Father Gelindo, the son of Pedro Scottini and Eleta Avi, was born on October 1, 1933 in Rio do Oeste (Brazil).  He entered the Institute in 1945 at the seminary of St. Francis Xavier in Rio do Oeste.  On March 2, 1954 he consecrated himself to the Lord with religious profession.  He finished his theological studies at the seminary of St. Therese of the Child Jesus in São Manuel and was ordained a priest on December 13, 1959 by Dom Gregório Warmeling, the Bishop of Joinville.

From 1960 to 1965 he worked as an assistant and teacher at the seminary in Rio do Oeste and at the same time did parish supply work in  many outlying chapels.

In 1965 he left for Mozambique where he worked for nine years.  Along with Father Vidal Moratelli he was the first Brazilian Consolata missionary to go to the foreign missions.  In Mozambique he worked as the coadjutor in Nova Coimbra until 1972;  he was then the scholastic director at the Teachers’ College in Vila Cabral for two years.

At the end of 1974 he returned to Brazil and worked in São Paulo until 1978.  Initially he was the spiritual director at the theological seminary;  he then was a councilor and Regional secretary.  Afterwards he became the substitute director for the theologians.

The following year – 1979 – he moved to Erexim to be the director of the seminary.  He held this position for a year and was then called to be the pastor of the Sanctuary-Parish of Nossa Senhora Aparecida in São Manuel.  At the same time he acted as assistant master of novices.

From 1982 to 1986 he was the pastor of Nossa Senhora da Penha (Bairro Jardim Peri) in São Paulo.  Following his term as pastor he continued to work in the parish as assistant pastor in charge of social work until 1993.  From 1994 to 1997 he was the superior of the Regional House in São Paulo.

From February 1997 until March 2001 he lived in the “Giuseppe Allamano” Center in Pedra Branca.  While his health allowed he helped in parish work at Nossa Senhora da Penha and in administration at the Center.

During the evening of March 19, the feast of St. Joseph he felt unwell.  He was taken to the hospital;  the situation was so serious (acute heart attack, heart failure and diabetes) that the doctors kept him in the hospital.  The next day Fathers  Eugenio Butti and Joaquim Ferreira Gonçalves came and administered the Sacrament of the Sick.  During the night of the 22^nd he went to Our Father’s house.  He was 67 years old; he had been a religious for 47 years and a priest for 41.

The wake was held in the parish church of Nossa Senhora da Penha where Father Gelindo had worked for many years;  his funeral was celebrated the following day.  Father Agostinho Romano Zacchetti, the Bishop’s vicar, presided at the Eucharist while  Consolata Missionaries and diocesan priests concelebrated.  Our theology students and many of our Consolata  sisters were present at the service.

At the homily, Father Jordão Maria Pessatti gave a brief sketch of our departed brother’s life.  In his talk the vicar highlighted some of Father Gelindo’s characteristics:  his willingness and generosity in work,  his love and concern for poor children, the courage and strength with which he supported his long illness,  his cheerfulness and good humor in community life.

After the service the funeral cortège went to the Chora Menino cemetery where his body was laid to rest.

Father Jordão Pessatti

TESTIMONIALS

“I’m just worn out”

Sharing the last days of Father Gelindo’s life was a meaningful experience for me.  What could have been tiresome – living with a sick person – became a time for dialogue and conversation that taught me hope and showed me how to overcome life’s sufferings, or at least put them in perspective. Father Gelindo would answer all who asked about his health : “I’m not old, I’m not sick – I’m just worn out!”

We were together that fateful night in the corridor of the emergency room at Praia Grande;  in spite of the chest pains he was experiencing he found the strength to talk about evangelization, “We can evangelize whatever our state of life.”  He watched people being carried into the emergency room (victims of accidents or fire arms) who moaned and cried out in pain.  He called me over and said, “You see, there are people worse off than me.”

Later I asked him if he were sleepy.  He told me he couldn’t sleep – and the chatter of the nurses and patients wouldn’t let him sleep anyway. 

He called one of the nurses and asked if he knew the life of Pope Pius X … he then began to recount, “One night Pius X wanted to get to sleep but the Papal Guard passing back and forth outside his room was making too much noise.  He opened the window and said to the guard:

- Do you know who’s talking to you?

- Yes - the guard answered – the Pope.

- Good! I am the Pope and you are the Pope’s guard!  My son, it’s very late at night.  You are sleepy and I am sleepy.  Go get some rest – that way I can get some too.”

This was Father Gelindo!  In the midst of his sufferings he still would say something edifying.  Father Gelindo became emotional when he had to bid farewell to someone he loved;  Father Gelindo was always telling stories about his missionary experiences;  he loved to talk about his dreams at night…

His simplicity won the hearts of any angry and grim strangers he encountered.  He maintained a child-like simplicity that was enormously attractive to children and young people when he celebrated Mass and on other occasions.

Father Gelindo had defects and shortcomings like every human being.  But most people who met him – especially the poor – will never forget this kind father.  He was cheerful and witty.  His jokes and stories lightened situations and made people feel at ease.  In his last days he would often say, “I’m not old, and I’m not sick – I’m just worn out.”

