BORN: S. Martino B.A., (Verona) - 7. 6.1916
FINAL PROFESSION: Verona - 9.9.1938
ORDAINED: Verona - 28.6.1942
DIED: Verona - 9.7.1993
AGE: 77
Still a young boy, he entered our Apostolic School at Santa Trinita’ in Verona. Lively and cheerful since his young age, he was an person who could create union around himself. After his ordination he was put in charge of the mission animation. He gave memorable Mission Sundays in the dioceses of Verona, Brescia, Udine, Vicenza, Trento and Milan.
When elected superior of the community of Via Mameli in Verona, he was the initiator of the Professional School, after a long consultation with Fr. Giovanni Calabria, who encouraged him on this venture. This activity did not distract him from his first duty which was the work for the missions. He gave also a new impulse to our magazine ‘Il Missionario’ and to the different missionary groups of our parishes of Milan, Rome, Parma, Pavia, Udine, Verona, Trento and Battipaglia. When in 1960 we started a new mission in South Africa, Brits and De Wildt became very familiar names for many people who got involved with different initiatives in order to help the pastoral and humanitarian endeavours of our Confreres of that area. The schedule of his missionary journeys was long and fruitful. Thanks to him the distances between the Confreres who lived in different parts of the world were eliminated. He significantly helped also people of Brazil, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Thailand and the Philippines. The last years of his life were deeply marked by suffering and sickness. It became for him a time of purification for a more genuine missionary fruitfulness, which prepared him for the encounter with his Lord whom he had loved and served among the poor all over the world.
