Whether in Detroit or in a far-off country, being on mission means dying to self and living for Christ, Fr. Criscione, cancer survivor, says
DETROIT — Live close to Christ, live close to the people, and the people will find Christ.
It’s this mentality that drives Fr. Daniele Criscione, director of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions' (PIME) Detroit Mission Center in northwest Detroit.
As the mission center director, it’s Fr. Criscione’s responsibility to cultivate relationships with the local Catholic community to support the PIME missionaries' work around the globe.
With about 500 PIME priests, brothers and seminarians serving in 19 countries, the projects are as diverse as the institute itself, providing foster care, schools, food pantries clothing and building up communities around the world.
“We build chapels, dig wells, help with leprosy center and colonies — really many things,” Fr. Criscione told Detroit Catholic. “But what we really try to do is just to be with Jesus, and through our life and works, to inspire people to make Jesus known.”
Fr. Criscione often counsels those who believe they have a calling to the missions, and he tells them the same thing: More important than going to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel, the main goal of a missionary is live in friendship with Jesus, something everyone can do in their own backyard.
“People think the role of a missionary is to proselytize, but that’s not what we do,” Fr. Criscione said. “Our goal is actually to live closer to Jesus, and then each one of us will be a martyr to a certain extent. The word 'martyr' comes from the Greek word that means 'to witness.' If you’re a martyr, you’re a witness.
“To do this, to be a witness in Christ, that’s the hardest part of our job,” Fr. Criscione said. “It’s not to live in the Amazon or cross dangerous rivers — that’s tough, believe me — but it’s harder to live with Christ, because we love to do things on our own.”
The PIMEs were formed in 1850 in Milan, Italy, as a society of apostolic life for missionary priests and brothers. Its founder, Bishop Angelo Francesco Ramazzotti, ordered the society to preach the Gospel around the world.
In 1947, Detroit Cardinal Edward A. Mooney invited the PIMEs to Detroit to established its North American regional headquarters.
Since its founding, 19 PIME brothers and priests have been martyred for the faith. The first was Blessed John Mazzucconi, who was martyred in Papua New Guinea in 1855, and the most recent was Fr. Fausto Tenorio, who was executed in the Philippines in 2011.
Inspired by love, healed by grace
On World Mission Sunday, Oct. 19, Pope Francis beatified Blessed Alfredo Cremonesi, PIME, who was killed in 1953 in Myanmar — then called Burma — by government forces who suspected him of supporting rebels.
“I’m so glad Pope Francis, as a sign for the Church, decided to beatify Alfredo Cremonesi,” Fr. Criscione said. “His story is interesting, and it inspired me in a certain sense. He was born in a small village close to Cremona in 1902. He was really sick in childhood, with lymphatism, a problem with his blood. At a certain point, he prayed to St. Therese of Lisieux, and the lymphatism went away and he was healed, and it’s considered a miracle.”
Fr. Criscione said Blessed Alfredo attributed his healing to St. Therese of Lisieux and the grace of God, so he decided to join the PIMEs to go on mission.
It's a story that's all too familiar to Fr. Criscione.
Fr. Criscione always wanted to be a missionary, joining the PIMEs and being ordained a deacon in 2011, but plans changed three weeks later when he was diagnosed with leukemia and required a bone marrow transplant.
While Fr. Criscione’s classmates were getting their assignments, he was stuck in San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, Italy, spending an entire year in a sterile room receiving treatment.
“When you’re a missionary, you spend your life in very hard conditions; my brothers we talking about the calamities they face, the diseases, working in very hard contexts,” Fr. Criscione said. “But I was in this sterile hospital room. I couldn’t go anywhere, lying in bed.
“I lost almost 80 pounds, had chaffed skin, lost my hearing, lost my fingernails; I was battered,” Fr. Criscione said. “You see your body change, not recognizing yourself anymore. And this was the greatest experience of my life. I wasn’t eating anything or drinking anything, being artificially fed and hydrated, under morphine.”
In what many would take as a miserable experience, Fr. Criscione found a strange grace: a chance to undergo the suffering often required of a missionary.
“I’ve traveled all around the world, all the continents,” Fr. Criscione said. “I’m lucky, I’m blessed, but that journey was where I came to know myself, and I came to know Jesus Christ, the powerful grace and mercy of His heart.