Father Sérgio Almeida

“… And God saw that it was good”

He left us silently and went away …

Father Gelindo Scottini was a great worker, totally dedicated to the cause of good.  I began to realize this in 1971 the year I first visited the mission at Nova Coimbra on Lake Niassa where he had been working for several years.  People loved him; during those war years he spared no effort to relieve the sufferings of people in his care.

In the teachers’ college at Vila Cabral (today Lichinga) students respected not just his professional competence  but the cheerful and unpretentious way he joined their company and mixed with them.  He loved to sing and would sing with enthusiasm.  He took every occasion he could to add new pieces to his repertoire of songs in Latin, Portuguese or Ci-nianja – the language of his beloved lake.  He really enjoyed singing whenever he could find someone to accompany him.  

He was humble and avoided the limelight.  All the same his life was an example of evangelical poverty that will certainly be rewarded in heaven.  One could see that he was in pain, but he bore his sufferings with optimism and faith –  his life was entirely in the hands of God.

I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say he was a perfect example of a Consolata Missionary.  As at the time of creation, God saw that Father Gelindo “was good.”  God has taken him home to himself so that he might more closely contemplate his beloved Son.  And now he sings his hymns in heaven where his voice is even more beautiful.  For those of us left behind there is the example of a tireless and faithful sower of the Gospel.

Be with God, Father Gelindo!  May God grant you the eternal happiness you have earned.  We will meet again, dear Brother.

Father Severino Bordignon

A brother in joy and suffering

When I heard the news of Father Gelindo’s death my thoughts went back to that time we worked together in Nova Coimbra (now Mechumwa) and at the Nzinje Teachers’ College in Lichinga.  To think of him as he was – alive, good natured, quick-witted – brought back those joyful times and made me thank God for the gift of having him at my side for so many years.

Those were sad years: years of survival, struggle, trouble, injustice, suffering, weeping, deprivation, isolation, discouragement, guerrilla warfare.  Along the river Lunho every day was a purgatory:  countless dramas, families wounded, decimated, deported – hunger was our daily bread.  Day and night we could hear machine guns, bazookas and mortars on all sides.

Father Gelindo was attentive to everyone’s needs.  He went down into the village to help the wounded, to wipe away the tears of those who were separated from  loved ones carried off by the guerrillas or shot by the Portuguese.  He had a good word, a smile, a joke for everyone.  He had no gold or silver to give – he gave himself. 

Father Gelindo loved singing, he used to sing all the time.  He sang songs his parents had passed on to him,  old songs from the Trentino that his parents had brought to the state of Santa Catarina in Brazil.  But he never omitted “Boa noite, Jesus” from his repertoire. 

On occasion he suffered periods of depression – this always made me suffer.  But these occasions were few and short and he would soon return to his usual cheerful self.

He relished beans and rice;  early in the morning  while it was still dark he would sip Brazilian coffee and tell me about his dreams – these were moments of delight, peace and tranquility.  At four in the morning we were already in Church – all alone – in silent meditation.  On occasion he would open up and tell me his life-story, from childhood to Nova Coimbra.  He was a man of extraordinary simplicity.  Everywhere he sought the face of the Lord: in the workings of nature, in the gifts he had been given, in his missionary vocation.

He was good at languages – ci-nianja, the language of the lake, had become his second mother-tongue.  He was a formidable expert on old tales.  In an effort to fit into this world he would often sit on house porches with gangs of little children and listen to tales and nursery rhymes.  It was a delight to hear him retell these accounts.

He loved to visit the Christian communities of Chunga, Metangula, Cobue and Lupilichi;  he would fly in the small airplane that belonged to the navy commandant, Jesus, who was very generous to the missionaries.  He would stay away for a week and come back very happy indeed, with stories about all he had done.

I remember one Sunday that he was silent on his return from Chunga.  Not long afterwards he burst into tears of laughter and told me what had happened.  Frelimo guerrillas broke into the chapel looking for young men.  In their confusion they stripped him of his liturgical vestments and pushed him out of the chapel. 

He had saved a three-year old child, Petulo, from flames.  The baby had a belly-wound from the bombs the Portuguese had dropped on the mission.  He was unable though to save a mother with a baby on her back.

He came close to death at the Maniaba mission.  He was there collecting material to rebuild the bombed church at Nova Coimbra.  One night a mortar shell fell close to where he was sleeping – it was  a miracle that he was unharmed.  A month later he was able to get home by traveling with a column of soldiers.  Once back he set to work immediately.  He rebuilt the church with the material he had collected and with what was left over he built an elementary school.

When I was assigned to Unango he went with me as far as Metangula and tearfully tried to keep me from boarding the airplane … A few months later he too was transferred;  he became the director of the teachers’ college at Lichinga and was enormously fond of those young people.  His work was beset with problems and he welcomed the chance to visit Unango and spend as much as a week with us.  Even when he was sent back to Brazil he never really forgot Africa.

Time passes but my memories of Father Gelindo are vivid.  His generosity was contagious, his spontaneous cheerfulness – healing.  His love for the missions gave me courage.  May God grant him peace and all those things he desired here on earth.

Father Mario Teodori