| Clement Vismara | |
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Clement Vismara at the age of 86 |
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| Born | September 6, 1897 Agrate Brianza, Italy |
| Died | June 15, 1988 (aged 90) Mong Ping, Burma |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 26 June 2011, Milan by Pope Benedict XVI |
Father Clement Vismara (September 6, 1897, Agrate Brianza, Lombardy Italy – June 15, 1988, Mong Ping, Burma) was an Italian priest and missionary. He is venerated by the Roman Catholic Church. He spent 65 of his 91 years in forests of Burma assisting Akhà and Ikò tribal peoples, particularly children and widows.
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Clement Vismara was born in Agrate Brianza from Attilio Egidio Vismara (1865–1905), saddler, and Stella Annunziata Porta (1872–1902), seamstress, fifth after his brothers Egidio, Carlo, Francesco and his sister Maria. He prematurely lost his mother first, who died in childbirth of the sixth brother, Luigi, in 1902, and then lost his father in 1905. The child was entrusted to the care of relatives, attended the school and then, in 1913, entered the Seminary of St. Peter Martyr (Seveso, Milan).[1]
On September 21, 1916, during World War I, he is called up and sent to the forefront as a private of 80th Infantry Regiment Brigade Rome. He fought on Mount Maio and Adamello. He was honorably discharged on November 6, 1919 with three medals for bravery and the rank of sergeant major.[2]
After resuming his studies in Milan at the Lombard Seminary for Foreign Missions (which in 1926 will become PIME or Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions) Clement is ordained on May 26, 1923. Immediately after he leaves from Venice (August 2) and arrives at Toungoo, Burma, in late September to study English and local dialects. He moves to Kengtung mission in March 1924 and then leaves to found the new Mong Lin mission on October 27, 1924.
Misery is great, the food poor and totally inadequate, tropical diseases decimate the missionaries (6 during the decade 1926-1936, all young people) so that in 1928 the General Superior of PIME father Paolo Manna, visiting Mong Lin, threatened the bishop of Kengtung to quit the mission if other young missionaries died for lack of nutritious food or because they lived in huts of mud and straw.[3] In 1931 his brother, father Antonio Farronato (32 years), died of malaria and Vismara remained alone.
Despite the difficulties of an absolutely primitive, dangerous[4] and often hostile[5] environment the activity of father Clement continued, and indeed expanded during the 1930s when he founded other missions (Keng Lap, Mong Yong e Mong Pyak, with resident missionaries and nuns).
Vismara identifies the pagan and fatalistic conception of life as the blocking element of tribal society: men often do not work[6] and are addicted to opium, women and children are commonly abused, abandoned, sold[7] or killed.[8]
He concentrated his efforts in giving more rewarding jobs for indigenous becoming first a farmer, breeder, tailor, barber, mason, lumberjack and so on. His objective are mainly orphans and widows, women who were abandoned by everyone and considered bearers of bad luck. Unlike other missionaries he tried, whenever possible, to maintain a healthy lifestyle: schedule of day, cleaning, suitable clothing, ordered eating, use of dishes. This behaviour, along with his strength, improved his stamina.
In June 1941, while the Japaneses are planning to occupy Burma, Clement was interned by the British army in Kalaw with twelve other Italian missionaries because they belonged to an enemy nation. In January 1942, the Japanese army invaded Burma and late April they freed the Italian missionaries held in Kalaw. The Mong Lin mission (where Clement arrived at the end of August) was intact but almost occupied by the Japanese army. Vismara reopened the orphanage and adapted to work as a woodcutter for the soldiers, together with his boys. In 1945, the war ended and in 1948 Burma got its independendence, followed by the beginning of separatist guerrillas which involved ethnicities of the area (in the years 1950-1955 five brethren of PIME were murdered: Pietro Galastri, Mario Vergara, Alfredo Cremonesi, Pietro Manghisi, Eliodoro Farronato). In the first 31 years of his mission father Clement has turned Mong Lin into a town with about 4,000 baptized.
Although nearly sixty father Vismara was in good health and he received many foreign aid because he wrote many letters and articles where he told about, so brilliant and witty, the life he led.
