(a) The Murang’a Conferences
It is said that those who are outside the field think that they are the best players until they get into the field. This saying has the inclination of disqualifying the advice of those who are outside the field. Contrary to it, Fr. Allamano’s opinions and advice went a long way in solving many of the problems the missionaries faced down in Africa. Fr. Allamano emphasized frequent meetings and sharing that would harmonize the effort that each missionary offered. In March 1904, there was a meeting of the missionary priests in Murang’a. The meeting came to be known as the ‘Murang’a Conference’. It was aimed at exchanging experiences so that it would be easy to make a working plan that would ensure that all worked with unity of intentions. It had ten participants present, and two working in the rooms of the Consolata Shrine in Turin: Fr. Allamano and Fr. Camisassa. At the time it was too early to speak of conversions and baptism. The matter at hand was getting established and becoming self- sufficient. It all involved planting something for the salad, intercepting water to run the saw mill and to produce electric power among other things. Fr. Allamano and Fr. Camisassa followed the progress of the missions through the letters and diaries that the missionaries were sending, and through the same channel of communication, he would give his directives, opinions, and advice.
(b) The Consolata Method
The way a person does his activities decides if he will be successful or not. Does this look common place? It is not! It is one thing knowing what to do very well. It is also one thing having the energy and the intelligence to do what you wish to do. However, if one does not have the proper strategy to use his energy and intelligence to arrive at his goal, then he ends up as a failure. This explains why a nice method was needed if the first missionaries had to make any headways in evangelization. The Founder had warned the missionaries not to expect quick results. In fact, he had told them to avoid such a temptation. They had to take time to plan, to implement the plans gradually and to evaluate them not in a hurry. With that attitude, the Consolata Missionaries got involved in catechism classes, teaching in the open air or under-the-trees schools, visiting the villages, and attending to the sick. This is what came to be known as the Consolata Missionaries’ method. It was quite peculiar. It involved a lot of contact with the people, and that did not need a hurry – otherwise it would have backfired in due time. The Consolata Missionaries’ method had another uniqueness: it aimed at transforming the country, “not just through religious teaching but also by training the people in agriculture, the rearing of livestock and manual skills” (G Tebaldi, Consolata Missionaries in the World, 69)
(c) Respect for the Kikuyu culture
When Fr. Allamano was writing to his missionaries, the term inculturation was still unheard of in the Church. However, his directives on how to deal with the new culture would later come to fit what came to be called inculturation. The basis of inculturation is that the gospel is not neutral – it is always wrapped in the culture of the gospel carrier, even if not in the message, in the way of life. Evangelization is a meeting of two cultures: the preacher’s culture and of the person being evangelized. The missionary must try to instill evangelical values in the culture of the other person, yet he has to do so without appearing to be imposing foreign ideas or his own culture on people’s culture. To do that, the missionary must involve the people being evangelized at all stages. Fr. Allamano aware of this, demanded that his missionaries be friendly to the people, and if possible, to involve the natives in small but progress bits of work. Fr. Allamano did not want his missionaries to be wandering evangelists or miracles workers who would suddenly appear in the cultures of other people to whip up repentance into them. As much as it was true that the missionaries were taking Christianity in those territories for the first time, the Founder expected his missionaries to know that they were supposed to work with the people not for the people. In other words, the missionaries were not supposed to make native people spectators of their activities. They were supposed to involve them. The missionaries’ compliance with the Founder’s directives bore more fruits than they had expected. First, it helped the missionaries to identify and prepare future workers of the missions. Second, it helped the natives to see work as a tool of improving standards of life (since they were paid). Thirdly, it created a close bond between the natives and the missionaries, by differentiating the missionaries who were cordial and interested in the lives of the people, from the colonialists who were authoritarian.
To the idea of evil spirits that pervaded the Kikuyu culture, Fr. Allamano directed that there was time for everything, and it was not the time to fight the belief. “Do not speak openly against superstition and sacrifices to the spirits however idolatrous and immoral that may be. This is a matter that requires great prudence. Those practices will collapse by their own. …in removing the evil, you will need time and patience”, Fr. Allamano wrote. In a word, Fr. Allamano was convinced that the respect of the native people’s culture held the key to a successful evangelization. The missionaries had to understand that God had been among those people for centuries in many different forms, even if not in the Christian way. That realization would make them (the missionaries) docile and patient as they taught Christianity to the natives, and that would have a big impact on the people. As a matter of fact, the Founder was right. The people’s discovery that the new religion came with both spiritual welfare of their community and social development led to their openness and conversion.
As that was happening in Africa, Fr. Allamano was working tirelessly in Turin, bringing to completion the renovation work that he had begun in 1883 after being made a canon of the Cathedral of Turin. Surprisingly, the event of the completion of that enormous task coincided with the 800th anniversary of the finding of the Consolata picture. The result was a huge event that brought Turin to a standstill – five hours of procession! The event was attended by several cardinals. One would have expected that the event was the right moment for Fr. Allamano to prove his criticizers and gossipers wrong, but the silent and industrious priest of Turin diocese chose to say nothing. It seems he knew well that silence is sometimes the best response. Everyone was admiring and praising how magnificently the Church had become, but Fr. Allamano said nothing. He never demanded recognition, and in fact, few could identify him in the crowd. He was a person who never chose the seats of honour and prestige. Instead, he believed that it was the people of Turin who had done everything, since every bit of work succeeded due to their contributions and prayers.