As we approach the conclusion of our reflection on Fr. Allamano’s life, it is crucial to admit that having said and insisted that Fr. Allamano was a silent man, there is a risk of having presented him as having been an anti-social and passive person. It is appropriate to see that Fr. Allamano’s silent character did not mean that he was cold to human relationship, but on the contrary, he was very interactive. Of course, as a human being he made blunders in this issue, and they are for us points of learning – as from a father. Given that we are in the era of communication, it would be appropriate to see how communicative the Founder was, since as evangelizers, that would help us to know how to convey the message of Christ in our time. The human person is created to be social, and all mature and integral persons readily relate with others fairly well. Relationship with others is a wide issue, which has many aspects, one of which is communication. Although communication is just one of the many aspects of human relationship, it is critically a fundamental one. In fact, it is so essential that if it fails, human relationship fails too. Being in the era of communication, it is easy to take for granted that all of us know to communicate, because after all we communicate each day. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that in spite of being in the communication era, many of the conflicts in the world are as a result of either lack of communication, or due to poor communication. Most of the time when disagreements arise, it is because a person did not communicate what was expected of him, or he did, but the message either did not reach, or reached already distorted, or that the receiver did not understand the message. This is probably a nice reason why we need to relook Fr. Allamano’s involvement in communication and his communication skills and learn from his experience.
Essentially, we talk of communication having taken place when a person sends a message through a certain medium, the message travels unhindered and without distortion, and finally the receiver receives the message and understands it. Fr. Allamano seems to have learnt the power of communication from an early age. From the onset, Fr. Allamano knew that communication requires firmness and clarity. This is why he was cordial and categorical with his brothers when they tried to advise him not to join the seminary. He told them plainly that having heard the voice of God, he could not sit and hope that God would continue calling him. With that kind of a stand there was no need of more persuasion. His determination paid off handsomely, but not before a thorough process of molding in the hands of God. Aware that communication is more than verbal transmission of content, the young Allamano once in the seminary offered himself bone and blood to his formation. That was the only way he could “communicate” to his formators concretely that regardless of his health challenges, God had not only called him, but also that he was preparing him for greater tasks ahead. The approval by his formators to be ordained in 1873 was a clear sign that his “tangible communication” in the seminary had actually worked.
Fr. Allamano the young priest seems to have known that good relationship with people depends on affable communication. As a result, he always did his best to create friendly relationship with people. He was actually right. We too know that good relationship between people depends on healthy communication, yet healthy communication between people is the fruit of warm relationships. For Fr. Allamano, immediately after his ordination he was appointed to the seminary, a very sensitive pastoral area especially if one has no experience. Soon after, he was appointed a lecturer in the Pastoral Institute. As if to show how good communication between him and his bishop worked, the bishop told him “I trust you”, when Fr. Allamano requested to use his own notes in the lectures, instead of the notes of the Archbishop. In other words, the encouraging response of the Archbishop was as a result of the good relationship that had developed between him and Fr. Allamano.
Fr. Allamano’s experience can also tell us communication is not as obvious as we think. Why? Because communication is not just the use of words – whether spoken or written. The people we communicate with are not empty slates. They are bundles of attitudes, values, prejudices, experiences, feelings, thoughts, sensations, and aspiration, etc. As such, to communicate well, we must take into account the non-verbal accompaniments of communication. For example, in addition to the words of a person, there are facial expressions, body movements, low and high pitch of the voice, sensitivity of the speaker to certain issues, etc. Even in written communication, there are things like line spacing, paragraph organization, handwriting, margins of what is written, etc. These are important things to be looked into if the content of the communicated message is to be well received and understood. Fr. Allamano learnt this the hard way twice. First, having written to the Propaganda Fide about his idea to start a missionary Institute, it seems his bishop did not take nicely the fact that Vatican had been informed about issues that he was not aware of. The result was a delay to approve the idea when it was finally brought to him. Of course, Fr. Allamano being a nice man excused the Archbishop saying that he could not blame him given that he had been sick. Although it was true that the Archbishop had been sick, Fr. Camisassa saw things differently, and that is why he requested Rome to convince the Archbishop about the issue.
The point is that maybe if Fr. Allamano could have just whispered to his Bishop before communicating with Rome, things could have ended up different. In other words, the Founder should have sensed that the issue of communicating with Rome first would have been easily misunderstood. The second episode in which Fr. Allamano was made to learn the hard way was when he together with his five colleagues wrote to Pope Pius X requesting him to institute the mission Sunday. Again, Fr. Allamano, who was the initiator of the idea of writing to the Pope, should have thought deeper about bypassing the bishops in the effort to communicate with the Pope. The fact that even Propaganda Fide refused to support Fr. Allamano’s letter of requests to the pope says openly the picture that the whole thing painted. This tells us that the success or failure rate of our communication with people depends on our relationship with them at the point when the communication is done. This means that part of mastering the art of communication depends on mastering the art of being aware of our relations with those we need to communicate with, or the people through whom we must pass to reach the intended receiver of the message.
