Father Iseo Antonio Zanette, Consolata Missionary, died on August 18, 2024 in Rivoli, Italy. He was 85 years old, he had been a religious for 63 years, and a priest for 58 years. The charism ad gentes of Blessed Joseph Allamano marked his life as a missionary.
By Thomas Ishengoma *
His firm choice for the mission ad gentes
To introduce Father Iseo Antonio Zanette it is sufficient to refer to the notes in my field diary; on the morning of June 30, 2010, I had a meeting with him who was parish priest in the mission of Sanza in Tanzania but who was about to move to the mission of Manda. These are his recommendations before he left:
“In here there is a need for a person who loves the Wagogo. Several projects are needed for the spiritual care and human promotion of these people; I would like to mention a few: organizing a nursery school; promoting sports; cinema for children and young people; a three years catechesis program for young people. In the third year they should be introduced to community responsibilities and commitments. In this program,” he told me, “make sure that they know Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere well.”
Be careful! The economy is the backbone of everything. With it you can further impoverish the people or save the lives of many. Carefully study the Consolata Missionaries’ double-entry bookkeeping program. Keep records of the parish’s income and expenditure: write down everything, everything please! The auto repair shop should have an independent register; the reason is simple, it is the only place where a lot of money is spent, and keeping the records will help you to avoid problems with the other confreres. Otherwise a single register of income and expenditure could be sufficient.
Make sure you do your accounting daily; if you can’t, never let more than a week pass, otherwise you will have considerable problems. On the 25th of each month, present the accounts to the community and every three months also send them to the provincial administrator. Make sure you keep a backup copy of the accounts.
Every two months have a meeting with the catechists to evaluate and organize the following months, set the dates of the visits to the communities for the whole year and be clear in the parish program. All catechists must take the oral exam and, if they do not pass it, they cannot be catechists.
And finally, take care of the old people’s home; teach the workers to be disciplined in their work, and to save money, they will need it when they are old or sick; take care of all aspects of the parish church”.
Father Iseo Antonio was a man of prayer, I always saw him holding his breviary, especially when he was in the parish. Sometimes he sat alone in the courtyard, smoking a cigarette and meditating during the morning and evening hours before community prayer.
For him, the training of catechists was fundamental: each community had a well-trained catechist and a nursery school. The number of children in each centre was impressive: I, who love to record everything, knew that there were more than three thousand young people in the catechism program of the entire parish.
Father Iseo Antonio had a simple lifestyle. Very attentive to the needy, he was a man of few words but outspoken against injustices, transparent and poor in the use of money, discreet and balanced.
“Watu waache vizuri” (let them eat well). He had a program to distribute food to all the elderly in times of drought, their number was impressive. He had a warehouse with more than two thousand bags of corn, each weighing one hundred kilos. He was very attentive to the water needs of people. Water wells were opened in almost all the villages; you could say that the village organization was built around the water well.
Father Zanette was also a point of reference at the government level. Many came to ask his opinion before starting a development program in the region where he lived.
Biography
Born on June 14, 1939 in S. Biagio Callalta, in the province of Treviso, Father Zanette entered the Institute at a young age. He made his first religious profession on June 2, 1960 in the Certosa di Pesio and his perpetual profession on October 2, 1964 in Turin. He was ordained deacon on October 3, 1965 in Turin, and priest on December 18 of the same year in Pero (Treviso).
After ordination he was sent to London from 1966 to 1967, to study the language, and then was sent as a missionary to Tanzania. He remained there for all the active years of his missionary life. He was assistant priest in Kipengere (1967-1969), parish priest in Makambako (1969-1970), parish priest in Kipengere (1970-1971), parish priest in Kisinga (1971-1974), parish priest in Igwachanya (1974-1975) and parish priest in Kipengere (1975-1987). In 1987 he served as regional administrator in Iringa but, at the end of his service, he returned to pastoral work in the mission in Sanza (2001-2012). From 2012 to 2018 he was assigned to the pastoral care of Manda. His last missionary service in Tanzania was to be part of the formation team of the Morogoro Novitiate (2018-2022).
In 2022 he returned to Italy and spent the last two years of his life between the Mother House in Turin and the home for elderly missionaries in Alpignano, where he died on August 18.
Summing up Father Zanette taught us
A) “You must have fire to be missionaries” These are the words of the Founder himself, Blessed Joseph Allamano. The mission needs determined people; the mission ad gentes presents us with tough challenges. Often our people live in very precarious situations and we must be there with them.
B) “We must do good, well and without making noise”. Father Zanette was a man who spoke little although he would raise his voice when he discovered that someone was being manipulated and deprived of his fundamental rights. He always worked in areas where the means of communication were scarce or not present: lack of internet connection, transportation, water…, but this did not constitute for him a reason to be replaced.
C) Finally, Father Antonio Zanette taught us to prioritize education as a means to coalesce our communities.
* Father Thomas Ishengoma, a Tanzanian Consolata missionary, works in the parish of San Miguel Arcangel in Yuto, Argentina.
