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{{short description|19th-century Italian Roman Catholic priest, educator, and writer}} | |||
{{dablink| '''"John Bosco"''' redirects here. For other uses, see ].}} | |||
{{Infobox Saint | |||
{{redirect|Don Bosco|other uses|Don Bosco (disambiguation)|schools of that name|Don Bosco School (disambiguation){{!}}Don Bosco School}} | |||
|name= St. John Bosco | |||
{{use dmy dates|date=February 2021}} | |||
|birth_date=] ] | |||
{{Infobox saint | |||
|death_date=], ], age 72 | |||
|honorific_prefix=] | |||
|feast_day= ] | |||
|name=John Bosco | |||
|venerated_in= ] | |||
|honorific_suffix=] | |||
|image= Portret bosko.jpg|250px | |||
|image=Don Bosco @ Torino, 1880 (original).jpg | |||
|imagesize=100px | |||
|caption= |
|caption=Bosco in 1880 | ||
|titles=Priest and Confessor <br>"Father and Teacher of Youth" | |||
|birth_place= Castelnuovo, ], ] | |||
|birth_date={{Birth date|1815|8|16|df=y}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Bosco|title=Saint John Bosco | Biography & Facts | Britannica|website=Britannica.com|access-date=29 June 2023}}</ref> | |||
|death_place=], ] | |||
|birth_place=], ], ] | |||
|titles= Holy Hierarch | |||
|death_date={{death date and age|1888|1|31|1815|8|16|df=y}} | |||
|beatified_date= ] | |||
|death_place=], ] | |||
|beatified_place= | |||
|feast_day=31 January | |||
|beatified_by= | |||
|venerated_in=]<br/>]<ref name="coecalendar">{{cite web |title=The Calendar |url=https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar |access-date=2022-07-19 |website=The Church of England}}</ref> | |||
|canonized_date=] | |||
|beatified_date=2 June 1929<ref name=saxton>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02689d.htm|title=Catholic Encyclopedia: St. John Bosco (Don Bosco)|website=Newadvent.org|access-date=29 June 2023}}</ref> | |||
|canonized_place= | |||
|beatified_place=Rome | |||
|canonized_by= | |||
|beatified_by=] | |||
|attributes=Educator, Minister | |||
|canonized_date=1 April 1934 | |||
|patronage=] ]s, ], and ]s | |||
|canonized_place=Rome | |||
|major_shrine= The Tomb of St John Bosco - ], Turin, Italy | |||
|canonized_by=] | |||
|major_shrine=], ], Italy | |||
|attributes= ], ] | |||
|patronage={{hlist|Christian apprentices|editors|publishers|students|young children|magicians|juvenile delinquents|], ]|], ]}} | |||
|issues= | |||
|suppressed_date= | |suppressed_date= | ||
| |
|prayer= | ||
|prayer_attrib= | |||
|prayer=''Most Holy Virgin Mary, Help of Christian, how sweet it is to come to your feet imploring your perpetual help. If earthly mothers cease not to remember their children, how can you, the most loving of all mothers forget me? Grant then to me, I implore you, your perpetual help in all my necessities, in every sorrow, and especially in all my temptations. I ask for your unceasing help for all who are now suffering. Help the weak, cure the sick, convert sinners. Grant through your intercessions many vocations to the religious life. Obtain for us, O Mary, Help of Christians, that having invoked you on earth we may love and eternally thank you in heaven. | |||
|prayer_attrib=St. John Bosco | |||
}} | }} | ||
'''John Melchior Bosco''', ] ({{langx|it|Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco}}; {{langx|pms|Gioann Melchior Bòsch}}; 16 August 1815<ref name="Lemoyne">{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume I, 1815 – 1840, p. 26}}</ref>{{spaced ndash}}31 January 1888),<ref>{{harvnb|Coulter|Myers|Varacalli|2012}}</ref> popularly known as '''Don Bosco''' (]: {{IPA|it|ˈdɔm ˈbɔsko, bo-|}}),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dipionline.it/dizionario/ricerca?lemma=bosco|title=Bosco|work=DiPI Online|author=]|access-date=11 January 2021|language=it}}</ref> was an ] priest, educator and writer of the 19th century. While working in ], where the population suffered many of the ill effects of ] and ], he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of ], ], and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the ].<ref>{{harvnb|Morrison|1999|p=51}}</ref> | |||
Saint '''Don Bosco''', born '''Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco''', and known in English as '''John Bosco''' (] ] – ] ]), was an ] ] priest, educator and recognized ], who put in practice the dogma of his religion, employing teaching methods based on love rather than punishment. He placed his works under the protection of ]; thus his followers styled themselves the ]. He is the only Saint with the title "Father and Teacher of Youth". | |||
A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of ], Bosco was an ardent devotee of the ] under the title ]. He later dedicated his works to de Sales when he founded the ], based in Turin.<ref>{{harvnb|Farmer|2004|p=121}}</ref> Together with ], he founded the ], now commonly known as the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, a religious congregation of nuns dedicated to the care and education of poor girls. He taught ], of whom he wrote a biography that helped the young boy be ]. He is one of the pioneers of ] societies that were initiated as collaborative financial support to young migrant Catholic workers in the city of Turin. In 1850, he drew up regulations to assist apprentices and their companions when any of them was involuntarily without work or fell ill.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lemoyne |first1=John Baptist |title=Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco |date=1967 |publisher=Salesiana Publishers |volume=IV|location= New Rochelle, New York |pages=52–56}}</ref> | |||
Bosco succeeded in establishing a network of centres to carry on his work. In recognition of his work with disadvantaged youth he was ] by the ] in 1934 . | |||
On 18 April 1869, one year after the construction of the ], Bosco established the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA) connecting it with commitments easily fulfilled by most common people, to the spirituality and the mission of the Salesian Congregation (CG 24 SDB, 1996, NR. 80). The ADMA was founded to promote the veneration of the Most Holy Sacrament and Mary Help of Christians (Don Bosco, Association of the Devotees of Mary Help of Christians, San Benigno Canavese, 1890, page 33).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.donbosco-torino.it/eng/page16.html|title=ADMA - Association Mary Help of Christians, Torino-Valdocco {{!}} 16|website=donbosco-torino.it|access-date=2017-11-27|archive-date=19 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171119172416/http://www.donbosco-torino.it/eng/page16.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
==Early ministry== | |||
Don Bosco began as the ] of a girls’ boarding school founded in Turin by the Marchioness di Barolo, called the Rifugio ("Refuge"). But he had many ministries on the side such as visiting prisoners, teaching catechism and helping out at country parishes. A growing group of boys would come to the Rifugio on Sundays and feast days to play and learn their catechism. They were too old to join the younger children in regular catechism classes in the parishes, which mostly chased them away. This was the beginning of the “Oratory of ]”. Because of all their disorderly racket, the Marchioness spared her girls the distraction by terminating Bosco’s employment at the Rifugio. | |||
In 1875, Bosco began to publish the '']''.<ref>{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume XIII (1877–1878), p. 191}}</ref> The ''Bulletin'' has remained in continuous publication, and is currently published in 50 different editions and 30 languages.<ref name="The Salesian Bulletin in the World">{{cite web|url=http://homepage.eircom.net/~sdbmedia/bulletin/sdb_bull_world.htm|title=The Salesian Bulletin in the World|publisher=Eircom.net, Dublin|access-date=2 May 2010}}</ref> In 1876, he founded a movement of laity, the ], with the same educational mission to the poor.<ref>{{cite web|title=Salesian Cooperators|url=http://www.salesians.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72&Itemid=95|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110220072626/http://www.salesians.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72&Itemid=95|archive-date=20 February 2011|access-date=9 March 2012|publisher=Salesians of Don Bosco, Province of Mary Help of Christians, Melbourne}}</ref> Bosco established a network of organizations and centres to carry on his work. | |||
Don Bosco and his Oratory wandered around town for a few years and were turned out of several places in succession. Finally, he was able to rent a shed from a Mr. Pinardi. His mother moved in with him. The Oratory had a home, then, in 1846, in the new Valdocco neighborhood on the north end of town. Next year, he and "Mamma Margaret" began taking in orphans. | |||
Bosco's sainthood cause was opened after his death, and following his ] in 1929, he was canonized by ] in 1934. | |||
==Foundation of the Salesian Family== | |||
{{Wikify|date=May 2007}} | |||
{{Copyedit|date=May 2007}} | |||
] | |||
Even before this, however, Don Bosco had the help of several friends at the Oratory. There were zealous priests like ] and Don Borel, some older boys like Giuseppe Buzzetti, ], Giovanni Cagliero and Carlo Gastini, and Don Bosco’s own mother. Some local politicians helped out while others hindered his efforts. | |||
==Life== | |||
One friend was Justice Minister ], who did not support the Church, but nevertheless recognized the value of Don Bosco’s work. While Rattazzi was pushing a bill through the Sardinian legislature to suppress religious orders, he advised Don Bosco on how to get around the law and found a religious order to keep the Oratory going after its founder’s death. Bosco had been thinking about that problem, too, and had been slowly organizing his helpers into a loose “Congregation of St. Francis de Sales”. He was also training select older boys for the priesthood on the side. Another supporter of the religious order idea was the reigning Pope, ]. | |||
John Bosco was born on the evening of 16 August 1815 in the hillside hamlet of Becchi, Italy. Becchi is located in a region that was called Castelnuovo d'Asti, which was later renamed ] in honour of the saint.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-01-09|title=St. John Bosco - Patron Saint of Young People and Editors / Publishers {{!}} Christian Apostles.com|url=https://christianapostles.com/st-john-bosco/|access-date=2021-01-09|website=ChristianApostles.com}}</ref> He was the youngest son of Francesco Bosco (1784–1817) and ] (1788–1856). He had two older brothers, Antonio and Giuseppe (1813–1862).<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 3, Pages 20-28">{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume I, Chapter 3, pp. 20–28}}</ref> The Boscos of Becchi were farmhands of the Moglian Family. He was born in a time of great shortage and famine in the Piedmontese countryside, following the devastation wrought by the ] and drought in 1817.<ref>The ''Piedmont drought'' lasted from 1817 to 1819. See The Majesty of Charleston by Peter Beney, p.64, 2005 edition.</ref> | |||