After the death of Cardinal Alimonda, Fr. Allamano easily found a good working relationship with the new Arcbishop - Riccardi. This was precisely because the new Archbishop loved the Mass media, but he was having problems with the Catholic Press. As a matter of fact, the Archbishop appointed Fr. Allamano as the chairman of the board of Italia Reale, a paper that was meant to complement the Corriere Nazionale which was doing quite poorly, in spite of being the only paper that remained after three others had collapsed. At the same time, Fr. Allamano was helping Domenico Giraud the spokesman of La voce dell’Operaio, another paper which was struggling to survive and which ended up taking the name Voce del Popolo certainly in the effort to save it from collapsing. Even as he did this, Fr. Allamano kept La Consolata newsletter alive, since it was through it his Christians in the Consolata Shrine shared about their spiritual life. Unknown to him, all what he was doing was preparation for greater things. Already aware of the significance of communication in evangelization and social cohesion, after his missionaries arrived in Kenya, among things that were set up after some time was a printing press. Through it, Fr. Allamano’s missionaries, the Consolata Missionaries, gave Kenya the first monthly newspaper, which was called “Wathiomo Mukinyu” – a Kikuyu name which meant “the true friend”. After October 1909 when the Mother House was inaugurated, Fr. Allamano through his students began writing the Da Casa Madre (which means “From the Mother House”), a newsletter which helped his missionaries in Africa to know what was happening in the Mother House. There is no doubt therefore that Fr. Allamano was deeply involved in communication efforts in the diocese.
Fr. Allamano’s pastoral wisdom (through which he suggested the Murang’a Conference in 1904, the Consolata Method and the Respect of the Kikuyu Culture as we saw before) demonstrated the close link between one’s capacity to communicate and his frame of mind and competencies. Undoubtedly, effective communication is a blend between internal disposition of a person (his psychological and moral self) and his capacity to communicate, in addition to knowing what to communicate. Fr. Allamano’s advice to his missionaries in Kenya on how to handle belief in the spirits by the Kikuyu people, for example, showed his openness to realities of new environment. This tells us that as communicators of the gospel, we must be learners. Precisely this means that we must be ready to unlearn things when it is necessary to do so, but also ready to learn and re-learn others. This is exactly what inculturation is all about. Just as he told the first missionaries not to fight belief in spirit using their European mentality, today, if Fr. Allamano was to speak to us about openness in communication, he would certainly tell us, “When you send a message, don’t just give the facts. Think of how the receiver of the message will receive it. Try to see it from his or her perspective. You have to appeal to listeners or readers. Remember, a message that is expressed in your own terms and stated from your point of view is not likely to be effective”. This kind of message is powerful. It reminds us that we can express ourselves with great clarity and still fail to communicate. In other words, being clear is not necessarily communicating effectively. We should not cheat ourselves by thinking that those who speak fluently or write poetically are automatically good communicators. It is not necessarily true. It is the one who engages people’s interest who is effective, that is, the one who speaks (or writes) about things that people are interested in or those that touch their lives. At the end of the day the essence of communication is shared meaning. We need to get into the world of the other person to pass a message that touches and transforms them.
The difference in the relationship between Fr. Allamano and Camisassa on the one hand, and Fr. Allamano and Bishop Perlo on the other tells us how communication can be complex even for people with good intentions. Certainly, the former relationship demonstrates how effective communication can transform friends into brothers. The 42 years that Fr. Allamano and Fr. Camisassa lived together are evidence that cordial and candid communication is necessary for harmonious coexistence and effective apostolate. The later relationship teaches us too. At least given that we are aware that Fr. Allamano never undermined, expressed displeasure or gave up on Bishop Perlo, we can tell without a doubt that Fr. Allamano demonstrated that effective communication skills serve a key role in resolving conflicts successfully. This is clear from the fact that even though in November 1921 Bishop Perlo left Italy without even talking to Fr. Allamano, the Founder’s humble letter of correction to him touched him so deeply that immediately after his arrival, Bishop Perlo wrote back saying that he was open for correction and guidance. This what the bishop wrote:
I beg Your Paternity to feel entirely free to give me definite orders in this respect; which, serving to lighten the responsibility from the exercise of which I neither can nor should exempt myself, will come to imprint on the work of my fellow-workers and myself in the mission field that uniformity to your wishes which perfectly represents my own most lively desire’ (D Agasso, Pg 157)
Those words of the hyper-charged Bishop Perlo shows how the words of the soft-spoken Rector of the Consolata Shrine had made an impact on him. Fr. Allamano was a unique man. He knew how to separate people from their problems, to address the problems without incriminating the persons. The loving heart of the Founder was even more revealed when Fr. Barlassina from his prefecture of Kaffa (Ethiopia) kept complaining and lamenting about Bishop Perlo’s behaviour. Surprisingly, contrary to what everyone would have expected (especially given that Bishop Perlo had just snubbed the Founder), the Founder rebuked Fr. Barlassina and told him that he was supposed to be grateful to Kenya, since the help that the Institute was giving him in Ethiopia was actually the fruit of the missionaries in Kenya (from the funds accrued from the huge coffee farm at Mathari). The Founder wrote:
If a stop were put to the antipathy and complaining that exist in certain quarters against Kenya, things would go a great deal better And consider: you ought to be grateful to Kenya, if you are now being helped by us in your needs Let us have no more of these troubles; shake hands like brothers” (D Agasso, Pg 157)
From these words of Fr. Allamano, it is evident that he was a good communicator not just because of his mastery of the functional skills of communication, but also from the fact that he had extremely good personal qualities. Even after being offended terribly by Bishop Perlo, Fr. Allamano could not be dragged into mud-smearing campaign against him. That was how pure hearted the Founder was. He was totally convinced that successful communication transmits values, better attitudes, and caring feelings through proper chosen words and that was why his final words were reconciliatory. This is important for us. It teaches us that to communicate well, we need to be also people of virtues. Of course, this is easier said than done. Nevertheless, saying it is difficult does not mean it is impossible.
