Cristina Avitabile Brancaccio

Born in Sarno, prov. Salerno, on 26 September 1895, the daughter of Rosa nee Lombardo, Cristina Avitabile emigrated to USA in 1911 and married Vito 'William' Brancaccio (1896-1954), who had arrived in 1909 and worked on the docks for the Panama Line as a longshoreman. (Toppi proposes that he was the son of Gaetano and Maria Redenta Brancaccio, and they lived in Brooklyn, New York). Vito and Cristina had two sons, Michael (7 May 1920-9 August 1999 buried Calverton National Cemetery, NY), and Nicholas (1923–1968), one of whom became a doctor. They lived at 304 24th Street,

About 1920, Brancaccio fell seriously ill, suffering (according to her later testimony) from liver stones, diabetes and other serious illnesses. She was told by a friend that Jesus continued to heal in the present day, attended the Brooklyn Assembly, and was converted. An energetic woman, full of faith, with 'a strong natural disposition to communicate with anyone' [Toppi], she determined to evangelize everyone she met particularly on the themes of salvation and the healing that she herself had received. She started evangelizing among relatives and friends in Little Italy. Her evangelism created waves when she started going to her son's doctor's office, and evangelizing the patients. After the Second World War, her son would support her financially, but as early as 1933 she chose to travel to Napoli to spread the word there as well. Here too, her 'strange' and bold forms of evangelism drew notice-- willing as she was to testify on trains, buses, in the main street, to any Catholic religious that she met, during a time of tightening Fascist religious laws. Though a simple woman, who was often mocked for her approach to the bible, she won many converts, and reputedly saw many people healed. When she moved to back to Campania on a more full time basis after the death of her husband, she would sit outside her home with her bible and accost people as they walked along the street, 'speaking an uncertain Italian language, full of mixed phrases of the Campania dialect and Italian-American expressions'. People would cross the road to avoid her, and still not escape. On one occasion, when she was visiting a sick believer in hospital, she took a bus to the location testifying to all and sundry loudly in dialect interpolated with American exclamations about the love of Jesus. When she went to return, she went to get back on the bus, only to see it depart before the allocated time so as to avoid having her on board. On another occasion, Toppi tells of an occasion when she took to sitting outside the ADI main Church in Via dei Bruzzi. Seeing three men enter a butter factory across the road, she followed them in and began to evangelize them. When Toppi later went over to apologize for the interruption afterwards, the owner declared 'There is no need to apologize. Those three were from the Financial police come to do an inspection, but because she kept them entertained for the entire time, they left with only a cursory report that everything was above board.' Toppi left [he wrote later] marvelling at the remarkable instruments God used for His ends.

Though supported by her son, she distributed most of what she gained to those poorer than herself, living simply and with only one change of clothes. When she went without, those she had won to her cause would help sustain her simple mode of life. Among many such missionaries--such as Giuseppe Giusti in Sicily and Australia--such apostolic poverty was an additional recommendation as to the authority of their preaching among Italians, among whom mendicant spirituality and the contrast with the vast superstructure of the Catholic Church provided stark contrasts. In Siano, prov. Salerno, she had converted a consisted group of about 30 people, many of whom were yet to be baptised. In 1950, Francesco Toppi (who was then based in Salerno) was sent north to help. A sparse room in an old building in the centre of Siano was rented for meetings. Cristina would commence every service with a testimony. Toppi describes a night in which Rocco Ciotta (1909-1992), an elder of the church of Lioni (AV), was also visiting. A group of locals were stirred up by the local Catholic clergy to create 'public disorder' (a charge which would see the disbandment of the church. They stood around with sticks, and Toppi noted one many holding a handkerchief to his face who, on inquiry, claimed that the pentecostals had beaten him up. It was clearly a set-up. Toppi locked the doors, and sent for the police, who arrested the trouble makers, but also Ciotta, who was not carrying identity papers. Services continued, but by police request, were carried on behind closed doors thereafter. "That evening the hall was filled with people like never before."

In her time spent in Italy -- from 1930-1935, and from 1945 to her death in 1980--Brancaccio was personally responsible, therefore, for the establishment of the church in Sarno/ Siano, in addition to which many others were converted to the movement in the area south of Naples. She spent her latter days in the ADI's Bethel retirement village in Rome. She is representative of the many women who returned from the diaspora to evangelize their home towns in Italy, for many of whom there is little historical source material. Even the short account written by Toppi--who knew her personally--is full of inconsistencies, based upon what he acknowledges is largely oral accounts.

Mark Hutchinson

Sources:

Toppi, F., 'Cristina Avitabile Brancaccio', Cristiani Oggi 16-30 June 2002.

New York Census Returns, Immigration Records, Ancestry.com.