When Bosco was little more than two years old, his father died, which left the support of three boys to his mother.<ref name=saxton/> She played a strong role in Bosco's formation and personality,<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 7, Pages 44-49">{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume I, Chapter 7, pp. 44–49}}</ref> and was an early supporter of her son's ideals.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sdb.org/ENG/Pagine/_2_12_19_25_.htm|title=Venerable Margaret Occhiena|date=8 February 1995|publisher=Salesian Society of Don Bosco|access-date=17 May 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100520062334/http://www.sdb.org/ENG/Pagine/_2_12_19_25_.htm|archive-date=20 May 2010}}</ref> In 1825, when he was nine, Bosco had the first of a series of dreams that would play an influential role in his outlook and work. This first dream "left a profound impression on him for the rest of his life" according to his memoirs.<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 15, Pages 95-96">{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume I, Chapter 15, pp. 95–96}}</ref> Bosco apparently saw a multitude of very poor boys playing and blaspheming, and a man, who "appeared, nobly attired, with a manly and imposing bearing",<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 15, Pages 95-96" /> and said to him, "You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows, but with gentleness and kindness. So begin right now to show them that sin is ugly and virtue beautiful."<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 15, Pages 95-96" /> | |||
In 1854, when the ] was occupied in a discussion of whether the state had the right to confiscate ecclesiastical properties, Bosco spread a series of dreams which forecast the death of members of the Savoy court or of politicians striving for the ]. His activity, which had been described as having "manifest blackmailing intents,"<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Medioevo|date=June 2007|first=Erberto|last=Petoia|pages=p. 70|title=I sinistri presagi di Don Giovanni Bosco}}</ref> ended only after the intervention of Prime Minister ]. | |||
] | |||
In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Don Alasonatti, 15 seminarians and 1 high school boy and formed them into the “Society of St. Francis de Sales”. This was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work. When the group had their next meeting, they voted on the admission of Joseph Rossi as a lay member, the first Salesian brother. The Salesian Congregation was divided into priests, seminarians and “coadjutors” (the lay brothers). | |||
Bosco, when he was ten years old started watching his classmates' attitudes, and in every fight was the referee. The older boys were scared of him because he knew their strengths and their weaknesses.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Memorias del oratorio|last=Bosco|first=John|year=1976|location=Turin|pages=5}}</ref> When travelling entertainers performed at a local feast in the nearby hills, he watched and studied the jugglers' tricks and the acrobats' secrets. He would then put on shows of his skills as a juggler, magician, and acrobat,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2021595.stm|title=Magician priest wants patron saint of magic|work=BBC News|date=2002-06-02|last=Willey|first=David}}</ref> with prayers before and after the performance.<ref name="Magnificat">{{cite web|title=31 January: Saint John Bosco|work=Magnificat.ca|access-date=2012-03-09|url=http://magnificat.ca/cal/engl/01-31.htm|date=2008-11-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081114092334/http://magnificat.ca/cal/engl/01-31.htm|archive-date=14 November 2008}}</ref> The money that he needed to prepare the shows was taken from selling the birds that he hunted and given to him by his mother.<ref>{{cite book|title=Memoirs of the Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales 1815 – 1855: The autobiography of Saint John Bosco|chapter-url=http://www.bosconet.aust.com/moparts/ch03.html|date=6 December 2007|translator=Daniel Lyons, SDB|editor1=Eugene Ceria SDB|editor2=Lawrence Castelvecchi SDB|editor3=Michael Mendl SDB|chapter=3|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071206015444/http://www.bosconet.aust.com/moparts/ch03.html|archive-date=6 December 2007}}</ref> | |||
Poverty prevented any serious attempt at schooling. His early years were spent as a shepherd,<ref name="saxton"/> and he received his first instruction from ] who "was impressed by John’s memory and understanding of the sermons he had heard at a parish mission in a nearby Church."<ref>{{cite web |title=www.salesians.org.uk/uploads/footprintsvocationdonbosco.pdf |url=https://www.salesians.org.uk/uploads/footprintsvocationdonbosco.pdf}}</ref> His childhood experiences are thought to have inspired him to become a ]. Being a priest was then more commonly a profession for the privileged classes than for farmers.<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 22, Pages 142-152">{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume I, Chapter 22, pp. 142–152}}</ref> Some biographers portray his older brother, Antonio, as the main obstacle for Bosco's ambition to study, as Antonio protested that John was just "a farmer like us!"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.donbosco.org.au/DonBoscoStory.htm|title=Don Bosco, Friend of the Youth|publisher=Salesians of Australia|access-date=30 May 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100608193518/http://www.donbosco.org.au/DonBoscoStory.htm|archive-date=8 June 2010}}</ref> | |||
Next, he worked with Don Pestarino, ] and a group of girls in the hill town of ]. In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys. They were called the “Daughters of Mary Help of Christians”. In 1874, he founded yet another group: the “Salesian Cooperators”. These were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians, but would not join a religious order. | |||
On a cold morning in February 1827, John left his home and went to look for work as a farm servant. At 12, he found life at home unbearable because of the continuous quarrels with Antonio. Having to face life by himself at such a young age may have developed his later sympathies to help abandoned boys. After begging unsuccessfully for work, he ended up at the wine farm of Louis Moglia.<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 22, Pages 142-152"/> Although he could pursue some studies by himself, he was not able to attend school for two more years. In 1830, he met ], a young priest who identified some natural talent and supported his first schooling.<ref name="Lemoyne, Vol I, Chapter 24, Pages 159-163">{{harvnb|Lemoyne|Amadei|Ceria|1965–1988|loc=Volume I, Chapter 24, pp. 159–163}}</ref> Bosco's mother, Margherita, managed to earn enough money to finance his education. In 1835, Bosco entered the seminary at ], next to the ].<ref> Now hosts an exhibition dedicated to the John Bosco.</ref> In 1841, after six years of study, he was ] a priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday by Archbishop Franzoni of Turin. He was twenty-six years old.<ref name=saxton/> | |||
The story of the departure of the first Salesians for America in 1875 is based on the missionary ideal of Don Bosco. All his life he wanted to be a missionary, and his biographer mentions that he was already thinking about it when he was a young student at Chieri. After his ordination, he would have become a missionary had not his director, Joseph Cafasso, opposed the idea. He eagerly read the Italian edition of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith and used this magazine to illustrate his Cattolico provveduto (1853) and his Month of May booklets (1858). | |||
===Priesthood and first apostolates=== | |||
When he founded the Salesian Society, the thought of the missions still obsessed him, and he would gladly have sent his religious had he not then completely lacked the means. Father Lemoyne states that Don Bosco had to be satisfied for a long time to just ardently study the map of the world or to speak to the Oratory boys about the labors of missionaries, or the martyrdom suffered by some of them, or about the people they converted to the Gospel. | |||
] | |||
After ordination, Bosco went to Turin, where Cafasso headed the Institute of Saint Francis of Assisi, which provided higher education for the diocesan priests. Turin then had a population of 117,000 inhabitants. The city reflected the effects of industrialization and urbanization. Numerous poor families lived in the slums of the city and had come from the countryside in search of a better life. During his studies, Bosco accompanied Cafasso in visiting the prisons and became concerned regarding the recidivism of young offenders. He began to work with orphaned and abandoned boys, teaching them catechism and helping them find work.<ref></ref> Upon completion of his studies, Cafasso secured for Bosco an appointment as almoner of the Rifugio (Refuge), a girls' boarding school founded in ] by the ] Giulia di Barolo, so that he could remain in Turin.<ref></ref> His other ministries included visiting prisoners, teaching ], and helping out at many country parishes. | |||
Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry to be inefficient. He decided that it was necessary to try another form of apostolate, and he began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops and marketplaces. They were pavers, stonecutters, masons, and plasterers who had come from far away, as he recalled in his brief ''Memoires''. | |||
About 1871-72 one if his "dreams" encouraged him. He found himself transported to a vast plain, inhabited by primitive peoples, who spent their time hunting or fighting among themselves or against soldiers in European uniforms. Along came a band of missionaries, but they were all horribly massacred. A second group appeared with an air of joy about them; they were preceded by a group of children. Don Bosco at once recognized them as Salesians. Astonished, he witnessed an unexpected change when the fierce savages laid down their arms and listened to the missionaries. The dream made a great impression on Don Bosco, because he tried hard to identify the men and the country of the dream. | |||
The Oratorio was not simply a charitable institution, and its activities were not limited to Sundays. For Don Bosco, it became his permanent occupation. He looked for jobs for the unemployed. Some of the boys did not have sleeping quarters and slept under bridges or in bleak public dormitories. Twice, he tried to provide lodgings in his house. The first time, they stole the blankets; the second, time, they emptied the hayloft. He did not give up, and in May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valencia in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother. He and his mother began taking in orphans. The boys sheltered by Don Bosco numbered 36 in 1852, 115 in 1854, 470 in 1860, and 600 in 1861, reaching a maximum of 800 sometime later.<ref name=ewtn>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/DBOSCO.HTM|title="Don Bosco's Story", ewtn}}</ref> | |||
