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Name: PERLO, Filippo DD, LLD, OBE (Rt. Rev.)

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Birth Date: 8.2.1873 Caramagna, Piemonte

Death Date: 4.11.1948 Rome

Nationality: Italian

First Date: 1902

Profession: Bishop attached to the Italian Roman Catholic Mission of EA, worked for many years among the Kikuyu people

Area: Nyeri, 1909 Kikuyu, Limuru

Book Reference: Gillett, Tignor, Land 1903, KAD, Red 25, Hut, North, Drumkey, Red 22, AJ, EAHB 1904, Witchmen, Leader14, Baur, Red Book 1912

School: Turin University

General Information:

Land Grant 1903 - Rev. F. Perlo - 50 acres in railway zone, 500 acres - Limuru - Freehold and leasehold
Drumkey 1909 - Cattle Brand - J2C - Father F. Porlo - Italian Mission, Fort Hall
Agricultural Journal - Brands Allotted and Registered, June 1908 - Father F. Perlo, Italian Mission, Fort Hall - Fort Hall J2C
North - Senior member of the first Italian Consolata Catholic Mission expedition to EA 1902
EAHB 1904 - Masai-Land District Residents - Perlo, Father F. - Italian Mission, Limuru
Red Book 1912 - G. Perle and F. Perle - Nyeri
Tignor - has R.P. Perlo as in charge of Consolata Mission on 3,000 acre estate at Nyeri.
Dict. of African Christian Biography Philip Perlo was born on February 8, 1873 at Caramagna, a parish of the diocese of Turin, in a family of sound Catholic tradition. He was the son of a sister of Fr. Giacomo Camisassa. Two of his brothers became Consolata missionaries, one of whom, Gabriel, became a missionary bishop. Filippo studied in the minor and major seminaries of the diocese of Fossano, about forty kilometres from Turin. Then he entered the Metropolitan Seminary of Turin where he started his theological training which he completed at the Convitto and concluded with his graduation from the Faculty of Turin. He was ordained a priest in 1895, when he was not yet twenty-three. After nine months of pastoral work in a parish he was called to the Consolata and was appointed administrator of the seminary [?] and the attached Convitto, so that he providentially could live with his uncle and Allamano. He had a missionary vocation and initially thought of becoming a Comboni or a White Father. But when the Consolata Institute was founded he was the first to join it, and became its administrator. He was one of the two first Consolata priests to arrive in Kenya, in 1902, with two Consolata brothers. He soon became their superior and then, in 1905, the head of the autonomous Consolata mission in Kenya. In 1909 he was appointed vicar apostolic of Nyeri and ordained a bishop. With tireless energy and apostolic zeal he laid the foundations of the Catholic Church in Nyeri and Meru. In 1924 he returned to Italy to be general superior of the IMC. In 1930 he was ordered by the Holy See to resign from his responsibility of general superior and he retired to Rome where he lived until his death on November 4, 1948.

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