Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Nairobi (Agenzia Fides) - "Father Tony was a great missionary and a dedicated servant of the Catholic Church. May he rest in peace. He now makes his final journey to God our Father to meet the Servant of God Cardinal Otunga", said Father Joseph Healey to CISA Agency in Nairobi, President of the sub-committee on the beatification of Cardinal Otunga, commenting on the death of Father Tony Bellagamba.
Fr. Bellagamba was 84 years old, he died on August 11, 2011 at Nairobi hospital. He was a Consolata missionary, the postulator for the cause of beatification of the Servant of God, Cardinal Maurice Otunga.
Fr. Bellagamba, was admitted to ICU on July 31 immediately after arriving from a holiday in Italy.
According to Father Franco Cellana, Regional Superior of the Consolata Missionaries in Kenya, Fr. Bellagamba died of heart failure and bronchial infection.
Fr. Cellana described Fr. Bellagamba as a great personality in the Consolata congregation who started as a formator before becoming a professor of theology, and later the Vice General Superior of the Consolata Missionaries in Rome.
"He took the mission as something that was in his blood. And people were pleased every time to listen to him", recalls Fr. Cellana.
The Regional Vice-Superior of the Consolata Missionaries in Kenya, Fr. Joya Hieronymus described Fr. Bellagamba as an intelligent educationist, author of numerous books and commentaries, among them "Mission and Ministry in the Global Church" and a commentary on the Encyclical "Redemptoris Mission" of the late Pope John Paul II.
Fr. Bellagamba was born in Gambettola (Central Italy) in 1927. Ordained a priest in 1952, Bellagamba first worked in Kenya in the late '50s. He then went to the United States where he spent 23 years, of which 13 as National Director of the American Episcopal conference’s Mission. He then went back to Kenya from 1985 to 1993 (from 1991 to 1993 as National Director of the Pontifical Missionary Societies). In June 1993 he was elected Regional Superior of the Consolata Missionaries in North America. He then served as Vice General Superior of the Consolata Missionaries in Rome from 1999 to 2005. Until his death Fr. Bellagamba was the postulator for the cause of beatification of the Servant of God Cardinal Maurice Otunga, a position entrusted to him in 2009 by His Eminence Cardinal John Njue, Archbishop of Nairobi. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 19/08/2011)
