Martyr in Congo

Chapter 1. An authentic Witness to the Gospel

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Fr. Louis Carrara - Martyr in Congo

Father Louis Carrara, born in Cornale, Bergamo (Northern Italy), on March 3, 1933, worked as a Xaverian Missionary in the Congo where he died a martyr’s death on November 28, 1964”. These few biographical details of the brief, but intense, life of an authentic witness to the Gospel, are inscribed under the bronze monument that the townsfolk of Louis Carrara erected in his memory outside the parish church.

Some people in the village still remember him by his nickname “redhead”. One of his friends remarked that he was an enthusiastic and good soccer player like his brother Marco. The area of Bergamo has a rich football tradition and passions run high. Cornale di Pradalunga is not far from Bergamo.

The region of Bergamo is also a rich fertile land for priestly vocations. At national level, the church in Bergamo has the highest percentage of seminarians in Italy. The diocese was founded by a lay-man, Alessandro, of the Theban Legion, who accepted death (in the period 303-305) rather than forsake the faith, thereby sowing the seeds of Christianity. The area holds another record difficult to match: 150 Marian shrines. Devotion to Our Lady seems to be part of the genetic makeup of the people of Bergamo: Louis grew up in a family in which the rosary was recited daily.

When he was ordained, Louis consecrated his priesthood to the Virgin Mary; previously, he had also placed his missionary vocation and life under her protection. He also made the traditional Xaverian pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady in Fontanellato, not far from Parma. At this same shrine, Guido Maria Conforti (1865-1931), the Founder of the Xaverian Congregation, had entrusted his ministry to the protection of the Lord’s Mother. Since then, this gesture of trust in Mary has become a treasured tradition among the Xaverian missionaries.

A brief look at the situation in Italy in the 1930s is necessary if we are to understand who Louis Carrara was and what his life was like.

That fateful 1933

Louis (affectionately called Gino) Carrara was born on Friday March 3, 1933; the seventh of ten children, three of whom died in their infancy, as happened quite often in those times. He was baptized three days later by the parish priest, Father Louis Minelli, in the parish church. His mother Elisabetta looked after the house, and his father Giuseppe worked in the fields.

The modern world of sophisticated technology and consumerism is far removed from the difficult life people led in Italy when Louis Carrara was a child. In the wake of the world crisis of 1929, more than one million people were unemployed in Italy by 1933, and many workers were on a 30 hour week. Industries, banks and businesses folded, leaving millions of people and workers in ruins. The State intervened by nationalizing many business enterprises, while various places were affected by mass hunger and outbreaks of anger and protest.

Some people in the village still remember him by his nickname "redhead". One of his friends remarked that he was an enthusiastic and good soccer player.
On Fr. Louis Carrara

1933, the year in which Louis Carrara was born, was a year of important events and dire premonitions. Two days after his birth, on March 5, elections were held in Germany and the Nazis, helped also by the dark depression afflicting the country, obtained 44% of the vote. On March 27 of the same year, Japan officially withdrew from The Society of Nations. Some time later, Albert Einstein was among the first Jews to flee Nazi persecution by emigrating to the United States.

1933 was also an extraordinary Jubilee Year, coming just four years after the previous one in 1929. This was a tragic moment in world history and a delicate period also for the Church which had to deal with the problems caused by the rapid rise of Nazi, Fascist and Communist ideologies. Pius XI, in particular, tried to mediate in the Fascist question which was closer to home. This was the world of Louis Carrara’s infancy.

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