It is said that he searched for three years among documents, trying to get information about different countries. For a moment he thought it might be Abyssinia, then Hong Kong, then Australia, then India. One day, however, a request came from the republic of Argentina, which turned him towards the Indians of Patagonia. To his surprise, a study of the people there convinced him that the country and its inhabitants were the ones he had seen in his dream. | |||
Bosco and his oratory moved around town for several years; he was turned out of several places in succession. After only two months based in the church of St. Martin, the entire neighbourhood expressed its annoyance with the noise coming from the boys at play. A formal complaint was lodged against them with the municipality. Rumours also circulated that the meetings conducted by the priest with his boys were dangerous; their recreation could be turned into a revolution against the government. The group was evicted.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book|first=Charles|last=D'Espiney|title=Don Bosco: A Sketch of His Life and Miracles|date=1884}}</ref> | |||
He regarded it as a sign of Providence and set about the realization of a project long dear to him. Adopting a special way of evangelization that would not expose his missionaries suddenly to wild, uncivilized tribes, he proposed to set up bases in safe locations where their missionary efforts were to be launched. The above request from Argentina came about as follows: Towards the end of 1874, he received letters from that country requesting that he accept an Italian parish in Buenos Aires and a school for boys at San Nicolas de los Arroyos. Gazzolo, the Argentinean Consul at Savona, had sent the request, for he had taken a great interest in the Salesian work in Liguria and hoped to obtain the Salesians' help for the benefit of his country. Negotiations started after Archbishop Aneiros of Buenos Aires had indicated that he would be glad to receive the Salesians. They were successful mainly because of the good offices of the priest of San Nicolas, Pedro Ceccarelli, a friend of Gazzolo, who was in touch with and had the confidence of Don Bosco. In an unforgettable ceremony on the 29th of January, 1875, Don Bosco was able to convey the great news to the Oratory in the presence of Gazzolo. On February 5, he announced the fact in a circular letter to all Salesians asking volunteers to apply in writing. He proposed that the first missionary departure start in October. | |||
===Work with apprentices=== | |||
This news aroused great enthusiasm everywhere, and practically all the Salesians volunteered for the missions. Certainly a new era had now begun for the Oratory and the young Society. | |||
In the archives of the Salesian Congregation is a contract of apprenticeship, dated November 1851; another one on stamped paper costing 40 cents, dated 8 February 1852; and others have later dates. They are among the first contracts of apprenticeship to be found in Turin. All of them are signed by the employer, the apprentice, and Don Bosco. In those contracts, Don Bosco touched on many sensitive issues. Some employers customarily made servants and scullery boys of the apprentices. Don Bosco obliged them to agree to employ the boys only in their acknowledged trade. Employers used to beat the boys, and Don Bosco required them to agree that corrections be made only verbally. He cared for their health and demanded that they be given rest on feast days and an annual holiday. Despite all the efforts and contracts, the situation of the apprentices of the time remained difficult.<ref name=ewtn/>{{Dead link|date=October 2024}} | |||
One influential friend was the Piedmontese justice minister ]. He was ] in his politics but saw some value in Bosco's work.<ref name="This Saint's for You!">{{cite book|last=Craughwell|first=Thomas J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bl-2P6HSFVwC|title=This Saint's for You!|pages=156–157|publisher=Quirk Books|date=2007|isbn=9781594741845}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Jestice|first=Phyllis G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H5cQH17-HnMC&q=john+bosco+rattazzi&pg=PA138|title=Holy People of the World|page=138|publisher=ABC-CLIO|date=2004|isbn=9781576073551}}</ref> While Rattazzi was pushing a bill through the ] legislature to suppress religious orders, he advised Bosco on how to get around the law. He found a religious order to keep the oratory going after its founder's death.<ref name="This Saint's for You!"/> Bosco had been thinking about that problem too and had been slowly organizing his helpers into a loose Congregation of St. Francis de Sales. He was also training select older boys for the priesthood. Another supporter of the idea of establishing a religious order to carry out Bosco's vision was the reigning pope, ].<ref>{{cite book|last=Villefranche|first=Jacques-Melchior|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qwsEAAAAYAAJ|title=The Life of Don Bosco: Founder of the Salesian Society|pages=15–16|publisher=Burns & Oates|year=1898}}</ref> | |||
By this time ], with borders similar to those of today, under Piedmontese leadership. The poorly-governed Papal States were merged into the new kingdom. It was generally thought that Don Bosco supported the Pope, but he never commented on politics. | |||
Bosco disliked the ideals that had been exported by Revolutionary France, as part of the process of ], and called ] and ] "two vicious leaders of incredulity".<ref>{{cite book|title=Giovanni Bosco: 'Storia ecclesiastica ad uso delle scuole'|location=Rome|publisher=Editrice LAS|date=1976|volume=37|edition=19600|page=496|language=it}}</ref> He favoured an ] view of politics that acknowledged the supreme authority of the pope. In 1854, when the ] was about to pass a law suppressing monastic orders and confiscating ecclesiastical properties, Bosco reported a series of dreams about "great funerals at court" that referred to politicians or members of the Savoy court.<ref name="The Dreams of St. John Bosco">{{cite book|last=Mendl|first=Michael|url=http://www.bosconet.aust.com/DBD.html#ftn.d0e6|chapter=The Dreams of St. John Bosco|title=Journal of Salesian Studies|volume=12|date=2004|edition=2|pages=321–348|access-date=12 July 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170208225805/http://www.bosconet.aust.com/DBD.html#ftn.d0e6|archive-date=8 February 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
In November 1854, Bosco sent a letter to King ] and admonished him to oppose the confiscation of church property and suppression of the orders; the King failed to respond.<ref name="bosconet.aust.com">{{cite book|title=Memoirs of the Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales 1815 – 1855: The autobiography of Saint John Bosco|chapter-url=http://www.bosconet.aust.com/moparts/ch55.html|date=6 December 2007|translator=Daniel Lyons SDB|editor1=Eugene Ceria SDB|editor2=Lawrence Castelvecchi SDB|editor3=Michael Mendl SDB|chapter=55|page=802|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071206015444/http://www.bosconet.aust.com/moparts/ch55.html|archive-date=6 December 2007}}</ref> His actions, which had been described by the Italian historian Roberto Petoia as having "manifest blackmailing intentions",<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Medioevo|date=June 2007|first=Erberto|last=Petoia|page=70|title=I sinistri presage di Don Giovanni Bosco}}</ref> ended only after the intervention of the then prime minister, ]. The king's family suffered several deaths in a short period. From January to May 1855, the king's mother ] (aged 54), his wife ] (aged 32), their newborn son Vittorio Emanuele, Count of Genoa (nearly four months old), and his only brother, ] (aged 32), all died.<ref name="The Dreams of St. John Bosco"/><ref name="bosconet.aust.com"/> | |||
==The Preventive System== | |||
Don Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education". He believed education to be a "matter of the heart," and said that the boys must not only be loved, but know that they are loved. He also pointed to three components of the Preventive System: reason, religion, and kindness. Music and games also went into the mix. | |||
Opposition to Bosco and his work came from various quarters. Traditionalist clergy accused him of stealing the young and old people away from their own parishes. Nationalist politicians, including some clergy, saw his several hundred young men as a recruiting ground for revolution. The Marquis de Cavour, the chief of police in Turin, regarded the open-air catechisms as overtly political and a threat to the state and was highly suspicious of Bosco's support for the powers of the papacy. Bosco was interrogated on several occasions; no charges were made. Closure may have been prevented by orders from the king that Bosco was not to be disturbed.<ref>{{harvnb|Butler|1999|loc=Volume I}}</ref> Several attempts were also made on Bosco's life, including a near-stabbing, bludgeoning, and a shooting. Early biographers put that down to the growing influence of the ] in opposition to Catholic clergy.<ref name="reference">Charles D'Espiney, ''Don Bosco: A Sketch of His Life and Miracles'', 1884</ref> | |||
Don Bosco gained a reputation early on of being a saint and miracle worker. For this reason Rua, Buzzetti, Cagliero and several others began to keep chronicles of his sayings and doings. Preserved in the Salesian archives, these are invaluable resources for studying his life. Later on, the Salesian Don Lemoyne collected and combined them into 45 scrapbooks with oral testimonies and Don Bosco’s own Memoirs of the Oratory. His aim was to write a detailed biography. This project eventually became a nineteen-volume affair, carried out by him and two other authors. These are the Biographical Memoirs. It is clearly not the work of professional historians, but a somewhat uneven compilation of those chronicles that preserve the memories of teenage boys and young men under the spell of a remarkable and beloved father figure. | |||
===Foundation of Salesians of Don Bosco=== | |||
Some of the boys helped by Don Bosco decided to do what he was doing: working in the service of abandoned boys. That was the origin of the Salesian Congregation. Among the first members were Michael Rua,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.salesianmissions.org/about-us/bl-michael-rua-beatified-1972|title=Bl. Michael Rua (Beatified: 1972)|publisher=Salesian Missions|date=|accessdate=7 November 2017}}</ref> John Cagliero (who later became a Cardinal), and John Baptist Francesca. In 1857 Bosco drew up a set of rules for his helpers. This rule was approved definitively in 1873 by Pope Pius IX as the Rule of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales. | |||
In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians, and one high school boy and formed them into the Society of St. Francis de Sales. That was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work. When the group had its next meeting, it voted on the admission of Joseph Rossi as a lay member, the first Salesian brother. The Salesian Congregation was divided into priests, seminarians, and coadjutors (the lay brothers). | |||
