X Rome, February 13, 1887

Excerpt of a memorandum of Fr. Antonio da Reschio, Capuchin, former missionary among the Indians in Brazil.

The office of apostolic missionary has given me occasion to see many parts of the world, both uncivilized and civilized. In every place I could see, among other things, how great the prestige and influence of Italy abroad was once due to the work of its missionaries. When these were in

sufficient number, they were present everywhere and with the faith and ethics of the gospel they brought civilization everywhere, the arts, the language, and the manners of the privileged land. Italy was indeed the teacher of the world through its missionaries. The people, admiring the ability and disinterested work of the Italian missionaries, and enjoying its benefits, held them in great honor and placed in them their trust because they saw them intent on doing good for them and aloof from politics. They regarded Italy with veneration, figuring that all its inhabitants had the qualities of the missionaries.

            Though all the people, believers and unbelievers, still esteem the Italian missionaries, nevertheless, with the increased immigration of Italian speculators, most of whom make themselves hateful because of their corrupt behavior and cheating, everyone keeps saying that the Italians are the worst among all the foreigners in their country. They cannot understand how so many good and disinterested missionaries can come from such a bad country. I have often had the opportunity to answer them both in America and in the Near East: “You have no reason to judge all the Italians from the worst scum of Italy and not they but the missionaries represent abroad the true customs of Italy.”

            Yet it is now 26 years that while the emigration of the bad Italians increases – who dishonor their native country and throw discredit on it throughout the world – the number of missionaries who honor her and made her loved is always decreasing. Thus, with the decline of its esteem, prestige and influence abroad, Italy will become the laughing-stock of the world in a few years, if the government is not quick to open its eyes and does not take immediate steps at least to compete with France and England. These two countries realize that the peaceful influence of the missionaries attracts the sympathy of the natives in their favor, and makes up a moral force more lasting and efficacious than any material force. France which persecutes the clergy and religious societies at home, largely finances and protects them abroad. Protestant England spends large sums in order to send its missionaries to all parts of the world. Both countries effectively help the missionaries to establish schools and colleges and to implant abroad their religious faith. On the contrary, Italy, which had this moral force abroad, has been trying every means for a quarter of a century to destroy it. It tried at all costs to wipe out the religious corporations that were sending so many missionaries in every part of the world. With the destruction of the religious corporations, the presence of the Italian missionaries also came to an end and with that every Italian influence abroad.

But the French and English influence remained alone. If the Italian government, yielding to wiser counsel, should resolve to reestablish and increase Italy’s prestige abroad, it would have to do nothing more than decree the exemption from military service of about 2,000 young men a year for the purpose of educating them for the foreign missions. In such an instance the government would annually have 2,000 fewer soldiers, but in their place it would have a phalanx of self-sacrificing teachers, who would cost nothing to the government, who would restore Italy to the rank and honor of teacher of the world and who would be the vanguard of its commerce. It is not to be forgotten that every time our scientists would go to visit even the most inhospitable countries, they would find everywhere a missionary who would protect and help them. It is a constant and universal fact that missionaries introduce the manufactures and the crafts of their native countries to foreign lands. They promote every kind of building, and often they act as architects. The artisans of Rome, Naples, Milan and many other cities can attest how much work the Italian missionaries have provided for painters, sculptors, and manufacturers of musical instruments, fine fabrics, metal works, woodwork, stonework, commissioned to them at least for the needs of the missions. In fact there is no mission that does not have valuable objects made in Italy. But with the disappearance of Italian missionaries, all the advantages will rest exclusively with the French and British.

            If the government remains obstinate and grants nothing to the foreign missions, each year it will have 2,000 more soldiers in the army, but these will not increase in any way Italy’s internal or external security, since such a material force is not sufficient to make a difference in securing much good for Italy, in maintaining its prestige, its moral force, or its influence in distant countries. All this will be left to France and England, which would penetrate everywhere with their schools and colleges, while Italy would not be able to compete with them.

            If the government should have difficulties enacting a law favorable to the suppressed religious orders, let it at least enact one on behalf of the missionary institutes already existing in Italy or to be erected by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda. In fact, let it make such a law directly in favor of Propaganda, which will serve itself of the means already at its disposal.

Friar Antonio da Reschio

Apostolic Missionary