Question 1.13

1.13 All these years, your parents seem to have assisted you fervently. …

Yes, my parents always supported my vocation and then my priestly ministry with their humble, powerful prayers. Even though they are now deceased, Father and Mother continue to watch over me from heaven. They are truly the most profound sign of God’s presence in my life.

To demonstrate his kindness and unfailing support, God willed that their deaths should fall on a day before or after an anniversary relating to my priesthood. This providential coincidence convinced me that they would constantly be at my side, from heaven, still surrounding me with their prayers as they had done on earth. I was consecrated bishop of Conakry on December 8, 1979, and Father died on December 7, 1991, at the very moment when I was celebrating the Eucharist for the twelfth anniversary of my episcopate. I was ordained to the priesthood on July 20, 1969, and Mother died on July 21, 2007, the day after my thirty-eighth anniversary of priestly ordination.

Yes, I was quite shaken by her death. I have never been in so much pain in all my life. I suddenly felt totally alone. I was in Abruzzo for a spiritual retreat when Mother passed away in Conakry. The morning of her death, she had tried to reach me by phone, but I was outside of Rome. Late that afternoon, in the arms of a nun, Sister Marie-Renée, she went peacefully to the Father’s house.

A few hours after her death, Archbishop Vincent Coulibaly of Conakry told me the news. That evening, on July 21, 2007, I felt as though I had been cut off from the roots of my whole life. My sadness seemed unbearable. Once I returned to Rome, I was able to leave for Conakry soon after, on Monday, July 23. The whole populace, both Christians and Muslims, welcomed me with such brotherly compassion that I had the impression that God was flooding me with consolation. I will never forget the friendly support offered by the entire population of my country. Their affection and expressions of sympathy were profoundly fraternal, as if my people were replacing the brothers and sisters I never had. The kindness shown by all of Guinea touched me to the very core.

I returned to Rome at peace, for I felt that my parents would continue to be at the center of my life. They had always lived as faithful Christians, docile to the will of God.

At the time of my departure for Rome in 2001, Mother had behaved quite admirably. I was very afraid to leave her alone, as she was beginning to grow old. Therefore, I entrusted to a nun and friend the painful task of telling her about my new appointment in Rome, as secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. I was so sad that I did not have the strength necessary to tell her myself. Upon hearing the news of my future position in the service of the universal Church, Mother responded with lucid faith: “I thank God who gave me one child, and the Lord always takes him far from me to do his work. I thank the pope, for there are many bishops in the world, and he thought of my son to be beside him. But will Robert be up to the task that the Supreme Pontiff will assign to him? Will he be able to perform correctly the duties that the pope wishes to entrust to him? And who will succeed him as archbishop of Conakry? I pray that God will find a good successor for him.” Mother’s act of faith overwhelmed me, giving me wings at the moment when I was about to fly far away from her for God’s glory. While I was resisting so as to stay in Guinea, Mother was encouraging me to obey.

One week after I left Conakry, she had a fall and broke her hip. … She had to go to the emergency room. When I learned the news by telephone, I was distraught; despite the painful fracture, she still tried to reassure me. In fact, my parents created an atmosphere of peace, serene tranquility, and religious respect around my vocation, so as to allow me to walk with God, listening only to his voice whispering to me at every moment, as it did to Abraham, “Walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen 17:1).

Father and Mother were a great blessing and a precious treasure to me; God blessed them abundantly, granting them the immense joy of participating in the ceremonies of my priestly ordination and then my episcopal consecration. My only disappointment was that Father did not live to see with us the extraordinary pastoral visit of John Paul II to Guinea. He died two months before the pope’s arrival in February 1992. On the other hand, Mother had the honor of seeing him and greeting him.

For all these divine gifts I give thanks to God. I deserved nothing, but God often chooses the lowly. He deigned to look upon a little boy from a poor village. I never would have imagined that God could accomplish all that he has done for me. But who could ever know where God is leading us? Look at Saint Paul: in his rage against the Christians, did he know where he was going while on the road to Damascus? And Saint Augustine, a fiercely ambitious young man eager for honors and pleasures, who was torn between his desires and his aspirations, between his flesh and his spirit, did he understand what he was seeking when he left Africa for Milan? We are all the objects of this extraordinary manifestation of God’s mercy. His goodwill toward us is boundless!