Bosco then worked with ] and a group of girls in the hill town of ]. In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/maria-domenica-mazzarello-santa_(Dizionario_Biografico)/|title=MARIA DOMENICA Mazzarello, santa in "Dizionario Biografico"}}</ref> They were called the ]. In 1874, he founded yet another group, the ], who were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians but would not join a religious order.<ref></ref> The first Salesians departed for ] in 1875. After his ordination, Bosco himself would have become a missionary if his director, ], had not opposed the idea. Bosco nevertheless eagerly read the Italian edition of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith and used this magazine to illustrate his ''Cattolico Provveduto'' (1853) and his ''Month of May'' booklets (1858). | |||
When Bosco founded the Salesian Society, the thought of the missions still obsessed him but completely lacked the financial means. For three years he collected information about different countries. A request from Argentina turned him towards the Indians of ], and a study of its people convinced him that the country and its inhabitants were the ones that he had seen in his dream. In late 1874, Bosco received letters from the Argentine consul at Savona requesting that he accept an Italian parish in Buenos Aires and a school for boys at San Nicolas de Los Arroyos. {{citation needed|date=June 2012}} | |||
Bosco regarded it as a sign of Providence and started to prepare a mission. Adopting a way of ] that would not expose his missionaries to wild, uncivilized tribes, he proposed setting up bases in safe locations at which missionary efforts were to be launched. Negotiations started after Archbishop Aneiros of ] had indicated that he would be glad to receive the Salesians. In a ceremony held on 29 January 1875, Bosco was able to convey the great news to the oratory. On 5 February, he announced the fact in a circular letter to all Salesians asking volunteers to apply in writing. He proposed for the first missionary departure to start in October. There were many volunteers.{{citation needed|date=June 2012}} | |||
===''Salesian Preventive System'' and other works=== | |||
{{Main|Salesian Preventive System}} | |||
] | |||
In the years that Bosco had spent running his oratory and giving spiritual and practical instruction to the boys he had housed there, he relied on a different approach to education and general instruction, which he believed to be superior to traditional educational methods, such as ], which he labelled as a repressive system of education. On 12 March 1877, Bosco gave an opening address on the systems of education during the day for the opening of the St. Peter's Youth Center in the new quarters of the Patronage de Saint Pierre in ] in which he first mentioned the term "Preventive System".<ref>{{cite web |title=The Salesian Preventive System of St. John Bosco (Don Bosco) (Educational Philosophy of Don Bosco - Don Bosco's Way, Style, Approach, Method, System, etc.... of Educating and Accompanying Young People Today) |url=http://www.donboscowest.org/pedagogy/preventive-system |website=donboscowest.org/ |publisher=Don Bosco West |access-date=15 April 2020}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
Upon his return to ], Bosco wrote down the address as a polished essay under the title ''The Preventive System in the Education of the Youth'', which was published in 1877 and in which he included in the initial draft of the Rule for the Salesian Order.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bosco |first1=Giovanni Melchor |title=Regolamento per le case della Società di S. Francesco di Sales |journal=Tipografia Salesiana |date=1877 |issue=OE XXIX |pages=3–13}}</ref> It espoused the values of reason, religion, and loving kindness with a goal of producing "good Christians and honest citizens".<ref name="The Salesian Bulletin in the World" /> That was one type of Bosco's systematic exposition of his educational system. His preferred way to explain his educational approach was through educational novels and narrative pedagogy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Salesian Historical Institute |title=Salesian Sources 1: Don Bosco and his work |publisher=LAS – Kristu Jyoti |year=2017 |isbn=978-81-933745-7-3 |location=Rome – Bangalore |pages=1119–1479 |language=English}}</ref> Though some of the ideas were not innovative, Bosco having drawn the inspiration for his system through the contemporary criticisms of the punitive and outdated educational systems prevalent in Europe during his time, and he was one of the first to combat it and to put his criticisms into practice.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Frith-Powell |first1=Louise |title=The "Preventive System": Walking Alongside |url=https://humanumreview.com/articles/the-preventive-system-walking-alongside |website=humanumreview.com |publisher=Humanum Review |access-date=15 April 2020}}</ref> | |||
Though Bosco's written works were little known outside of his own order and the subscribers of his '']'', which he founded in August 1877, he wrote frequently and voluminously. Though Don Bosco was described as more of a man of action than a scholar,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nanni |first1=Carlo |title=Il Sistema Preventivo di Don Bosco |journal=Elledici |date=2003 |page=7}}</ref> he wrote, adapted and published many works on religion, history, catechesis and Catholic church. The full list of his publications is available in a dedicated website . He penned the 1881 ''A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire'', which was translated and continued to the present by ] and was noted by scholars for its cultural importance on the knowledge base of ancient to modern civilization.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bosco |first1=Giovanni Melchor |title=A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire, Tr. and Completed to the Present Time by J.D. Morell |date=22 October 2018 |publisher=Creative Media Partners, LLC |isbn=978-0344015984 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2CqdvgEACAAJ}}</ref> He was also a skilled biographer. His two most well-known biographies were on his mentor, ],<ref>Under ], Bosco would later become a priest when he started the work. It has since spread worldwide through the religious congregation that he founded: the Salesians of Don Bosco. He has also been declared a saint and their ] has been renamed in his honor.</ref> and one of his students, ], which would later be instrumental in his ].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bosco |first1=Giovanni Melchor |title=The Life of St. Dominic Savio |url=http://olrl.org/books/savio.shtml |publisher=Our Lady of the Rosary Library |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061202163418/http://olrl.org/books/savio.shtml |access-date=15 April 2020|archive-date=2 December 2006 }}</ref> | |||
==Works== | |||
Following are Bosco's works in roughly chronological order. | |||
; Essays published in the volumes of ''Catholic Readings'' (''Letture Cattoliche''), 1853–1884<ref>{{cite web |title=Writings of Don Bosco |url=http://homepage.eircom.net/~sdbmedia/books/list/sdb_dbwritings.htm |access-date=July 15, 2023}}</ref> | |||
*1853 | |||
**”Announcements for Catholics” | |||
**“The Instructed Catholic” | |||
**“Historical Notes on the Miracle of the Blessed Sacrament at Turin” | |||
**“Fact of Our Times” | |||
**“A Dispute Between a Lawyer and a Protestant Minister” | |||
**“Notes on the Life of the Youth Luigi Comollo” | |||
**“The Conversion of a Waldensian” | |||
**“A Collection of Strange Contemporary Happenings” | |||
**“The Six Sundays in Honour of St. Aloysius Gonzaga” | |||
**“The Jubilee” | |||
*1855 | |||
**“An Easy Method of Learning Sacred History” | |||
**“Talks on Confession” | |||
**“Life of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours” | |||
**“The Value of a Good Upbringing” | |||
*1856 | |||
**“Life of St. Pancras” | |||
*1857 | |||
**“Life of St. Peter” | |||
**“Two Conferences on Purgatory” | |||
**“Life of St. Paul” | |||
**“Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Linus, Cletus, and Clement” | |||
**“Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Anacletus, Evaristus, and Alexander I” | |||
**“Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Sixtus, Telesphorus, and Hyginus” | |||
*1858 | |||
**“Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Anicetus, Soter, Eleutherus, Victor, and Zephirinus” | |||
**“The Month of May, Consecrated to Mary Immaculate” | |||
**“The Christian’s ‘Porta Tecum’” | |||
**“Life of the Sovereign Pontiff Callistus I” | |||
*1859 | |||
**“Life of the Youth Dominic Savio” | |||
**“Life of the Sovereign Pontiff Urban I” | |||
**“Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Pontian, Anteros, and Fabian” | |||
**“The Persecution of Decius and the Pontificate of St. Cornelius I” | |||
*1860 | |||
**“Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs St. Lucian I and St. Stephen I” | |||
**“The Pontificate of St. Sixtus II and the Glories of St. Laurence” | |||
**“Biography of Fr. Joseph Cafasso” | |||
*1861 | |||
**“A Family of Martyrs” | |||
**“Biographical Note on Michael Magone” | |||
**“The Pontificate of St. Dionysius” | |||
**“Biography of Silvio Pellico” | |||
*1862 | |||
**“The Pontificates of St. Felix I and St. Eutychian” | |||
**“The New Charm of an Old Soldier of Napoleon” | |||
*1863 | |||
**“Historical Notes on BI. Catherine De-Mattei” | |||
**“The Pontificate of St. Caius” | |||
*1864 | |||
**“The Pontificates of SS. Marcellinus and Marcellus” | |||
**“Episodes Pleasant and Contemporary” | |||
**“The Little Shepherd of the alps” | |||
*1865 | |||
**“The House of Fortune” | |||
**“Dialogues on the Jubilee” | |||
**“The Peace of the Church” | |||
**“Life of Bl. Mary of the Angels, C.S.” | |||
*1866 | |||
**“Valentine or the Opposed Vocation” | |||
*1867 | |||
**“The Centenary of St. Peter the apostle” | |||
**“Life of St. Joseph” | |||
**“News and Stories” | |||
*1868 | |||
**“Severino, or the adventures of a Young alpinist” | |||
**“Marvels of the Mother of God” | |||
**“Life of St. John the Baptist” | |||
**“Remembrance of a Solemnity” | |||
*1869 | |||
**“The Catholic Church and Its Hierarchy” | |||
**“Association of the Devotees of Mary, Help of Christians” | |||
**“The General Councils and the Catholic Church” | |||
**“Angelina, or the Little Orphan Girl of the Apennines” | |||
*1870 | |||
**“Nine Days Consecrated to the august Mother of Our Saviour” | |||
**“Church History” | |||
*1871 | |||
**“The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin at La Salette” | |||
**“Pleasing Facts From the Life of Pius IX” | |||
*1872 | |||
**“The Centenary of St. Eusebius the Great” | |||
*1874 | |||
**“Massimino, or the Encounter of a Boy with a Protestant” | |||
*1875 | |||
