.
As a Salesian cleric he excelled in studies and conduct. He also manifested an innate love for souls, never missing an occasion to do good to someone. He was a model of piety, cheerfulness and apostolic zeal even before he became a priest. In 1924, when he was in his second year of theology, his mother died. Vincent suffered the loss like no one else in his family but he stuck to his vocation with the rememberance of her encouragement to pursue his goal.
Within two years he was ordained at the age of 24. He was assigned to the house of formation of San Gregorio. But there was a dream that he had cherished from his early teens: the missions. Without informing anyone lest they should dissuade him, but with the encouragement of his confessor, he wrote to the Rector Major, applying for the missions. When the news broke, all put pressure on him to change his mind, but he never wavered. It was a tremendous sacrifice for all, especially for his father and family members, and for the local superiors who had plans for him. He was young and yet crowds gathered to wave farewell when he left.
He reached Shillong, capital of Assam at that time, at the end of December 1928 and Msgr. Mathias, Vicar Apostolic and Provincial assigned him to the theologate in Shillong with the advice: "Take your bearings, learn English and Khasi and get a feel of the place." Msgr. Mathias who had worked in Sicily before coming to India, knew Fr. Scuderi as a young man for whom nothing was too big. Fr. Vincent set to work at once, but after 18 months the superior who had watched him closely called him and said "You never said a word and that stands in your favour, but I know what is in your heart. I am going to send you to Guwahati. You will be in charge of all the territory of Assam outside the Khasi Hills. Will that be enough for you?" Fr. Scuderi was very close to bursting for joy.
He was given two other young Salesian priests to help him, Fr. Archimedes Pianazzi and Antonio Alessi. As soon as he took charge, they divided the immense territory into zones giving a place also to two veterans who had run the show so far: Fr. Piasecki and Fr. Marmol. It was June 1931. They scouted the whole area in a two month’s whirlwind tour.
In late 1934 Fr. Scuderi was called from Guwahati to shoulder the task of Provincial. He left behind a consolidated and extended center at Guwahati and dozens of chapels and small centres all through the Goalpara and Kamrup. His contemporaries who had a chance to work with him during these years recall the experience: "Gruelling work, poverty, together with all the details of Salesian piety and observance. Scuderi? Yes, first up, last to bed and with everyone of us who could hardly keep apace but would not dare complain, the heart of a mother. But you had to work."
As a Provincial his jurisdiction extended to the whole of Assam and Bengal, with two houses in U.P., Saharampur and Roorky. He was 32, the youngest Provincial in the congregation. A few months later, he was also made Apostolic Administrator of the diocese of Krishnagar which at that time extended from Faridpur and Khulna, East and South to the Behrampore and Murshidabad region in the North. From now on he would be Msgr. Vincent Scuderi. He never really cared.
To attend to both charges better, he shifted the Provincial centre to Calcutta in 1935. Here too he used the same approach with the same restless zeal. His eyes wide open to any opportunity and the will to grab it. He often felt strained due to the pressure of having to account to his superiors for the decisions he took. But rarely, if ever, was he asked to retreat, because his choices were mostly appropriate.
On April 10, 1936, the whole Catholic Mission of Shillong, Laitumkhra was destroyed by fire. Eighty confreres, comprising novices, students of philosophy and theology and their superiors were left without a home and with just the clothes they had on and very little else. Fr. Scuderi was in Calcutta at that time. From there he moved with lightning speed. By the 14th of the month all were sheltered in a summer house of the Jesuit Fathers in Tung, a hamlet on the road from Kurseong to Darjeeling.
When in June 1940, Msgr. Scuderi was taken prisoner by the British as Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, he left behind a much developed province: new schools, missions, novitates, a philosophate, a theologate and shrines.
In the Camps at Fort William (Calcutta), Ahmednagar, Deolali, DehraDhun, he had neither schools nor parishes so he turned his zeal towards promoting the welfare of his companions. There was no time for moping, recriminating and frustrating thoughts instead he preferred to study, pray, and to work round the clock to ward off the worm of dejection and despair. A number of prisoners died in his arms, comforted and at peace. Many salesians studied and prepared for their ordinations.
