Father Giuseppe was born in the same village as our Founder, Castelnuovo Don Bosco, on January 9, 1919, the son of Leopoldo Bargetto and Vincenza Savio.  He entered the seminary in Giaveno but was forced to leave the seminary and join the military campaigns in France, Albania and Russia.  During the tragic retreat from the Don he decided to dedicate his life to the missions.  After finishing his philosophy studies at the Chieri seminary he entered our Institute in 1944.

During his novitiate at Varallo Sesia, he wrote to Father Sandrone, vice-Superior General, (December 8, 1944) expressing his satisfaction: “I am very happy here. Our Lady has given me a great grace  – without her help I would never become a good priest. I am surrounded by grace and only fear that I am not corresponding in full to all these heavenly favors.  I often think of your words – ‘Always go down a step’ – and I must say they have not left me unmoved.  I am very happy with my superiors and my companions.  I feel I am living in a family.  I am making every effort lay a foundation in the practices of piety because I know it will support me once I am involved in the apostolate.”

The following year he consecrated himself to the Lord with religious profession and in 1949 he was ordained to the priesthood.  In 1951 he left for Tanganyika where he would work for 51 years.  On April 2, 2001, he came to Alpignano where he met up with his former companion on the missions – Father Cattoi – who would make his own journey to the Kingdom only shortly before Father Giuseppe.

Father Giuseppe  was a very down-to-earth person.  His life was a series of mission foundations and social endeavors in hard times.  He was assigned to the enormous Matembwe mission in 1954 and Msgr. Beltramino asked him to establish a mission at Makambako.  For two years after elementary school  he had worked as a carpenter in Castelnuovo “right behind the statue of Don Bosco.”  This skill served him well in later years. He remained at Makambako until 1960 and then went to Pawaga – the mission was in “pitiful shape”.  For three months of the year rain and a lack of bridge made it impossible to leave the mission.  In 1963 he was sent to establish a mission and hospital at Ikonda.  “We had very little money.  Our only transport were cars the Indians had discarded.  I turned a car with a broken axle into a usable trailer.”  Two years later he was in Sadani where he worked until 1978.  He went back to Pawaga for three years and in 1982 he was back working at Kifumbe where he remained for 11 years.  In 1994 he returned to Sadani and remained there until he came home to Italy.

On August 3, 2003, at forty-five minutes after midnight, the Lord unexpectedly called him to Himself.  His funeral was held on August 5 and attended by many relatives, confreres and sisters.  In his homily Father Di Martino spoke of his adventures as a soldier for Italy and a soldier for Christ.  A pioneer on the frontier in Tanganyika.  The following excerpts from Father Medri and one of Father Giuseppe’s classmates from the diocesan seminary tell us something about him.  His body was taken to Castelnuovo and buried there.

Father Giuseppe Villa

and the editor of Da Casa Madre

A SOLDIER FOR ITALY, A SOLDIER FOR CHRIST

Interview granted to Father Giovanni Medri in 2001

When Giuseppe finished elementary school at the age of 11 he entered the workshop of Osvaldo Cagliero to learn the trade of carpentry.  At the time, though, he felt attracted to a life in the Church.  He attended religious services and happily served Mass at the Consolata chapel in Castelnuovo.  He told the assistant pastor, don Pietro Bordone, of his desire to become a priest.  Father Bordone taught him elementary Latin and he was soon accepted as a student in the seminary in Giaveno.  He was placed in the second grade of Ginnasio (middle school).

When his call-up time came he had not yet reached the preparatory year and was obliged to leave the seminary for military service.  Towards the end of his service war broke out and he was sent to the Western Front – France.  When that front closed he was sent to Albania where he was involved in trench and mountain warfare.  Conditions were dreadful and the cold unbearable.  Many soldiers died or suffered frostbite and lost limbs.

When conflict in Albania ended he spent some time in Italy but then he was called up again and sent to Russia, to the Don.  Everyone has heard of the terrible sufferings our soldiers endured on the Don and of the tragic retreat:  thousands of kilometers at 40 degrees below zero.  Giuseppe was destined for the missions and this special grace – along with his own personal resources – brought him home alive.  The retreat lasted for a month – January, 1942.  During those terrible days he began to think of abandoning everything and becoming a missionary.

When the war ended he entered the seminary in  Chieri where he completed his philosophy studies.  He then sought admission to the Institute.  Novitiate and theology,  Certosa di Pesio and Rosignano Monferrato … he was ordained to the priesthood on June 19, 1949.

Six months later in early 1950 he was on the ship “Africa” headed for Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika.  He no longer faced the endless snow of the Russian tundra, but the immensity of the Indian Ocean … this time fighting for Christ.  Within a few days he was on a new front, the mission of Matembwe in southern Tanganyika, in Msgr. Beltramino’s Vicariate –  Iringa.  He met Father Francesco Cattoi there who would be his companion for almost the whole of his life.

After a few years the enormous mission of Matembwe was subdivided and he was sent to found a mission at Makambako, an area heavily influenced by the Lutherans.  He was later assigned to Pawaga – an area of equatorial heat along the Ruhaha river in the Great Rift.  He then went back to the mountains to establish a mission and hospital at Ikonda.  Then Sadani and back to Pawaga … he established a mission in Matembwe, the place that had seen his earliest efforts … Kifumbe which in a few years had become self-sufficient.  Kifumbe was a now a parish and in the hands of the diocesan clergy.  Giuseppe was a soldier, however, and was off to another mission!