**“The Jubilee of 1875” | |||
**“Mary, Help of Christians” | |||
*1877 | |||
**“The Little Cloud of Carmel” | |||
*1878 | |||
**“The Loveliest Flower of the Apostolic College” | |||
*1883 | |||
**“The Catholic in the World | |||
*1884 | |||
**“New Stories of Luigi Comolli” | |||
; Series started by Don Bosco | |||
*''The Friend of Youth'', a politico-religious paper (1849) | |||
**1851 | |||
***Synoptic tablet (on the Catholic Church) | |||
***Flying leaflets | |||
*''Il Galantuomo''. A national almanac began (1854) | |||
*''Salesian Bulletin'' (since 1877) | |||
; Critical works | |||
*''Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco'' (critical edition published in 1977, originally published as a dream journal in 1855) | |||
*''The Preventive System in the Education of the Youth'' (1877) | |||
*''A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire'' (1881) | |||
; Posthumous works | |||
*''Memoirs of the Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales'' (written between 1815 and 1855, published posthumously in 1989) | |||
*''The Spiritual Writings of Saint John Bosco'' (1984) | |||
*''Dreams, Visions, and Prophecies of Don Bosco'' (1999) | |||
*''The Unpublished Don Bosco'' (compiled by Mario Balbi and published in 2005) | |||
], ].]] | |||
==Death and canonization== | ==Death and canonization== | ||
{{multiple image | |||
|total_width= 400 | |||
|image1 = Don-bosco-pine-p182.jpg | |||
|image2 = DonBoscoFotoThalerTamas.JPG | |||
|footer = '''(left)''': As Don Bosco lay dying, all begged to see him and kiss his hand for the last time, image from ''The Venerable Don Bosco'' book (1916); '''(right)''': Don Bosco's relic in the Saint Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, 2013 | |||
}} | |||
Saint Bosco died on 31 January 1888. His funeral was attended by thousands. The Archdiocese of Turin investigated, and witnesses were called to determine if Bosco was worthy to be declared a saint. The Salesians, Daughters, and Cooperators gave supportive testimonies. ] had known Bosco and pushed the cause forward. Pius XI ] Bosco on 2 June 1929 and canonised him on Easter Sunday (1 April) 1934, when he was given the title of "Father and Teacher of Youth". ] proclaimed him ] of Catholic publishers in 1949. His repertoire of writings and publications consists of over 220 titles collected in 38 volumes.<ref>{{cite web |title=San Giovanni Bosco – Opere Edite. Elenco cronologico |url=http://www.donboscosanto.eu/elenco_cronologico_oe.php |access-date=2023-06-28 |website=DonBoscoSanto.eu}}</ref> They were printed at his own peerless paper-to-print workshop, where boys learned the art of printing and publishing in view of future employment.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cerrato |first1=Natale |last2=Ribotta |first2=Michael |date=1993<!--Spring 1993--> |title=EXPO' 84 and Don Bosco's peerless-to- paper-to-print presentation |url=https://www.salesian.online/archives/11227<!--https://www.salesian.online/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/3-N.-Cerrato-M.-Ribotta-EXPO-84-and-Don-Boscos-Peerless-to-Paper-to-Print-Presentation.pdf--> |journal=Journal of Salesian Studies|volume=IV|issue=1|publisher=Institute of Salesian Studies Berkeley California|pages=87–98|access-date=2023-06-28 |via=Salesian OnLine Resources, 13 April 2020}}</ref> | |||
Bosco had been popularly known as the patron saint of illusionists. On 30 January 2002, ] petitioned ] to declare Bosco formally to the patron of stage ].<ref name="magic">{{cite web|title=Magicians Want Don Bosco Declared Their Patron|url=http://www.zenit.org/article-3537?l=english|access-date=7 August 2011|date=2002-01-29|publisher=Zenit News Agency|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807061747/http://www.zenit.org/article-3537?l=english|archive-date=7 August 2011}}</ref> Catholic stage magicians who practice ] venerate Bosco by offering free magic shows to underprivileged children on his feast day.<ref name="magic" /> Bosco's work was carried on by an early pupil, collaborator, and companion, ], who was appointed rector major of the Salesian Society by ] in 1888. He is ] in the ] with a ] on 31 January.<ref name="coecalendar" /> | |||
Don Bosco died on ], ]. His funeral was attended by thousands, and very soon after there were popular demands to have him canonized. Accordingly, the Archdiocese of Turin began to investigate and witnesses were called to determine if his holiness were worthy of a declared Saint. As expected, the Salesians, Daughters and Cooperators gave fulsome testimonies. But many remembered Don Bosco’s controversies in the 1870s with Archbishop Gastaldi, and some others high in the Church hierarchy thought him a loose cannon and a wheeler-dealer. In the ] process, testimony was heard about how he went around Gastaldi to get some of his men ordained, and about their lack of academic preparation and ecclesiastical decorum. Political cartoons from the 1860s and later showing him shaking money from the pockets of old ladies, or going off to America for the same purpose, and were not forgotten. These opponents, including some cardinals, were in position to block his canonization and many Salesians feared around 1925 that they would succeed. | |||
==In popular culture== | |||
Pope ] had known Don Bosco, and pushed the cause forward. Bosco was declared Blessed in 1929, and a Saint on Easter Sunday of 1934 and was given the title of "Father and Teacher of Youth". <ref name="catholic">http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=63</ref> | |||
Bosco is the patron saint of ], which he supposedly foresaw in a dream concerning an extraordinary new civilization that would flourish in central Brazil. ] are named after him, in countries as diverse as Australia, India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Lebanon and the United States. Several institutions in ], were also named for Bosco, including St John Bosco Parish, St John Bosco Primary School, and ]. | |||
Bosco was the subject of the 1935 biopic '']'', directed by ], and was played by the actor ]. Bosco was also the subject of two Italian movies: '']'' (1988) and '']'' (2004). A ] in ], Argentina, is named after him. An Italian church, San Giovanni Bosco, is named after him in ], Canada, in the ] area. | |||
== Monuments and memorials to Bosco == | |||
* ] | |||
<gallery mode=packed heights=110px> | |||
==Study resources== | |||
File:Memoriale Don Bosco in Castelnuovo.jpg|Monument in Castelnuovo, Italy | |||
===Sources=== | |||
File:Basilica Don Bosco.jpg|Basilica Don Bosco in ], Italy | |||
*{{cite book|first=Giovanni|last=Bosco|title=Memoirs of the Oratory|city=New Rochelle, New Jersey|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|year=1989}} | |||
File:St Don Bosco 2.jpg|Statue of Saint John Bosco, ], Spain | |||
*{{cite book|last=Amadei|first=Angelo|coauthors=Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, Eugenio Ceria|title=Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco|city=New Rochelle, New Jersey|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|years=1965-2004}}. These volumes translate {{cite book|last=id.|title=Memorie Biografiche di San Giovanni Bosco, 19 vol.|city=Turin|publisher=SEI|years=1898-1939}} | |||
File:Monumento a Don Bosco (Funes).jpg|Monument in Funes, Santa Fe, Argentina | |||
File:Don boscojfc.JPG|Statue in ], Philippines | |||
File: Don Bosco statue at the Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Calamba, Laguna.jpg|Statue at the Diocesan Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, ], Philippines | |||
Centro de Rio do Sul - 05.06.2021 28.jpg|Statue at Catedral São João Batista (Rio do Sul), Brazil | |||
Lutomiersk, zespół klasztorny-011.JPG|Statue in Lutomiersk Monastery, Poland | |||
</gallery> | |||
== |
==References== | ||
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=François|last=Desramaut|title=Don Bosco et son Temps|city=Turin|publisher=SEI|year=1996}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=Pietro|last=Stella|title=Don Bosco: Religious Outlook and Spirituality|translator=John Drury|city=New Rochelle, New Jersey|publisher=Salesiana Publishers|year=1996}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=Morand|last=Wirth|title=Don Bosco and the Salesians''. New Rochelle, New Jersey|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|year=1982}} Translation of {{cite book|last=id.|title=Don Bosco e i Salesiani: Centocinquant'anni di storia| city=Turin|publisher=SEI|year=1969}} | |||
== |
==Bibliography== | ||
{{ |
{{refbegin|60em}} | ||
;General | |||
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*{{cite book|last=Butler|first=Alan|title=Butler's lives of the saints.|year=1999|publisher=Burns & Oates|location=Tunbridge Wells|isbn=0860122522|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rFGTRItJVi0C&q=%22John%20Bosco%22&pg=PA88}} | |||
* ] | |||
*{{cite book|last=Farmer|first=David Hugh|title=The Oxford Dictionary of Saints|year=2004|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0198609493|edition=5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lsNT9eUEzaIC&pg=PT121}} | |||
*{{cite book|first1=Michael L.|last1=Coulter|first2=Richard S.|last2=Myers|first3=Joseph A.|last3=Varacalli|title=Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy Supplement|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0810882669|year=2012|pages=36–38|chapter=Bosco, St. John (1815–1888)|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N3zM1injK8QC&pg=PA37|volume=3}} | |||
;Publications of the Holy See | |||
*{{Citation|last=Pope Pius IX|author-link=Pope Pius IX|date=2 June 1929|title=Appostolic letter ''Mirabilis Deus'' on the occasion of the Beatification of Father John Bosco|publisher=Holy See|location=Vatican|url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/briefs/documents/hf_p-xi_briefs_19290602_mirabilis-deus_it.html|language=it}} | |||
*{{Citation|last=Pope Pius IX|author-link=Pope Pius IX|date=1 April 1934|title=Lettera Decretale di Sua Santità Pio Xi "Geminata Laetitia" che Proclama Santo Don Giovanni Bosco|trans-title=Decretal Letter ''Geminata Laetitia'' for the canonization of Father John Bosco|publisher=Holy See|location=Vatican|url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/letters/documents/hf_p-xi_lett_19340401_geminata-laetitia_it.html|language=it}} | |||
;Publications of the Salesians of Don Bosco | |||
*{{cite book|first2=Angelo|last2=Amadei|editor-first=Diego|editor-last=Borgatello|first1=Giovanni Battista|last1=Lemoyne|last3=Ceria|first3=Eugenio|title=Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco|location=New Rochelle, New York|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|year=1965–1988}} | |||
**{{cite book|title=Memorie Biografiche di San Giovanni Bosco|language=it|quote=19 volumes: Vols. 1–9 by Lemoyne); 10 (1939, by Amadei); 11–19 (1930–1939, by Ceria|url=http://www.donboscoland.it/articoli/articolo.php?id=3801|access-date=21 May 2012|archive-date=18 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618104556/http://www.donboscoland.it/articoli/articolo.php?id=3801|url-status=dead}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Morrison|first=John|title=The Educational Philosophy of Don Bosco|year=1999|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|location=Guwahati, India|isbn=81-87637-00-5|edition=Indian}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
==Further reading== | |||
