Michele Da Carbonara e l’organizzazione della Prefettura Apostolica dell’Eritrea, 1894-1910

Father Michele da Carbonara (1836-1910) from the Capuchin Order, was the first Apostolic Prefect of Eritrea and his activity influenced substantially the development of missionary activities in Eritrea. In fact, it is during his presence that missionary institutions in Eritrea were transferred from Lazarist to Capuchin authority. That was not a very delicate transition in the history of Eritrea because this transition corresponded also to the transition, few years later, from the military to the civilian administration of the colony. On the missionary side Michele da Carbonara’s efforts were oriented toward a complete reorganisation of the mission both from a spiritual as well as a territorial point of view. From a spiritual point of view praxis like the so-called Esercizi Spirituali together with the introduction of a daily schedule known as Orario, represented the attempt to strengthen the spirituality of both priests and neophytes. From a territorial point of view important steps were the establishment of communities of converted coming from Tigrai like in the case of the so-called Colonia cattolica, or resettled inside Eritrea like in the case of Addi Genu and Halhale. All those policies were extremely important as they played an important role in the religious balance of the region as well as in the development of indigenous strategies for power. In his effort to reorganise the mission Michele da Carbonara, as will happen to his colonial counterpart Governor Ferdinando Martini, did not have adequate material resources and had to deal with a very tight budget. So for that reason the capuchin missionary tried to established a relationship of close co-operation with colonial authorities in order to build the so-called “missione italiana” or Italian mission, as many sources called it. However, missionary efforts were not matched by a similar attitude on the colonial side. On the opposite the history of those years is full of episodes of conflict between missions and colonial administrations. To create this conflicts contributed many factors that could be basically classified into two main categories: on one side the liberal and often anti-clerical background of many colonial administrators including Martini. On the other side, even more important, there was an objective conflict between the needs and ambitions of the two institutions. In fact, the need of free-movement and freedom to proselytise, claimed constantly by the missionaries contrasted with the needs of pax colonica that assumed a territory with the minimum degree of conflicts. Therefore, conflicts were frequents in many areas of missionary intervention like education, anti-slavery campaign and building of churches. From this point of view the study of Michele da Carbonara activities can help in having a better understanding of those important early years of Colonia Eritrea.