He was then removed from them and sent to a parole camp for families at Purandarh (a trick planned by the British to break the morale of the Italian III Wing of the Camp, and to break him too). But his life style did not change. He began a school for children of the prisoners, one for the servants, one for the sweeper colony. He would give religious instruction to Christians and non Christians alike. A Dutch Lutheran pastor with his wife did not miss the message of this ardent man and were converted to Catholicism.
When the British made it clear he would have to go, he opted for the Portuguese territory of Goa, so as not to leave India. There a new saga of six years, with a group of volunteers who followed him, began. He started with the Oratory and a Portuguese primary school, followed by a technical school and English High School; two other festive and daily oratories in town; a technical school in Valpoi; he even bought a plot in Panjim, the capital, and built a chapel that soon became a centre of devotion for hundreds.
However, broken by two major hernia operations and a severe bout of typhoid, he was called back to Italy by the superiors. Undaunted and still afire with missionary zeal he returned to his beloved Salesian house at Catania.
Msgr. Vincent Scuderi was 24 years in India: He was roughly 12 years in Assam and Bengal(1928-1940); he spent 6 years as a prisoner (1940 to 1946) and the remaining 6 years in Goa.
Back in his own country and region, he did not waste time hugging the deep wound caused by his sudden removal from his field of mission. He looked around and began again.
After a short interval spent at Catania, he was sent to Caltanisetta.There he built a church on foundations that had stood unfulfilled for years, enlarged the Oratory premises and made it flourish with hundreds of boys and young men attending daily. He bought a new plot of land and built a Technical School endowing it with machinery.The Sisters too were in and helped him make a start. After nine years he had to be changed, according to the Salesian Constitution, but not without leaving behind a half mutinous city: bishop, authorities and people, who wanted their "Don Vincenzo" to stay with them forever.
He was sent to Gela, a new town rising around a huge chemical concern of the E.N.I. on the south Western coast of Sicily. Msgr. Scuderi spent four years there. He substituted all the makeshift prefabs with beautiful buildings and endowed the school with first class machinery. In due course of time an Oratory began. From here he accepted to go to Riesi.
Riesi was a sleepy town, in a depressed central district of Sicily. The Waldenses were there, they had been active for decades. Msgr. Scuderi re-awakened the life in the central parish and opened two new parishes calling in the Sisters in both. He built a new modern hospice for the old, the poor and abandoned. In a short time he was the acclaimed father of the town. One day an emissary of the local Mafia, contacted a Salesian Brother in the market place and asked him to convey, discreetly, to Fr. Scuderi their message: "We are with him. If anyone tries to interfere with his work, let him just drop a word to us. We shall do the needful." (When the Mafia does the needful, it is generally, once and for all).
Msgr. Scuderi left Riesi in 1977. He was 75 years old. The superiors called him to the formation house of San Gregorio, Catania. He wrote in his diary: "Here begins the decline. It is five in the morning and I am leaving Riesi. No one knows it."
Salesians and students received him like a gift from heaven. The oratory felt his presence from the first day. "You can’t put a lid on a volcano." All commented. He could become uncomfortable. But all knew that it was his nature. One phrase he never used in his life was: "That’s not my business." For five years he also animated the Missionary movement in all the Salesian institutions of Sicily.
You cannot put a lid on a volcano, no you can’t. But God can. And God did that at 6.15 in the morning of November 22, 1982. A heart attack... and in a few minutes, before anyone could come to his help, his great heart stopped beating.
The simile of the volcano was used in Sicily where he was known and where the Etna can been seen from Catania, and miles and miles around, smoking and rumbling, never at peace. Wherever he worked all agreed that to call Vincent Scuderi a volcano was the best description of the relentless activity of this man who, from boyhood to death, had one only ideal, to be like Don Bosco: a man given to God, body and soul and everything in him, for youth and all he could reach.
