Sierra Leone
Fr. Giuseppe Berton

A Protagonist of History
The Xaverian missionary died this past June at the age of 81. The Italian priest had dedicated his life to missionary work in Africa. Among the charities born of his ministry, many were started to offer homes to minors and to recover child-soldiers. All of this outreach was undertaken with the simplicity of a heart seized by Christ.

by Paolo Perego

Who was Fr. Bepi? “He was more than a missionary who came to Sierra Leone to do good. He was my father…”. This is how Ernest Sesay mourns him. Fr. Giuseppe Berton died on June 25th in Parma, Italy. He had been sick for some time, and was forced finally to leave his beloved Africa for treatment at the end of his life. His mission there began when he was little more than 30 years old, in the early 1960s, and he never left. A book would not suffice to tell the stories of all the seeds he planted between Freetown and Bumbuna in 50 years, starting with his work to help recovering child-soldiers in the former British colony devastated by 10 years of war that only ended in 2002. In that period, there was no electricity, there were no schools, people suffered hunger, and enormous shantytowns grew up around the capital. He created a committee for the protection of young people, then he started the Family Homes Movement, composed of a group of families who hosted orphans and children stolen away or bought from the rebel army, over 2,500 children over the years.
Fr. Berton was also kidnapped by rebels for 20 days in January 1999, together with some fellow priests and some religious. He said they were able to face death without falling apart only because they continually prayed Psalm 90: “Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God....” He also opened myriad small schools all over the country, shacks set up as classrooms, because, he said, “You can do everything, but if the population can’t read or write, all the rest collapses.” There was also the Saint Michael Hospitality Center in Lakka, an old hotel bought with the help of AVSI and CL. In the end, the new Holy Family Primary School was inaugurated in 2004 in Freetown, and a high school was added in 2009. All of this happened through a friendship that burst into life almost by chance, through an “aside” that Fr. Bepi, with his resolute character, did not let go unnoticed.

The great son. This aside led to Ernest’s arrival at Malpensa Airport in Milan on January 3, 2002, when he was little more than 25 years old. There were five inches of snow on the ground and he was dressed in a cotton shirt and trousers, and did not know a word of Italian; he came only with his history and a pregnant wife he had married the day before. He was one of Fr. Bepi’s kids, those of the earliest days, when Berton worked in Bumbuna, 120 miles in the interior, near Freetown. The background to Ernest’s arrival dates to the summer before, in 2001. Berton was a guest at the Meeting of Rimini. The war was coming to an end, and Sierra Leone was on its knees. The country needed rebuilding, but even more so the people needed rebuilding; desperate multitudes left the countryside and streamed into the shantytowns of Freetown. “I would like one of my kids to come stay with you a while,” Berton said to Franco Nembrini, Director of  La Traccia school near Bergamo. Nembrini recounts: “I forgot I had said yes, and was expecting to work out details in some way, but instead Ernest showed up almost without notice.” That’s the way Berton was, pragmatic. He was among the first to bring the tragedy of the child-soldiers before the U.N., and Kofi Annan visited his center. “Fr. Berton desired three things for Ernest in this trip to Italy: to learn Italian, to see the experience of a Catholic school, and to meet the CL movement,” recalls Nembrini. “Bepi had met Fr. Giussani a few years earlier, through a family of the Movement that had adopted one of his kids. Theirs was a great friendship. Berton quoted him continually. For his part, Giussani was fascinated by Fr. Bepi’s freedom and his love for Christ, and by the fact that this had generated and was generating a new people.” Fr. Giussani himself told Ernest this when he met him for the first time, hugging him and calling him a “great son” of the missionary whose work was a grace “for all of Africa.” Fr. Carrón also recalled this in a message he sent to Ernest after the priest’s death: “We met him through Fr. Giussani, who was moved by his passion for Christ who had made him a missionary, always interested in the destiny of every single person he encountered.”
 Nembrini continues, “Ernest remained with us for a year,” hosted by a family of farmers. “My wife and I accompanied him when he returned to Freetown, and we finally discovered the greatness of what had grown around Fr. Bepi.”  They spent 10 beautiful days in a terrible place. “We formed such a friendship with him and Ernest that my wife and I and the whole family spent our Christmas vacation with them.” From this friendship and the collaboration with AVSI, the new Holy Family School was established, now serving over 1,500 students and supported in part by the long-distance adoptions of the families of the La Traccia School.
“He was a man certain of what he carried,” continues Nembrini. For example, notwithstanding the advice of a monsignor that he should remove the crucifixes from the school in order to avoid problems with the Muslims, he kept them. “I am a missionary, and education cannot exclude the faith,” responded Berton. Years later, he underlined that the people understood his choice very well and accepted it.

Another step. This is the kind of father with whom Ernest grew up, one who gave him the opportunity to become truly great. He himself said this on his return to Sierra Leone, in response to those who asked him why he returned, when he could have stayed in Italy. “I arrived in Italy a child, and have returned to Sierra Leone a man. I always told Fr. Berton that our movement of host families needed to take another step, but I didn’t understand what it was. In Italy, encountering CL, I saw what was missing: the awareness that Jesus is the happiness of life, that the Movement is the road for this familiarity with Jesus. After having made this discovery, I could not help but return to Africa–I am the only one who saw, and only through me would my friends be able to encounter what I encountered.”
“He was my father....” Ernest repeats today. You can recognize that Fr. Berton was Ernest’s father, just as you can recognize a tree by its fruit. “In his vicissitudes, we see the importance of faith in the life of a man,” Fr. Carrón continued in his message. “A man can become a protagonist of history–like he who contributed in changing Sierra Leone through his charitable work with families and in education–if, in the simplicity of his heart, he lets himself be grasped by Christ and guided by Him, as Pope Francis says. Fr. Berton testified to us that there is no circumstance or situation, not even war, that can stop us from continuously living this way.”