YOUNG AT HEART

 

The next PIME missionary on our list is, BL. CLEMENT VISMARA, who for 65 years carried out his work in Burma (now known as Myanmar)  From 1923 to 1988 he served the people there, earning for himself the unofficial title of “Patriarch of Burma.” He returned to Italy only once, in 1957, because of illness.

He was born  in Lombardy of humble stock, one of five children. His mother died when he was five and his father  when he was eight.  He was then raised by relatives.

During World War I, he was called up and sent to the front as a private of the 80th Infantry Regiment Brigade Rome. He was honorably discharged on in 1919, with three medals for bravery and the rank of sergeant major.

Ordained in 1923, he immediately set out for Burma. At the mission in Mong Lin the misery was great, the food poor and totally inadequate, and tropical diseases killed many of the missionaries (6 during the decade 1926-1936, all young people) so that in 1928 the General Superior of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Father Paolo Manna (later Blessed), visiting Mong Lin, threatened the bishop of Kengtung that he would abandon the mission if other young missionaries died for lack of nutritious food or because they lived in huts of mud and straw.

Bl. Clement identified the pagan and fatalistic conception of life as the blocking element of tribal society: men often do not work and are addicted to opium, women and children are commonly abused, abandoned, sold or killed.

He concentrated his efforts on giving more rewarding jobs to indigenous people becoming first a farmer, then a breeder, a tailor, a barber, a mason, a lumberjack and so on. His objective was mainly to help orphans and widows, women who were abandoned by everyone and considered bearers of bad luck. Unlike other missionaries he tried, whenever possible, to maintain a healthy lifestyle: schedule of day, cleaning, suitable clothing, ordered eating, use of dishes. This behavior, along with his strength, improved his stamina.

In June 1941, while the Japanese planned to occupy Burma, Bl. Clement was interned by the British army in Kalaw with twelve other Italian missionaries because they belonged to an enemy nation. In January 1942, the Japanese army invaded Burma and in late April they freed the Italian missionaries held in Kalaw. The Mong Lin mission was intact but almost occupied by the Japanese army. Bl. Clement reopened the orphanage and undertook work as a woodcutter for the soldiers, together with his boys.

In 1945, the war ended and in 1948 Burma got its independence, followed by the beginning of separatist guerrillas which involved ethnic groups of the area (in the years 1950-1955 five brethren of PIME were murdered: Pietro Galastri, Bl. Mario Vergara,  St. Alfredo Cremonesi, Pietro Manghisi, Eliodoro Farronato). In the first 31 years of his mission Bl. Clement was able to turn Mong Lin into a town with about 4,000 baptized people.

He died on June 15, 1988, in Mong Ping, in the Diocese of Kengtung, on the border with China and Laos. He was immediately invoked as “protector of children” because of his devotion to the orphaned children of his mission. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on June 26, 2011.

Bl. Clement’s inspiring letters have been preserved in the book Clement Vismara: Apostle of the Little Ones. The children’s book ”The Man Who Never Grew Old” is a tribute to Bl. Clement.