There is a parallel between Father Bargetto’s life as a soldier and as a missionary. Taken from the serenity of seminary life he was thrown into the barracks and then war – first the French front and then the Eastern Front and the disaster in Russia …  something similar happened in his life as a missionary:  he was a missionary on the frontier, in the torrid zones … he was a soldier, founding, breaking through … with God’s grace but also with a lot of personal initiative.  As he said,  “It wasn’t me, it was God’s Grace … I am well aware that it was all God’s work.  God touched the heart of those I preached to.  Like a soldier of Christ I am in service.”

On the missions everything is for the service of the Lord, the Church, the army of missionaries and our own division – the Consolata Missionaries.  We do everything through the grace of God and our own initiative.  That great accumulation of grace which creates a Christian community out of nothing increased day after day for ten, twenty, thirty or fifty years … and suddenly the Church is present with lay organizations, base communities, seminarians, sisters, catechists, new priests, bishops, cardinals – the whole Church.

And you, missionary, have worked unceasingly here and there, like an obedient soldier without the time to think of the end results – but the Lord was guiding everything,  he was using you “to make Christ the center of the world.”  You built a chapel here, a school there, established a base community here and a youth group there, a hospital, a catechetical center … You sowed, planted and sowed again … growth and development?  It was the Lord who did that!  “And it was wondrous in our eyes.” “If I have one desire it is to return there where I fought the good fight and to give whatever I can to those who have become my people.”

THE MISSIONS – IN ALL THINGS,  IN ALL TIMES

On June 10^th Father Bargetto wrote, “I feel my strength ebbing.  Diabetes is weakening my eyesight.” It was not just his candor but his shaky handwriting as well that intimated his conviction that the end was near.

At the age of eighty-one he had written to me from Kifumbe (February 10, 2000), “Old age and its infirmities are forcing me to give uFr.  The mission here at Kifumbe is beautiful and without problems.  I have to fold my wings.  To die with one’s boots on – he had been a soldier – is only for heroes and heroes are few.”  He was in the parish with Father Cattoi who was six years older than he was.  They were a famous pair – mutual respect and affection – they had worked together for years.  Respect for their age and their expressed wish was the only thing that made the Bishop and the Directorate leave them in place for so long.  It was unrealistic to expect men of their age to do anything innovative – this is difficult even for younger missionaries.  A diocesan priest who succeeded  them had something really beautiful to say about their work.  He found a well organized mission – neat as a garden.  Each village had a stone chapel and even more important a vibrant community.  This was a genuine surprise for their successor – who knows what he expected to find.

To be present, to teach catechism, to visit the villages – this was the method they followed well into old age.  It had its effect.

Before leaving Kifumbe Father Bargetto made sure that he could find a place in another mission – Sadani.  He felt the need of friendship, understanding and freedom.  He knew himself, his personality, his needs and the limitations of his health.  He did not want to be a burden but he was not yet willing to go to Alpignano.  He only went when his health seriously deteriorated.  Once there he had nothing but praise for the care he was given.  His heart and thoughts remained in Africa.  Tanzania came up again and again in his letters and in his conversations.  One day he wrote, “I am feeling better, the glycaemia is going down.  Everything  is beautiful here at Alpignano, the roses are so fragrant – Father Bargetto, a poet! – but I feel a prisoner.  My only wish – if it’s okay with you – is to return to Tanzania in a couple months and work in a mission as third or fourth assistant.”  But his health only got worse and he was sent to Italy.

He accepted this assignment in December 2002 and I wrote to him, “I heard of your new assignment yesterday.  This will only make the current situation official.  It brings so many things to mind.  First of all, my enormous gratitude for all you have done here in Tanzania for the Church and for the country you have loved so well.  In view of your poor health - we can only accept the inevitable.  Even if you are living in Alpignano you are really here with us.  This is something all of us feel, and we know that you feel it too.  You are with us in thought, desire, heart and prayer.  You are totally here!  To say anything more would be superfluous.  These few words express the conviction of all of us here in the missions – both now and in the past.”

To his February 10^th letter (the one where he admits to ebbing strength) I answered:  “Your body may feel weak but you have so much spiritual energy.  You have the heart of a missionary and a glorious history of enthusiasm and service.  Without flattery – only truth – one can say that you have lived heroic years, never thinking of yourself giving everything to others.  I can only hope to have the same passion and zeal for the missions.”

For me, this was Father Bargetto in a nutshell:  the missions in all things and in all times.  He lived the mission with determination, devotion and character.  He was a good friend to many.  He was an old man and sick.  His deterioration was possibly a result of the death of two of his closest friends:  Father Cattoi and Father Olivo.  We all wondered how he would take these two deaths.  Now he is with them.  No longer lost in the ice and snow of Russia and Poland – something he often joked about.  No longer the difficult early days at Makambako, Ikonda, Matembwe, Pawaga, Sadani and Ndabulo.  Now there was only his reward from the Lord he had served so faithfully and zealously.

Father Giuseppe Inverardi