Daniel Comboni

Hierarch · Monastic · Confessor · 1831–1881 · Italy, Sudan, Egypt

Life events

  1. Born — 1831

    Born on 15 March 1831 at Limone sul Garda in Brescia to Luigi Comboni and Domenica Pace, the fourth of eight children and the only one to survive into adulthood.

  2. Educated — 1843

    Enrolled on 20 February 1843 at Nicola Mazza's Religious Institute in Verona, where he studied medicine and languages — acquiring French, English, and Arabic — in preparation for the priesthood.

  3. Ordained — 1854

    Received ordination to the priesthood on 31 December 1854 in Trento from Bishop Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim.

  4. Other — 1857

    Departed on 8 September 1857 for Sudan with five fellow missionaries from Mazza's institute, arriving in Khartoum on 8 January 1858; his assignment was the liberation of enslaved boys and girls. By the end of 1859 three of his five companions had died of fever.

  5. Other — 1864

    While reflecting before Saint Peter's tomb in Rome on 15 September 1864, Comboni conceived his 'Plan for the Rebirth of Africa' — a mission strategy with the guiding slogan 'Save Africa through Africa'. Four days later he presented it to Pope Pius IX.

  6. Other — 1867

    Established a male missionary institute on 1 June 1867 and a female institute on 1 January 1872, both in Verona — the Istituto delle Missioni per la Nigrizia (later Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus) and the Istituto delle Pie Madri (later Comboni Missionary Sisters).

  7. Consecrated — 1877

    Named Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa in mid-1877 and received episcopal consecration on 12 August 1877 from Cardinal Alessandro Franchi.

  8. Died — 1881

    Died on 10 October 1881 in Khartoum at 10:00 pm during a cholera epidemic, having suffered high fever since 5 October. His reported final words were: 'I am dying, but my work will not die.'

Numbered pins trace the chronological journey from 1place; the line connects events in order of year.

Relationships

Relationships (1)
Relationship ego graph (1-hop) for Daniel Comboni Related to Saint Peter Related to Saint Peter Saint Peter Daniel Comboni

Documented claims

  • Of eight children born to Luigi Comboni and Domenica Pace of Limone sul Garda, Daniele was the only one to survive into adulthood. (certain)
  • Comboni spoke Arabic and at least three African languages — Dinka, Bari, and Nubian — in addition to six European languages, a multilingualism rooted in his formation under Nicola Mazza. (likely)
  • At the First Vatican Council in 1870, Comboni formulated the 'Postulatum pro Nigris Africae Centralis' — a petition for the evangelization of Central Africa — which gathered the signatures of 70 bishops. (certain)
  • The miracle supporting Comboni's 2003 canonization was the 1997 recovery of Lubana Abdel Aziz, a Muslim woman in Khartoum who survived severe post-caesarean complications at a hospital managed by the Comboni Missionary Sisters after the nuns prayed a novena to Comboni. (likely)
  • Comboni's 1864 missionary strategy, conceived before Saint Peter's tomb in Rome, bore the programmatic slogan 'Save Africa through Africa' — proposing to train African catechists and missionaries rather than relying solely on Europeans. (certain)