Mario Bongiorno

Mario Bongiorno was born on 17 August 1897, in Villarosa (near Villapriolo), Enna, Sicily, the son of Michele Bongiorno (1872–1946) and Giovannina 'Jennie' La Placa (1878–1931).

On 23 June 1907, at the age of 9, he migrated through New York on the SS Indiana with his mother, his older half brother Salvatore (13) (1894–1973, born to Michele's first wife Teresa Pecorella, d 1895), his sister Maria (aged 5) (1901–1989) and youngest brother, Angelo (1) (1905–1981), to join their father, Michele, who had migrated in 1904 and was already working as a laborer in the Chemical Works in Erie, PA. Other sisters would be born in Erie - Carmela Marie (1909–1991); Rose Marie (1912–1970); and Josephine (1914–1993). Another brother, Giuseppe (Joseph) (1889–1917), is not mentioned on the SS Indiana manifest. He had emigrated (arriving on 18 Oct 1901) with his father, Michele, and uncle, Filippo Bongiorno. They headed to Monroe, Louisiana for work provided by their cousin, Michele Saporito. Charlene Bongiorno Stephens (2020) remembers that they were not happy in Louisiana: Filippo returned to Sicily to see his wife and children, finally re-emigrating to the US in 1921, while Michele settled in Erie with the entire family. It is instructive to see that, on the SS Indiana's manifest, there were others from their region: from Villarosa, was Maria di Gangi Ruggeri and her son Giuseppe, Salvatore Seminatore, Giovanna Davina Grazia, the La Paglias (father and son), all of them heading for Erie. [names as per SS Indiana immigration list]

In 1916, Bongiorno's older half-brother, Giuseppe (Joseph), contracted a lingering illness and (in the age before antibiotics) was advised by his doctor to seek a more beneficial climate (this was then a common response to lung diseases.) Joseph left Erie for Los Angeles. While travelling, he met 'a Christian gentleman' on the train, who gave him an address in Los Angeles saying that there he would encounter 'the great physician' (E. Ruggiero, 2020; De Gregorio Collection). (Mario later remembered his name as "Mr. Van Allen"; while other family members recalled the figure on the train as none other than Jean Perrou: Bongiorno Stephens, 2020) When he arrived he found that the address provided was that of the Italian Christian Assembly, founded by Francescon's associate in St Louis, Jean Perrou (1887, Marseilles, France - 8 Nov 1918, Los Angeles, CA) (q.v.). Perrou was working among Italian migrants touched by the Azusa Street Revival nearby, but also those (such as Nicola Moles and his family) who had left Filippo Grilli's First Italian Presbyterian Church in Chicago for the Chiesa dei Toscani, in Chicago, and then migrated to California for work reasons. Both Francescon's wife, Rosina Balzano, and then Francescon, Lombardi and Perrou, had visited LA for some time, assisting in teaching and establishing the work. When Joseph Bongiorno encountered the church, it was meeting in a rented store building. He had to wait for people to arrive and the service to begin, but it was there under Jean Perrou that Bongiorno's brother, Joseph, 'was saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and healed' (De Gregorio Collection).

At the time, Mario was still living with his mother, Jennie, at 1905 Liberty St., Erie, PA. When his brother wrote back to the family about his conversion, healing. and baptism in the Holy Spirit, one of the things he sent back was an Italian bible - a rare thing for Italian Catholic families, who in the Erie community had yet to hear about Italian pentecostalism. "As I began to read", Mario Bongiorno later noted, "the Scriptures gripped my heart and I became convicted of sin by the word of God alone. I repented, believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved and completely transformed." He witnessed to his close friend, Rosario Palermo, and the two began to read the bible together. By letter, Joseph told him about baptism - something of which Bongiorno was ignorant. To help him, Jean Perrou wrote to the Chicago Assemblea Cristiana, which initially responded that they could not send someone to Erie for one baptism. Bongiorno soon fixed that - by personal and door to door evangelism, he gathered 25 or so people who declared a desire to be baptized. Perrou sent the names to Chicago, and in December 1916 Umberto Gazzeri volunteered to go to Erie. In February 1917 he carried out the baptisms (in a baptistery built by Michele Bongiorno in the family basement) and teach the new believers. That same month, Mario Bongiorno was baptised in the Spirit. Gazzeri decided to stay - finding work, and calling for his family to join him from Rockford, Illinois. In the meantime, Gazzeri lived with the Bongiornos in their crowded home on Liberty St. (An apocryphal story in the Chicago church was that before he received the request, Gazzeri had heard the words 'Erie, Erie' as in a dream, and had to consult a map to find out where it was.) (Interview, Leah Palma Remoli, APSC Interviews Collection)

The Erie church grew from a storefront, to meeting in a large loungeroom which Michele Bongiorno had specifically built in a new house purpose built for the community. In 1919, when Gazzeri returned to Chicago area, Bongiorno (the first deacon) took over as pastor. When Mario fell ill, Rosario Palermo substituted. In his illness, Bongiorno heard an audible voice telling him to go to a place called San Jose, of which he had not heard (De Gregorio Collection). He decided to go to California, stopping in Chicago on the way for three months, and informing the Chicago leadership that he would be absent from Erie for an extended time. Gazzeri returned to Erie in his place, and Bongiorno arrived in Los Angeles in 1920 to find the Italian congregation without a pastor: Joseph had died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1917, and Jean Perrou had been carried off in the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic (though possibly also by tuberculosis). Bongiorno took over the preaching role while another pastor was sought.

