Combonis honor memory of Fr. Biancalana

The Comboni Missionaries commemorated the second anniversary of the death of the Rev. Angelo Biancalana with a 6 p.m. Mass on June 11 in the chapel of the Comboni Mission Center in LaGrange Park. (708-354-1999)

Rev. Angelo was born in Italy, moved to the Chicago area in 1951, and was ordained on May 25, 1958. Following that, he did missionary work among Native Americans in California, ran the Comboni’s vocation program in Cincinnati and crisscrossed the country in search of future missionaries. Fulfilling his dream of going to Africa, he spent more than 15 years there as a pastor, teacher and provincial in Uganda, including during the civil war under Idi Amin.

Having survived the ordeal, Rev. Angelo returned to the United States in 1981, serving mostly in the field of mission promotion in the Chicago area for almost 10 years. It was during that time that the La Grange Park Center was opened and entrusted to his care.

Rev. Angelo helped create the Comboni Lay Missionaries in the late 1980s and early 1990s and led the organization until 1997. His remaining years were spent doing mission promotion work out of LaGrange Park and the Comboni Mission Center of Covina, Calif. He left Covina for the last time in 2011 and became a retired member of the Comboni Center community of La Grange Park