{{refbegin|60em}} | |||
;Publications of the Salesians of Don Bosco | |||
*{{cite book|first=Giovanni|last=Bosco|title=Memoirs of the Oratory|location=New Rochelle, New York|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|year=1989|isbn=0-89944-139-4}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=François|last=Desramaut|title=Don Bosco et son Temps|location=Turin|publisher=Società Editrice Internazionale|year=1996|isbn=9782906295605}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=Arthur J.|last=Lenti|title=Don Bosco: History and Spirit|location=Rome|publisher=Editrice Libreria Ateneo Salesiano}} A 7-volume series. | |||
*{{cite book|first1=Pietro|last1=Stella|title=Don Bosco: Religious Outlook and Spirituality|location=New Rochelle, New York|publisher=Salesiana Publishers|year=1996|first2=John|last2=Drury|isbn=0-89944-162-9}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=Morand|last=Wirth|title=Don Bosco and the Salesians|location=New Rochelle, New York|publisher=Don Bosco Publications|year=1982}} Translation of {{cite book|last=id.|title=Don Bosco e i Salesiani: Centocinquant'anni di storia|location=Turin|publisher=Società Editrice Internazionale|year=1969}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
{{Sister project links|1=|collapsible=|display=John Bosco|commonscat=John Bosco|b=no|c=John Bosco|d=no|m=no|mw=no|n=no|q=John Bosco|s=no|species=no|species_author=no|v=no|voy=no|wikt=no}} | |||
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* {{cite web|url=http://www.todayscatholicworld.com/bosco_hell.htm|title=Dreams (Prophecy) of Don Bosco}} | |||
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* {{cite web|url=https://www.sdb.org/en|title=Salesians of Don Bosco Official Website|language=en}} | |||
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* {{cite web|url=https://www.salesians.org.uk/|title=Salesians of the UK|language=en}} | |||
==References== | |||
* {{cite web|url=https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/07_10_1815-1888-_Bosco,_Giovanni,_Sanctus.html|title=Don Bosco's important writings|language=it}} | |||
{{reflist}} | |||
* {{cite web|url=http://www.stpetersbasilica.info/Statues/Founders/JohnBosco/John%20Bosco.htm|title=Founder Statue in St Peter's Basilica}} | |||
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* {{cite web|url=https://catholicism.org/don-bosco.html|title=Saint John Bosco: Modern Apostle of Youth|work=Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary|date=2 April 2008}} | |||
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* {{cite web|url=https://www.boscosevakendra.org/|title=Development office of the Salesian|work=Province of St.Joseph, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 15:50, 3 December 2024
19th-century Italian Roman Catholic priest, educator, and writer "Don Bosco" redirects here. For other uses, see Don Bosco (disambiguation). For schools of that name, see Don Bosco School.
Saint John Bosco SDB | |
---|---|
Bosco in 1880 | |
Priest and Confessor "Father and Teacher of Youth" | |
Born | (1815-08-16)16 August 1815 Castelnuovo d'Asti, Piedmont, Sardinia-Piedmont |
Died | 31 January 1888(1888-01-31) (aged 72) Turin, Kingdom of Italy |
Venerated in | Catholic Church Anglican Communion |
Beatified | 2 June 1929, Rome by Pius XI |
Canonized | 1 April 1934, Rome by Pius XI |
Major shrine | Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians, Turin, Italy |
Feast | 31 January |
Attributes | Cassock, Biretta |
Patronage |
John Melchior Bosco, SDB (Italian: Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco; Piedmontese: Gioann Melchior Bòsch; 16 August 1815 – 31 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco (IPA: [ˈdɔm ˈbɔsko, bo-]), was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer of the 19th century. While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the ill effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System.
A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of Francis de Sales, Bosco was an ardent devotee of the Virgin Mary under the title Mary Help of Christians. He later dedicated his works to de Sales when he founded the Salesians of Don Bosco, based in Turin. Together with Maria Domenica Mazzarello, he founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, now commonly known as the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, a religious congregation of nuns dedicated to the care and education of poor girls. He taught Dominic Savio, of whom he wrote a biography that helped the young boy be canonized. He is one of the pioneers of mutual aid societies that were initiated as collaborative financial support to young migrant Catholic workers in the city of Turin. In 1850, he drew up regulations to assist apprentices and their companions when any of them was involuntarily without work or fell ill.
On 18 April 1869, one year after the construction of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin, Bosco established the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA) connecting it with commitments easily fulfilled by most common people, to the spirituality and the mission of the Salesian Congregation (CG 24 SDB, 1996, NR. 80). The ADMA was founded to promote the veneration of the Most Holy Sacrament and Mary Help of Christians (Don Bosco, Association of the Devotees of Mary Help of Christians, San Benigno Canavese, 1890, page 33).
In 1875, Bosco began to publish the Salesian Bulletin. The Bulletin has remained in continuous publication, and is currently published in 50 different editions and 30 languages. In 1876, he founded a movement of laity, the Association of Salesian Cooperators, with the same educational mission to the poor. Bosco established a network of organizations and centres to carry on his work.
Bosco's sainthood cause was opened after his death, and following his beatification in 1929, he was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1934.
Life
John Bosco was born on the evening of 16 August 1815 in the hillside hamlet of Becchi, Italy. Becchi is located in a region that was called Castelnuovo d'Asti, which was later renamed Castelnuovo Don Bosco in honour of the saint. He was the youngest son of Francesco Bosco (1784–1817) and Margherita Occhiena (1788–1856). He had two older brothers, Antonio and Giuseppe (1813–1862). The Boscos of Becchi were farmhands of the Moglian Family. He was born in a time of great shortage and famine in the Piedmontese countryside, following the devastation wrought by the Napoleonic Wars and drought in 1817.
When Bosco was little more than two years old, his father died, which left the support of three boys to his mother. She played a strong role in Bosco's formation and personality, and was an early supporter of her son's ideals. In 1825, when he was nine, Bosco had the first of a series of dreams that would play an influential role in his outlook and work. This first dream "left a profound impression on him for the rest of his life" according to his memoirs. Bosco apparently saw a multitude of very poor boys playing and blaspheming, and a man, who "appeared, nobly attired, with a manly and imposing bearing", and said to him, "You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows, but with gentleness and kindness. So begin right now to show them that sin is ugly and virtue beautiful."
Bosco, when he was ten years old started watching his classmates' attitudes, and in every fight was the referee. The older boys were scared of him because he knew their strengths and their weaknesses. When travelling entertainers performed at a local feast in the nearby hills, he watched and studied the jugglers' tricks and the acrobats' secrets. He would then put on shows of his skills as a juggler, magician, and acrobat, with prayers before and after the performance. The money that he needed to prepare the shows was taken from selling the birds that he hunted and given to him by his mother.
Poverty prevented any serious attempt at schooling. His early years were spent as a shepherd, and he received his first instruction from Don Calosso who "was impressed by John’s memory and understanding of the sermons he had heard at a parish mission in a nearby Church." His childhood experiences are thought to have inspired him to become a priest. Being a priest was then more commonly a profession for the privileged classes than for farmers. Some biographers portray his older brother, Antonio, as the main obstacle for Bosco's ambition to study, as Antonio protested that John was just "a farmer like us!"
On a cold morning in February 1827, John left his home and went to look for work as a farm servant. At 12, he found life at home unbearable because of the continuous quarrels with Antonio. Having to face life by himself at such a young age may have developed his later sympathies to help abandoned boys. After begging unsuccessfully for work, he ended up at the wine farm of Louis Moglia. Although he could pursue some studies by himself, he was not able to attend school for two more years. In 1830, he met Joseph Cafasso, a young priest who identified some natural talent and supported his first schooling. Bosco's mother, Margherita, managed to earn enough money to finance his education. In 1835, Bosco entered the seminary at Chieri, next to the Church of the Immacolata Concezione. In 1841, after six years of study, he was ordained a priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday by Archbishop Franzoni of Turin. He was twenty-six years old.
Priesthood and first apostolates
After ordination, Bosco went to Turin, where Cafasso headed the Institute of Saint Francis of Assisi, which provided higher education for the diocesan priests. Turin then had a population of 117,000 inhabitants. The city reflected the effects of industrialization and urbanization. Numerous poor families lived in the slums of the city and had come from the countryside in search of a better life. During his studies, Bosco accompanied Cafasso in visiting the prisons and became concerned regarding the recidivism of young offenders. He began to work with orphaned and abandoned boys, teaching them catechism and helping them find work. Upon completion of his studies, Cafasso secured for Bosco an appointment as almoner of the Rifugio (Refuge), a girls' boarding school founded in Turin by the Marchioness Giulia di Barolo, so that he could remain in Turin. His other ministries included visiting prisoners, teaching catechism, and helping out at many country parishes.
Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry to be inefficient. He decided that it was necessary to try another form of apostolate, and he began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops and marketplaces. They were pavers, stonecutters, masons, and plasterers who had come from far away, as he recalled in his brief Memoires.