In January 1955 Clement was sent by surprise by the bishop, Msgr. Guercilena, in Mong Ping, 225 km away, a higher and more healthy place, but where he had to start almost from scratch. He wrote to his friend Pietro Migone: «My dear, my heart wavers! after thirty-two years, when I least expect it I was transferred from Mong Lin to Mong Ping... I obey because I'm convinced that if I did on my own I should have got it all wrong».[9] Throughout 1957 he was in Italy for the only holiday of his life, shared among medical care, conferences, a pilgrimage to Lourdes, visits to construction sites[10] and, above all, a full month's retreat.[11] But his thoughts always turned to his people and his orphans. When back in Burma, he wrote: «In Italy more than rest I worked hard». But he was happy because he carried a lot of aid, and he added: «Not to offend you but I'm much better here than in Agrate. Certainly there you eat well, drink better, sleep on soft ... But here I can do something good every day: what could I do there, if not chatting?»[12]
In 1961 he wrote a biography [13] of father Stephen Aikao Wong, the first local priest from Kengtung killed by some buddhists hostile to the many conversions obtained among Akha people.
During the 1960s, he provided Mong Ping of the necessary facilities: orphanage (1960), school (1961), the church with the Lourdes Cave next to it (1962), houses for missionaries and sisters (1963). The school, started from scratch in 1958, counted 123 pupils in autumn 1960, 232 in October 1962, 400 in 1965 («two thirds of which pagans», he wrote).
But in 1962, after a military coup, the new socialist government, inspired by the Soviet model, nationalized all private activities and severely limited freedom of expression and movement. All missionaries arrived after 1948 were expelled. Only seniors arrived in Burma before the World War II could remain.
Despite the difficulties with the new regime, which prevented the arrival of new missionaries, and despite various ailments (prostate, misadventure to a foot, dentures) his work continued with an enviable stamina. In 1979, aged 82, he went to Taunggyi by jeep to meet the superior of the PIME and, after returning in Mong Ping, 14 hours of travel, could write: I arrived home at 7:20 pm blanched, dusted, floured like a fish before putting in a pan. A unison chorus of over 200 orphans, boys and girls, greeted me. Here is my kingdom, here I am the sovereign and live happy.
In 1980 he blessed the new district Tongtà he founded among the ethnic Iko. In subsequent years he had to adapt, with embarrassment, to get carried on a stretcher but continued to visit the villages. The last missionary district (parish) opened by father Clement, in 1986, is in Pannulong, with three nuns resident and 42 Christian villages in the Akha tribe in need.
On June 15, 1988 at 8:15 p.m. father Clement Vismara died, serene and happy[14] in Mong Ping, aged 91.
This is the testimony given on him by father Angelo Campagnoli at the Diocesan Process:
... His famous phrase - «You get old when you are no longer useful to anyone» - comes from the fact that he has been useful to everyone until 91 years and he felt fulfilled. He took care of the new situations that happened: they were always poor children, widows, lepers ... everyone excited him again as if for the first time. He himself said: «When I see abandoned children, sick, lepers, opium addicts, disabled, I cannot resist, I must help». That was his lifestyle and even aging he remained true to himself, he never got old...—“Positio”, p. 336
Father Clement Vismara was buried, as he requested, at Mong Ping in the square of the church he built in 1962, in front of Lourdes Cave. Many buddhists[15] and Muslims[16] attend the funeral too. His tomb is a pilgrimage site for people of all religions.
In Agrate, his hometown, immediately the parish missionary group began to manage for his beatification. In 1989 was unveiled a statue. On February 10, 1994 Abraham Than, Bishop of the Kengtung, appointed Father Piero Gheddo postulator for the cause of Father Vismara. Father Gheddo appointed Dr. Francesca Consolini as an external consultant. The management of the Diocesan stage of the beatification process, from 1996 to 1998, was held by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milan, Italy, because of difficulties in Myanmar. Monsignor Ennio Apeciti, President of the process, traveled to Burma, Thailand and Brasil, as well as in Italy, to interview those who knew Father Clement. In 1999 began the “Roman process” of the Congregation for Sainthood Causes which receives testimonies about miracles obtained through the intercession of father Clement, as required by rules. On March 15, 2008, the Holy Father, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI signs the ”Decree of Venerability” for Father Clement Vismara, recognizing in him a Christian who has practiced virtues of the Gospel in a heroic grade. On Saturday, April 2, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI received in audience His Eminence, Angelo Cardinal Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and approved, among many other advancements of beatification causes, the official recognition of a miracle attributed to Father Clement's intercession. This is the necessary element required for him (given that he is not a martyr) to be approved for beatification. Father Vismara's beatification took place on June 26, 2011 in the Piazza Duomo of Milan.[17]