“After I was healed — I’m in remission now, thank God — I still didn’t know why I survived,” Fr. Criscione added. “Only 20 percent (of leukemia sufferers) survive. But when you are a missionary, and each one of us is a missionary, you are called to go to the very end, because that’s where you find the heart of Jesus. This means you have to know yourself as you are, to accept yourself and love yourself. Then you’ll come to love Christ.”
A missionary in the Motor City
Martyrdom, even if it not heroic martyrdom like the 19 PIMEs who gave their lives to preach the faith, is a requirement of all missionaries, Fr. Criscione said, and will always be a requirement to preach the Gospel.
Fr. Criscione’s “martyrdom” in San Gerardo Hospital showed him that his witness as a missionary didn’t have to involved going to Burma or Papua New Guinea, as other PIMEs have.
In fact, it could even involve going to Detroit.
After working at the Catholic University of Milan, Fr. Criscione recalled a conversation with his superior about his next assignment.
“I finished my five-year term at the university, and my general superior asked me, ‘Dan, where do you want to go?’ I said, I’d love to go to Algeria, a country where 98 percent of the people are Muslim. He said, ‘Oh wow, that’s impressive. You’re going to Detroit. Good luck.’”
“We don’t need to go to faraway places; we can be missionary wherever we are,” Fr. Criscione said. “It’s all about you and your relationship with Jesus. I finished my five-year term at the university, and my general superior asked me, ‘Dan, where do you want to go?’ I said, I’d love to go to Algeria, a country where 98 percent of the people are Muslim. He said, ‘Oh wow, that’s impressive. You’re going to Detroit. Good luck.’”
Now in Detroit, Fr. Criscione’s job is to encourage others in their own mission, wherever that might be, and to follow in the footsteps of the PIME martyrs, preaching Christ to those in need and giving his time, talent and treasure to advancing the kingdom of God in southeast Michigan.
“Here in the Archdiocese of Detroit, we have so many people who just don’t know Jesus Christ,” Fr. Criscione said. “They are not Christian, not Catholic, and as an archdiocese, we need to reach these people. The best way, the main way to do this, is to grow in our own faith, our own relationship with Jesus Christ. This will push us toward those people. You cannot ignore that. Once you believe in something like this, that Jesus is your savior, you can’t hide it. You will want to share, need to share it. This isn’t something that happens overnight; it happens over time. It’s a transformation.”
Fr. Criscione said he was especially inspired after reading Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron's Unleash the Gospel pastoral letter, and sees it as a turning point for the Archdiocese of Detroit.
“When I read the archbishop’s letter, Unleash the Gospel, I fell in love with it, actually,” Fr. Criscione said. “There is something happening in the Archdiocese of Detroit, in the Church in Detroit. Something about the Holy Spirit, the inspiration of Jesus Christ himself, is rebuilding this church, to set our mind in a missionary way. And I’m a missionary, so can you image how this sounds just great to me.
“Something big is about to happen,” Fr. Criscione continued. “We want everyone in the archdiocese to know about the Word of God, about Jesus. He is calling us to acknowledge our weakness and allow the grace of God to do miracles in our hearts, to witness these miracles in others.”
Once a missionary lives out this change, it’s up to them to see Christ in the world around them. Fr. Criscione points to times in salvation history when pagans or gentiles — people who were not part of God’s chosen people — recognized and testified to the truth of God.
“Think about it: every day when we celebrate Mass, the priest says, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world,’” Fr. Criscione said. “What do we say? ‘Lord, I am not worthy for you to enter under my roof.’ These are the words of the centurion, a pagan. It’s amazing.”
“The Lord works through all men,” Fr. Criscione added. “As missionaries, it’s our job to learn where God has planted the seeds, and cultivate those seeds to grow.”
Pope Francis declared October 2019 to be Extraordinary Missionary Month, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s apostolic letter, Maximum Illud, a guide for missionaries on what it means to put Christ first when preaching the Gospel.
While Catholics continue to support missionary efforts around the world, including the work of the PIMEs in North America, Fr. Criscione has a simple message for those who want to get involved.
“Be our friends, because we do need friends, to start a relationship with us,” Fr. Criscione said. “And when you share your life with us, you will see what we need.”
“Friendship is the best gift I have received, because without my friends, I don’t know how I would be able to be a missionary,” Fr. Criscione continued. “We’re not heroes; the people who support us are heroes.”
“When Jesus became the Word made flesh, he became human,” Fr. Criscione said. “So if you want to support the missions, find where the Word became flesh in your own community. God became a man, so go out and find God in the men and women around you. And when you look, you’ll be amazed.”