The Oratorio was not simply a charitable institution, and its activities were not limited to Sundays. For Don Bosco, it became his permanent occupation. He looked for jobs for the unemployed. Some of the boys did not have sleeping quarters and slept under bridges or in bleak public dormitories. Twice, he tried to provide lodgings in his house. The first time, they stole the blankets; the second, time, they emptied the hayloft. He did not give up, and in May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valencia in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother. He and his mother began taking in orphans. The boys sheltered by Don Bosco numbered 36 in 1852, 115 in 1854, 470 in 1860, and 600 in 1861, reaching a maximum of 800 sometime later.
Bosco and his oratory moved around town for several years; he was turned out of several places in succession. After only two months based in the church of St. Martin, the entire neighbourhood expressed its annoyance with the noise coming from the boys at play. A formal complaint was lodged against them with the municipality. Rumours also circulated that the meetings conducted by the priest with his boys were dangerous; their recreation could be turned into a revolution against the government. The group was evicted.
Work with apprentices
In the archives of the Salesian Congregation is a contract of apprenticeship, dated November 1851; another one on stamped paper costing 40 cents, dated 8 February 1852; and others have later dates. They are among the first contracts of apprenticeship to be found in Turin. All of them are signed by the employer, the apprentice, and Don Bosco. In those contracts, Don Bosco touched on many sensitive issues. Some employers customarily made servants and scullery boys of the apprentices. Don Bosco obliged them to agree to employ the boys only in their acknowledged trade. Employers used to beat the boys, and Don Bosco required them to agree that corrections be made only verbally. He cared for their health and demanded that they be given rest on feast days and an annual holiday. Despite all the efforts and contracts, the situation of the apprentices of the time remained difficult.
One influential friend was the Piedmontese justice minister Urbano Rattazzi. He was anticlerical in his politics but saw some value in Bosco's work. While Rattazzi was pushing a bill through the Sardinian legislature to suppress religious orders, he advised Bosco on how to get around the law. He found a religious order to keep the oratory going after its founder's death. Bosco had been thinking about that problem too and had been slowly organizing his helpers into a loose Congregation of St. Francis de Sales. He was also training select older boys for the priesthood. Another supporter of the idea of establishing a religious order to carry out Bosco's vision was the reigning pope, Pope Pius IX.
Bosco disliked the ideals that had been exported by Revolutionary France, as part of the process of dechristianization of France during the French Revolution, and called Rousseau and Voltaire "two vicious leaders of incredulity". He favoured an ultramontane view of politics that acknowledged the supreme authority of the pope. In 1854, when the Sardinia-Piedmont was about to pass a law suppressing monastic orders and confiscating ecclesiastical properties, Bosco reported a series of dreams about "great funerals at court" that referred to politicians or members of the Savoy court.
In November 1854, Bosco sent a letter to King Victor Emmanuel II and admonished him to oppose the confiscation of church property and suppression of the orders; the King failed to respond. His actions, which had been described by the Italian historian Roberto Petoia as having "manifest blackmailing intentions", ended only after the intervention of the then prime minister, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour. The king's family suffered several deaths in a short period. From January to May 1855, the king's mother Maria Theresa of Austria (aged 54), his wife Adelaide of Austria (aged 32), their newborn son Vittorio Emanuele, Count of Genoa (nearly four months old), and his only brother, Prince Ferdinando, Duke of Genoa (aged 32), all died.
Opposition to Bosco and his work came from various quarters. Traditionalist clergy accused him of stealing the young and old people away from their own parishes. Nationalist politicians, including some clergy, saw his several hundred young men as a recruiting ground for revolution. The Marquis de Cavour, the chief of police in Turin, regarded the open-air catechisms as overtly political and a threat to the state and was highly suspicious of Bosco's support for the powers of the papacy. Bosco was interrogated on several occasions; no charges were made. Closure may have been prevented by orders from the king that Bosco was not to be disturbed. Several attempts were also made on Bosco's life, including a near-stabbing, bludgeoning, and a shooting. Early biographers put that down to the growing influence of the Waldensians in opposition to Catholic clergy.
Foundation of Salesians of Don Bosco
Some of the boys helped by Don Bosco decided to do what he was doing: working in the service of abandoned boys. That was the origin of the Salesian Congregation. Among the first members were Michael Rua, John Cagliero (who later became a Cardinal), and John Baptist Francesca. In 1857 Bosco drew up a set of rules for his helpers. This rule was approved definitively in 1873 by Pope Pius IX as the Rule of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales.
In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians, and one high school boy and formed them into the Society of St. Francis de Sales. That was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work. When the group had its next meeting, it voted on the admission of Joseph Rossi as a lay member, the first Salesian brother. The Salesian Congregation was divided into priests, seminarians, and coadjutors (the lay brothers).
Bosco then worked with Mary Mazzarello and a group of girls in the hill town of Mornese. In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys. They were called the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. In 1874, he founded yet another group, the Salesian Cooperators, who were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians but would not join a religious order. The first Salesians departed for Argentina in 1875. After his ordination, Bosco himself would have become a missionary if his director, Joseph Cafasso, had not opposed the idea. Bosco nevertheless eagerly read the Italian edition of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith and used this magazine to illustrate his Cattolico Provveduto (1853) and his Month of May booklets (1858).
When Bosco founded the Salesian Society, the thought of the missions still obsessed him but completely lacked the financial means. For three years he collected information about different countries. A request from Argentina turned him towards the Indians of Patagonia, and a study of its people convinced him that the country and its inhabitants were the ones that he had seen in his dream. In late 1874, Bosco received letters from the Argentine consul at Savona requesting that he accept an Italian parish in Buenos Aires and a school for boys at San Nicolas de Los Arroyos.
Bosco regarded it as a sign of Providence and started to prepare a mission. Adopting a way of evangelization that would not expose his missionaries to wild, uncivilized tribes, he proposed setting up bases in safe locations at which missionary efforts were to be launched. Negotiations started after Archbishop Aneiros of Buenos Aires had indicated that he would be glad to receive the Salesians. In a ceremony held on 29 January 1875, Bosco was able to convey the great news to the oratory. On 5 February, he announced the fact in a circular letter to all Salesians asking volunteers to apply in writing. He proposed for the first missionary departure to start in October. There were many volunteers.
Salesian Preventive System and other works
Main article: Salesian Preventive SystemIn the years that Bosco had spent running his oratory and giving spiritual and practical instruction to the boys he had housed there, he relied on a different approach to education and general instruction, which he believed to be superior to traditional educational methods, such as school discipline, which he labelled as a repressive system of education. On 12 March 1877, Bosco gave an opening address on the systems of education during the day for the opening of the St. Peter's Youth Center in the new quarters of the Patronage de Saint Pierre in Nice in which he first mentioned the term "Preventive System".
Upon his return to Turin, Bosco wrote down the address as a polished essay under the title The Preventive System in the Education of the Youth, which was published in 1877 and in which he included in the initial draft of the Rule for the Salesian Order. It espoused the values of reason, religion, and loving kindness with a goal of producing "good Christians and honest citizens". That was one type of Bosco's systematic exposition of his educational system. His preferred way to explain his educational approach was through educational novels and narrative pedagogy. Though some of the ideas were not innovative, Bosco having drawn the inspiration for his system through the contemporary criticisms of the punitive and outdated educational systems prevalent in Europe during his time, and he was one of the first to combat it and to put his criticisms into practice.
Though Bosco's written works were little known outside of his own order and the subscribers of his Salesian Bulletin, which he founded in August 1877, he wrote frequently and voluminously. Though Don Bosco was described as more of a man of action than a scholar, he wrote, adapted and published many works on religion, history, catechesis and Catholic church. The full list of his publications is available in a dedicated website salesian.online. He penned the 1881 A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire, which was translated and continued to the present by John Daniel Morell and was noted by scholars for its cultural importance on the knowledge base of ancient to modern civilization. He was also a skilled biographer. His two most well-known biographies were on his mentor, Joseph Cafasso, and one of his students, Dominic Savio, which would later be instrumental in his canonization.
Works
Following are Bosco's works in roughly chronological order.
- Essays published in the volumes of Catholic Readings (Letture Cattoliche), 1853–1884
- 1853
- ”Announcements for Catholics”
- “The Instructed Catholic”
- “Historical Notes on the Miracle of the Blessed Sacrament at Turin”
- “Fact of Our Times”
- “A Dispute Between a Lawyer and a Protestant Minister”
- “Notes on the Life of the Youth Luigi Comollo”
- “The Conversion of a Waldensian”
- “A Collection of Strange Contemporary Happenings”
- “The Six Sundays in Honour of St. Aloysius Gonzaga”
- “The Jubilee”
- 1855
- “An Easy Method of Learning Sacred History”
- “Talks on Confession”
- “Life of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours”
- “The Value of a Good Upbringing”
- 1856
- “Life of St. Pancras”
- 1857
- “Life of St. Peter”
- “Two Conferences on Purgatory”
- “Life of St. Paul”
- “Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Linus, Cletus, and Clement”
- “Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Anacletus, Evaristus, and Alexander I”
- “Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Sixtus, Telesphorus, and Hyginus”
- 1858
- “Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Anicetus, Soter, Eleutherus, Victor, and Zephirinus”
- “The Month of May, Consecrated to Mary Immaculate”
- “The Christian’s ‘Porta Tecum’”
- “Life of the Sovereign Pontiff Callistus I”
- 1859
- “Life of the Youth Dominic Savio”
- “Life of the Sovereign Pontiff Urban I”
- “Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs Pontian, Anteros, and Fabian”
- “The Persecution of Decius and the Pontificate of St. Cornelius I”
- 1860
- “Lives of the Sovereign Pontiffs St. Lucian I and St. Stephen I”
- “The Pontificate of St. Sixtus II and the Glories of St. Laurence”
- “Biography of Fr. Joseph Cafasso”
- 1861
- “A Family of Martyrs”
- “Biographical Note on Michael Magone”
- “The Pontificate of St. Dionysius”
- “Biography of Silvio Pellico”
- 1862
- “The Pontificates of St. Felix I and St. Eutychian”
- “The New Charm of an Old Soldier of Napoleon”
- 1863
- “Historical Notes on BI. Catherine De-Mattei”
- “The Pontificate of St. Caius”
- 1864
- “The Pontificates of SS. Marcellinus and Marcellus”
- “Episodes Pleasant and Contemporary”
- “The Little Shepherd of the alps”
- 1865
- “The House of Fortune”
- “Dialogues on the Jubilee”
- “The Peace of the Church”
- “Life of Bl. Mary of the Angels, C.S.”