So far, it may appear as if communication is always about sending, disseminating or giving others certain messages. In truth, as communicators, we will always fall in two sides: the senders of the message (hence speakers or writers) on the one hand, or the receivers of the message (listeners or readers) on the other. As senders of messages, our Founder will expect us (a) to be totally involved: open minded and focused, hence avoiding unnecessary details (b) to have a purpose: ready to achieve a new level of attention by disciplining ourselves to reserve our opinions, evaluations and judgments (c) to be concise (that is, to the point); (d) to be very courteous with people; (e) to have completeness (that is, to avoid biasness); (f) to ensure concreteness (that is, to avoid abstract language);(g) to maintain clarity by avoiding ambiguity; (h) to have correctness (by being ethical), etc.
On the other hand, as receivers of the messages, Fr. Allamano will expect us to learn the art of listening or reading. This involves understanding that (i) listening with the ears to the story and its meaning (through ears we receive the word of God, advice, encouragement, etc
(ii) listening with the heart to the emotions of people, their feelings, their likes and dislikes. (iii) listening with the eyes by being keen to the body language of speakers, being perceptive of their posture, not taking for granted their appearance and facial expression, as these help us to enter into the situation or the story that is presented. As far as listening is concerned, our Founder will categorically tell us that (iv) listening requires courage, since we may have to change our ideas after deep and honest introspection and soul searching. (v) listening requires generosity because it requires us to give our whole attention to the person – not just being there or staring at the speaker. (vi) listening requires patience since we have to be nonjudgmental about what other people are likely to say - we have to wait until we have heard everything; we have to stop thinking ahead of what the speaker is likely to say (or what a given book is likely to give as a conclusion). From these requirements of being good receivers of messages, it is clear that listening requires perseverance since what is said could be too sharp (critical) against us, yet when we know that we grow through what we are able to accommodate patiently, we go on listening because the sharp edges of the message become the first issues to deal with if a positive change has to take place.
The Founder having been a veteran formator all along, prepared a lot of material in form of guiding notes, about Christian life and missionary life. The Spiritual Life is an extremely valuable source of the thoughts of the Founder. Although his thoughts were compiled and organized later by other people (Fr. Lorenzo Sales), it is evident that by emphasizing them to his audience, he wished them to be practised and communicated to all generations of the Consolata Missionaries. This is another way of saying that Fr. Allamano had a deep sense of the generative character of communication. This is why he ensured that the conferences he gave to the seminarians were as rich as possible with the fruits of his meditation, the teachings of the Church, the examples of the fathers of the Church and of the saints and his own example of life. Fr. Allamano’s thoughts touched all aspects of Christian life, meaning that they were as rich as possible. Today, aware that communication is only said to have been achieved when a message is received by the receiver without distortions and he understands it, we can show that Fr. Allamano still communicates with us by reading and re-reading the Spiritual Life with devotion and dedication and responding accordingly.
Given the multiplicity of the communication avenues there are in this communication era, it important to know how to use the God-given gift in an appropriate manner, if the many ways of communication we have, have to be a blessing and not a curse. If used well, the means of communication in the world could be very transformative. In fact, in addition to informing, entertaining, cautioning and instructing, the means of communication could be very evangelical. True, they are already being used in evangelization, however many people are still to benefit from them due to poor coverage. Today, the increased utilization of internet has brought deeper connectivity of people, becoming a tool that can enhance community life through harmonious coexistence. However, if not utilised well, this important tool could be very divisive and conflict creating, especially when used maliciously to malign people, leading to destruction of people’s reputations and character.