It was in that Italian Christian Assembly that he met the church pianist in Los Angeles, Elizabeth Italiano (b. 28 Oct 1904, Sopris, Colorado), the daughter of Giuseppe 'Joseph' Italiano (1872–1952) and Giovannina 'Jennie' Petralia Italiano (1879–1941). They married later that year (15 May 1920). Sopris where she was born was a company coal mining town with a largely migrant population - it later disappeared under Lake Trinidad. Her family had moved to Los Angeles where she and her family had been converted under the ministry of Giuseppe Beretta, the grand old man of Italian pentecostalism. Her mother was, as her son in law discovered, a 'gifted personal worker'. With dissent on the rise back in Erie, the Bongiornos returned to Erie for six months to settle the situation, and then returned to California to Los Angeles. At a church prayer meeting "the Lord spoke for Brother and Sister Bongiorno to go north to the town of San Jose" where there was a large Italian community (De Gregorio Collection). They settled there in March 1921. (Naturalization Records, Ancestry). Without support (it was widely expected among the 'unorganized' Italian pentecostal movement that pastors should work), they worked harvesting crops of vegetables and fruit, while they ran meetings.

We witnessed and held meetings from house to house. I would preach and my wife would sing and play the piano. During the very first meeting, the Lord baptized one man with the Holy Spirit, From then on, the blessings continued. Having no church building, I baptized the believers in a creek. We labored in this manner for many years. By day we worked on the farms and by night and on weekends we held meetings. (DeGregorio Collection)

Despite 'persecution from the unbelievers, the priests and the Italian community' the church grew, meeting for some years in storefronts, then a disused church. In 1927 they were living at 459 Snyder Ave, San Jose, Santa Clara, CA., where they acted host to various relatives moving to California for periods of time. In the same year, they visited the family back in Erie, preaching and evangelizing nearby towns. In one such meeting, Jim Caruso was converted and later baptized - he would become a forceful evangelist in the eastern states. They also attended the foundational Niagara confererence of the Christian Churches of North America, led by Tosetto, Palma and Francescon. Returning to California, the San Jose church continued to grow, and the couple were used to plant other churches in Oakland (under Eugenio Balestrin) and Sacramento. (Ironically, it was an encounter with a Catholic priest across the road from the Church in Oakland which provided the spark for Rodney Stark's work on religion the American marketplace). (Witham, p. 99)

In 1940, on his draft card Mario referred to his church as the Christian Apostolic Church, at 353 Grant St., San Jose, Santa Clara. While there was a church movement of the same name started by Frank J. Allamena in West Albany, New York, in 1919, also based around mainly Italian families, family memories connected to the Santa Clara Church indicate that the similarity in name was incidental. David Orlando (personal correspondence 22 Sept 2020) recounts that when the church had grown to about 100 adult members (about 200 in attendance) the Church sought legal ‘not for profit’ registration in order to care for financial, asset-related, marriage and other needs. The proposed name, ‘Christian Assembly’ (directly drawn from his home church in Erie) was rejected by the office of the Secretary of State of California due to the presence in San Jose of a ‘religious science’ alternative organization called the ‘Christian Assembly Truth Center’. A second meeting of the members decided on ‘Chiesa Cristiana Apostolica’, a name which also helped in countering Italian Catholic criticisms that Italian Pentecostals had departed from the apostolic tradition. When translated into English for the Articles of Incorporation, this local affiliate of the CCNA was thus known as the Christian Apostolic Church. While this would cause some later confusion with oneness Pentecostals in the city (‘United Pentecostal churches often go by the name Apostolic Faith’ – D. Orlando, 2020)

Mario died in Santa Clara on 28 July 1984, Elizabeth having predeceased him in 1975. The then General Overseer of the CCNA, Carmine Saginario, flew to California to conduct the memorial service.

Sources

• Ancestry

• Anthony DeGregorio Italian Pentecostal Collection, 1905-1987, Fuller Theological Seminary.

• Bongiorno Stephens, Charlene, Personal Correspondence, 13 July 2020.

• Orlando, David (personal correspondence 22 Sept 2020). David is the grandson of Antonio Orlando, a founding trustee of the Church in San Jose.

• Remoli, Leah Palma, Interview with Mark Hutchinson [nd. early 2000s], Australasian Pentecostal Studies Centre Archives, Alphacrucis College.

• Ruggiero, E., personal correspondence, 2020.

• Witham, Larry, Marketplace of the Gods: How Economics Explains Religion, New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2010.