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CAPUCHIN GENERAL MINISTER PACIFICUS CARLETTI OF SEGGIANO 541 particular Province was very much in line with the new missionary strategy envis– aged by the Statutes for the Capuchin Missions promulgated by Fr Bernard ofAn– dermatt. The general Minister made the newly appointed apostolic prefect also the regular superior of the Mission 104 • Catering to the multiple exigencies of the Italian settlers in their new colo– ny of Eritrea was the primary task of these Capuchin missionaries. But soon their trail-blazing activities had to be suspended with the outbreak ofwar (1895-1897), and the missionaries became practically military chaplains to the Italian soldiers, burying the dead, assisting the wounded and accompanying the soldiers. Once the war ended the missionary services were resumed 105 • Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of these friars, a network of mission stations got progressively estab– lished in the territory ofthe prefecture. The missionaries composed catechetical and linguistic texts, erected churches, chapels, schools and workshops for the benefit of the populace. When the prefect Michael of Carbonara died on 24 June 1910, the prefecture had already struck deep roots in the Eritrean soil. Meanwhile the colonial government had been pressing insistently for the realisation ofa series ofother pro– jects, which would finally result in the creation ofbad blood between the Capuchin Roman province and the Italian Minister of Colonies. As the Minister of Colonies began pulling a few strings to get the Salesian fathers to take over the Capuchin mission in Eritrea 106 , the general Definitory decided "to petition the Sacred Con– gregation so that it might deign to elevate the Prefecture to apostolic Vicariate and to entrust it to a Province ofNorthern Italy, as this being the wish of the Minister for Foreign Affairs" 107 • Thus on 7 February 1911 the prefecture was created into an apostolic vicariate and assigned to the Capuchin province of Lombardy, with Mgr Camillo Carrara as the first apostolic vicar ofEritrea 10 8 • 2007; Metodio da Nembro,La missione deiMinori cappuccini in Eritrea (1984-1952) (Bibliothe– ca Seraphico-Capuccina, 13), Romae 1953, 1-27. 104 See Metodio da Nembro, La missione dei Minori cappuccini in Eritrea, I-3. 105 Metodio da Nembro, La missione dei Minori cappuccini in Eritrea, 27: "P. Michele sin dai primi atti compiuti appare all'altezza del compito affl.dato alle sue cure. Contemperando in modo sagace le diverse esigenze del suo ministero, egli dedichera la sua volenterosa assistenza ai connazionali puntando su di essa come su uno degli elementi fondamentali della sua tattica mis– sionaria; ma nello stesso tempo organizzera un'accorta propaganda cattolica tra i nativi intonata alla nuova situazione e tale da portare innanzi in modo notevole !'opera di evangelizzazione". 106 APCapTuse, [Sisto da Pisa], Necrologia deifrati minori Cappuccini della Provincia tosca– na IV: dal 12fobbraio 1904al26giugno 1919, No. 552,219. 107 Metodio da Nembro, La missione dei Minori cappuccini in Eritrea, 58. 108 Metodio da Nembro, La missione dei Minori cappuccini in Eritrea, 57-94.