The Rajshahi Catholic community has not forgotten the PIME missionary who was killed on August 14, 1972 by a group of bandits while assisting refugees from India. Among his legacies is the St. Joseph School, which he founded in Bonpara with Father Verdelli and is attended by more than 2,000 children today.
Dhaka () – Today, August 14, the Catholic Church in Bangladesh commemorates the 50th anniversary of the death of Father Angelo Maggioni. The PIME missionary, of Italian origin, was shot dead in the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, belonging to the parish of Andharkota, in Rajshahi, during an attempted robbery at one in the morning of August 14, 1972 The bullet marks on the walls and cupboards of his house testify to the life given by the martyr. And today, the faithful of the Andharkota parish remembered him in prayer.
On the anniversary of his death, Father Sunil Daniel Rozario, a local diocesan priest, tells : “The PIME missionaries have made an exceptional contribution to the Catholic Church in this country. When I met Father Maggioni, I was young and attending school. He was a very simple person, for me he was a great missionary,” continues the P. Rozario, who is now 71 years old – He always went by bicycle to visit Catholic towns”.
Fr. Maggioni was born on June 14, 1917 in Trezzo sull’Adda, in the province of Milan, in northern Italy. He was ordained as a PIME priest at the age of 22, but he was unable to leave immediately for the missions because of World War II. When he finally arrived in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on November 14, 1948, he was eager to bring hope to missionaries who had been isolated there for years. In his first mission in Ruhea, in the diocese of Dinajpur -at that time, East Pakistan- he discovered the misery of the people and told:. “They are malnourished and are constant victims of the extreme heat and flooding that are typical of the region.”
When he visited homes, he won people’s hearts with his simple life; he was fluent in Bengali and Santali. After Ruhea, he also served in Mariampur, Dinajpur Cathedral, Bonpara and finally Andharkota. Among the works he left behind are several schools: in Bonpara, Natore, he founded with Fr. Luigi Verdelli – another PIME missionary – St. Joseph’s School and College, today one of the best schools in the north of the country, where more than 2,000 Mostly Muslim students receive a quality education.
Precisely during the liberation war in Bangladesh, in 1971, Father Angelo was appointed parish priest in Andharkota, where he took care of 40 villages scattered throughout his parish. The mission became a center for the collection and distribution of food, especially for the many refugees from India. He became a target for armed bandits who roamed the countryside and was assassinated in his mission residence on August 14, 1972. He was only 55 years old, of which 25 he dedicated to pastoral life, as a missionary in Bangladesh. His body was buried in the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Andharkota Parish. The Bangladeshi faithful still remember him with fondness and respect.
Fr. Maggioni was not the only missionary who gave his life for the Gospel in those difficult years. Before him, on November 13, 1971, an American Holy Cross missionary, Father William P. Evans, was killed. He was also shot dead by bandits during the liberation war when he was on his way to the Bakshanagar mission center in Dhaka. That same year, on April 4, Palm Sunday, the Italian Xaverian missionary Mario Veronesi was assassinated by two Pakistani soldiers in Jessore. Another Italian Xaverian missionary, Father Valeriano Cobbe, was assassinated in that same city in the southwest of the country on October 14, 1974.
However, the martyrdom of these people whose dedication was total did not stop the mission in Bangladesh, which continues in this country of 160 million inhabitants where Christians only represent 0.3% of the population. In dialogue with , the current regional superior of the PIME in Bangladesh, Fr. Michele Brambilla, says that there are currently 18 missionaries of the institute from Italy, Brazil, Cameroon and India who exercise their ministry in the country. Every year, thanks to his preaching, many receive baptism. The missionaries also founded a seminary in Bangladesh, and today the PIME has six missionaries from this country who work in other nations, announcing the Gospel. It is a visible sign of how the dedication of Fr. Angelo and the other martyrs has borne fruit in this land.
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