The Multi-lingual Memories of a Very Quiet Slave: Saint Josephine Bakhita's Life, in Slavery and with Christ

St. Josephine Bakhita (1869 until 1947) was sold into slavery as a child in Darfur and then taken to Italy by the Italian consul in Khartoum. She became a nun, was beatified in 1982, and canonized in 2000. This paper will explore how she is remembered, by the church in Sudan. Nuns of her order, the Canossian Daughters of Charity, see her now as a teacher, almost a philosopher of religion although many earlier Vatican publications depicted her as an emblem of slavery and humility. Sudanese refugees see her as a patron saint, giving dignity to the domestic work so many end up doing in Egypt and other countries that neighbor Sudan.