St. Josephine Bakhita
She kept the door of the convent at Schio, laying her hands on the heads of the schoolchildren who passed, and travelled Italy telling people about the freedom she had been given.
Born 1869 · Died 1947 · Canonized 2000 · Beatified 1992
1869 is approximate on Bakhita's own testimony — Benedict XVI records that she did not know her birth date. She died 8 February 1947. Her age when she was kidnapped is given as seven by John Paul II and as nine by Benedict XVI; this record says only that she was a child.
A convert
Josephine Bakhita was born in Darfur around 1869 — she never knew the date, and the name her parents gave her was lost. She was a child when slave traders took her, and she was sold five times in the markets of Sudan. In one household she was flogged every day until she bled, and she carried a hundred and forty-four scars for the rest of her life. Her kidnappers called her Bakhita, which means fortunate.
In 1882 she was bought for an Italian consul, Callisto Legnani, and when the Mahdist advance forced him out she asked to go with him to Italy. She was passed on to another family, then left with the Canossian Sisters in Venice while her employers were abroad. There she was taught the faith, and there she found what she had been looking at the sky for since she was small: "Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: Who could be the Master of these beautiful things?" In Venetian she called God paron, the word for master, because this Master was good.
She was baptized on 9 January 1890 and took vows six years later. When the family came back for her she refused to go, and Italian law let her stay. She spent the next fifty years in the convent at Schio, cooking, sewing, and on duty at the door, where she would lay her hands on the heads of the schoolchildren going past. She travelled Italy to speak for the missions, because the freedom she had been given had to be handed on. She died on 8 February 1947. In her last hours she was back in Sudan, asking the nurse to loosen the chains.
What they carried
She was kidnapped as a child and sold five times in the slave markets of Sudan, flogged every day in one household until she bled, and carried a hundred and forty-four scars for life. The terror took her own name with it. Fifty years later, dying in Italy, she was begging the nurse to loosen the chains.
State of life
religious sister · Canossian Daughter of Charity
Themes
slavery · freedom · hope · forgiveness · kindness · mission · ordinary work
Benedict XVI on Josephine Bakhita (Spe Salvi, 2007 — she is section 3)
Sources
- Benedict XVI, encyclical Spe Salvi, 30 November 2007, §3 — the fullest account held: birth 'around 1869' in Darfur with the note that she did not know the date, kidnapping at nine, sold five times, flogged daily by the mother and wife of a general, 144 scars, purchase in 1882 for the consul Callisto Legnani as the Mahdists advanced, the Venetian word paron for God, baptism 9 January 1890 from the Patriarch of Venice, vows 8 December 1896 at Verona, and the journeys round Italy for the missions. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html
- Holy See biographical profile, 'Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947)' — source of the markets of El Obeid and Khartoum, the lost birth name, the Michieli family and Zianigo, the Institute of the Catechumens at Venice, the fifty years at Schio 'cooking, sewing, embroidery and attending to the door', the children at the door, the long final illness, and the words about the chains. https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_giuseppina-bakhita_en.html
- John Paul II, homily for the canonization of 123 new saints, 1 October 2000 — canonized alongside Katharine Drexel and the martyrs of China. Gives her age at kidnapping as seven and calls her 'a shining advocate of genuine emancipation'. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20001001_canonization.html
- AGE AT KIDNAPPING — TWO PAPAL DOCUMENTS DISAGREE. John Paul II, canonization homily 2000: 'Abducted and sold into slavery at the tender age of seven.' Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi 2007: 'At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders.' Neither is corrected by the other and no third source on disk settles it, so this record says 'as a child' and takes neither number.
- John Paul II, beatification homily, 17 May 1992, Italian only — beatified with Josemaría Escrivá. Source of her own words about slavery: 'Da schiava non mi sono mai disperata, perché sentivo dentro di me una forza misteriosa che mi sosteneva' (as a slave I never despaired, because I felt within me a mysterious strength that sustained me), and of the scars that slavery left in her body. Gives 51 years of Canossian religious life where the English profile says 'another 50 years' at Schio; the two count different spans and both round. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/it/homilies/1992/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19920517_beatificazione.html
- CONVERT — VERIFIED, WITH A LIMIT. No document on disk names what she believed before Venice. What they establish is the field's actual question: she was not raised in the faith. The Holy See profile places her at the Institute of the Catechumens and says 'After several months in the catechumenate, Bakhita received the sacraments of Christian initiation', at about twenty-one, and that she had known God 'without knowing who He was'; Spe Salvi calls it an encounter with this God 'for the first time'. So convert is true, and nothing in this record states a prior religion, because nothing on disk does.
- Feast 8 February. St Josephine Bakhita is listed in the General Roman Calendar published by the Liturgy Office of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. The date column did not survive text extraction from that PDF, so her position is fixed by adjacency to St Jerome Emiliani; it is independently corroborated by her death date of 8 February 1947.
- No formal patronage is recorded in any document held. Sudan and survivors of trafficking are widely associated with her, and neither is documented here, so patronages is empty.