Facchinello, Cesare

Cesare Faccinello was born on May 27, 1914 at S. Martino di Lupari in the province of Padua, Italy. After his primary education he entered the IMC (Consolata Missionaries), where he made a religious profession and prepared for the missionary life and the priesthood. He was ordained on June 26, 1939. Shortly afterwards he was sent to Kenya where he began his missionary service which was soon interrupted by World War II, during which time he was held for four years as a prisoner of war in South Africa. At the end of the war he returned to Kenya. He spent the rest of his life in Kikuyuland, except for the short time in 1953, when he was in Baragoi where he founded, together with Andrione and Br. Cardinali, the first Catholic mission in northern Kenya. He died in Nairobi on April 20, 2005 and was buried at Nyeri.

This article, received in 2005, was reprinted with permission from* Christianity among the Nomads: The Catholic Church in Northern Kenya*, by Paul Tablino, © copyright 2004 by St. Paul Communications / Daughters of St. Paul, Nairobi, Kenya.