- 1866
- “Valentine or the Opposed Vocation”
- 1867
- “The Centenary of St. Peter the apostle”
- “Life of St. Joseph”
- “News and Stories”
- 1868
- “Severino, or the adventures of a Young alpinist”
- “Marvels of the Mother of God”
- “Life of St. John the Baptist”
- “Remembrance of a Solemnity”
- 1869
- “The Catholic Church and Its Hierarchy”
- “Association of the Devotees of Mary, Help of Christians”
- “The General Councils and the Catholic Church”
- “Angelina, or the Little Orphan Girl of the Apennines”
- 1870
- “Nine Days Consecrated to the august Mother of Our Saviour”
- “Church History”
- 1871
- “The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin at La Salette”
- “Pleasing Facts From the Life of Pius IX”
- 1872
- “The Centenary of St. Eusebius the Great”
- 1874
- “Massimino, or the Encounter of a Boy with a Protestant”
- 1875
- “The Jubilee of 1875”
- “Mary, Help of Christians”
- 1877
- “The Little Cloud of Carmel”
- 1878
- “The Loveliest Flower of the Apostolic College”
- 1883
- “The Catholic in the World
- 1884
- “New Stories of Luigi Comolli”
- Series started by Don Bosco
- The Friend of Youth, a politico-religious paper (1849)
- 1851
- Synoptic tablet (on the Catholic Church)
- Flying leaflets
- 1851
- Il Galantuomo. A national almanac began (1854)
- Salesian Bulletin (since 1877)
- Critical works
- Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco (critical edition published in 1977, originally published as a dream journal in 1855)
- The Preventive System in the Education of the Youth (1877)
- A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire (1881)
- Posthumous works
- Memoirs of the Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales (written between 1815 and 1855, published posthumously in 1989)
- The Spiritual Writings of Saint John Bosco (1984)
- Dreams, Visions, and Prophecies of Don Bosco (1999)
- The Unpublished Don Bosco (compiled by Mario Balbi and published in 2005)
Death and canonization
(left): As Don Bosco lay dying, all begged to see him and kiss his hand for the last time, image from The Venerable Don Bosco book (1916); (right): Don Bosco's relic in the Saint Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, 2013Saint Bosco died on 31 January 1888. His funeral was attended by thousands. The Archdiocese of Turin investigated, and witnesses were called to determine if Bosco was worthy to be declared a saint. The Salesians, Daughters, and Cooperators gave supportive testimonies. Pope Pius XI had known Bosco and pushed the cause forward. Pius XI beatified Bosco on 2 June 1929 and canonised him on Easter Sunday (1 April) 1934, when he was given the title of "Father and Teacher of Youth". Pope Pius XII proclaimed him patron saint of Catholic publishers in 1949. His repertoire of writings and publications consists of over 220 titles collected in 38 volumes. They were printed at his own peerless paper-to-print workshop, where boys learned the art of printing and publishing in view of future employment.
Bosco had been popularly known as the patron saint of illusionists. On 30 January 2002, Silvio Mantelli petitioned Pope John Paul II to declare Bosco formally to the patron of stage magicians. Catholic stage magicians who practice gospel magic venerate Bosco by offering free magic shows to underprivileged children on his feast day. Bosco's work was carried on by an early pupil, collaborator, and companion, Michael Rua, who was appointed rector major of the Salesian Society by Pope Leo XIII in 1888. He is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 31 January.
In popular culture
Bosco is the patron saint of Brasília, which he supposedly foresaw in a dream concerning an extraordinary new civilization that would flourish in central Brazil. Many educational institutions are named after him, in countries as diverse as Australia, India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Lebanon and the United States. Several institutions in Engadine, New South Wales, were also named for Bosco, including St John Bosco Parish, St John Bosco Primary School, and St John Bosco College.
Bosco was the subject of the 1935 biopic Don Bosco, directed by Goffredo Alessandrini, and was played by the actor Gian Paolo Rosmino. Bosco was also the subject of two Italian movies: Don Bosco (1988) and Saint John Bosco: Mission to Love (2004). A borough in Quilmes, Argentina, is named after him. An Italian church, San Giovanni Bosco, is named after him in Montreal, Canada, in the Ville-Émard area.
Monuments and memorials to Bosco
- Monument in Castelnuovo, Italy
- Basilica Don Bosco in Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Italy
- Statue of Saint John Bosco, Ronda, Spain
- Monument in Funes, Santa Fe, Argentina
- Statue in Makati, Philippines
- Statue at the Diocesan Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, Canlubang, Philippines
- Statue at Catedral São João Batista (Rio do Sul), Brazil
- Statue in Lutomiersk Monastery, Poland
References
- "Saint John Bosco | Biography & Facts | Britannica". Britannica.com. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
- ^ "The Calendar". The Church of England. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
- ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: St. John Bosco (Don Bosco)". Newadvent.org. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
- Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume I, 1815 – 1840, p. 26
- Coulter, Myers & Varacalli 2012
- Luciano Canepari. "Bosco". DiPI Online (in Italian). Retrieved 11 January 2021.
- Morrison 1999, p. 51
- Farmer 2004, p. 121
- Lemoyne, John Baptist (1967). Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco. Vol. IV. New Rochelle, New York: Salesiana Publishers. pp. 52–56.
- "ADMA - Association Mary Help of Christians, Torino-Valdocco | 16". donbosco-torino.it. Archived from the original on 19 November 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
- Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume XIII (1877–1878), p. 191
- ^ "The Salesian Bulletin in the World". Eircom.net, Dublin. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
- "Salesian Cooperators". Salesians of Don Bosco, Province of Mary Help of Christians, Melbourne. Archived from the original on 20 February 2011. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- "St. John Bosco - Patron Saint of Young People and Editors / Publishers | Christian Apostles.com". ChristianApostles.com. 9 January 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
- Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume I, Chapter 3, pp. 20–28
- The Piedmont drought lasted from 1817 to 1819. See The Majesty of Charleston by Peter Beney, p.64, 2005 edition.
- Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume I, Chapter 7, pp. 44–49
- "Venerable Margaret Occhiena". Salesian Society of Don Bosco. 8 February 1995. Archived from the original on 20 May 2010. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
- ^ Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume I, Chapter 15, pp. 95–96
- Bosco, John (1976). Memorias del oratorio. Turin. p. 5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Willey, David (2 June 2002). "Magician priest wants patron saint of magic". BBC News.
- "31 January: Saint John Bosco". Magnificat.ca. 14 November 2008. Archived from the original on 14 November 2008. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- Eugene Ceria SDB; Lawrence Castelvecchi SDB; Michael Mendl SDB, eds. (6 December 2007). "3". Memoirs of the Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales 1815 – 1855: The autobiography of Saint John Bosco. Translated by Daniel Lyons, SDB. Archived from the original on 6 December 2007.
- "www.salesians.org.uk/uploads/footprintsvocationdonbosco.pdf" (PDF).
- ^ Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume I, Chapter 22, pp. 142–152
- "Don Bosco, Friend of the Youth". Salesians of Australia. Archived from the original on 8 June 2010. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- Lemoyne, Amadei & Ceria 1965–1988, Volume I, Chapter 24, pp. 159–163
- Now hosts an exhibition dedicated to the John Bosco.
- "Saint John Bosco", Franciscan Media
- Villefranche, Jacques-Melchior. Life of Don Bosco, (Lady Martin, trans.) Burns & Oates, 1899, p. 25
- ^ ""Don Bosco's Story", ewtn".
- D'Espiney, Charles (1884). Don Bosco: A Sketch of His Life and Miracles.
- ^ Craughwell, Thomas J. (2007). This Saint's for You!. Quirk Books. pp. 156–157. ISBN 9781594741845.
- Jestice, Phyllis G. (2004). Holy People of the World. ABC-CLIO. p. 138. ISBN 9781576073551.
- Villefranche, Jacques-Melchior (1898). The Life of Don Bosco: Founder of the Salesian Society. Burns & Oates. pp. 15–16.
- Giovanni Bosco: 'Storia ecclesiastica ad uso delle scuole' (in Italian). Vol. 37 (19600 ed.). Rome: Editrice LAS. 1976. p. 496.
- ^ Mendl, Michael (2004). "The Dreams of St. John Bosco". Journal of Salesian Studies. Vol. 12 (2 ed.). pp. 321–348. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2007.
- ^ Eugene Ceria SDB; Lawrence Castelvecchi SDB; Michael Mendl SDB, eds. (6 December 2007). "55". Memoirs of the Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales 1815 – 1855: The autobiography of Saint John Bosco. Translated by Daniel Lyons SDB. p. 802. Archived from the original on 6 December 2007.
- Petoia, Erberto (June 2007). "I sinistri presage di Don Giovanni Bosco". Medioevo: 70.
- Butler 1999, Volume I
- Charles D'Espiney, Don Bosco: A Sketch of His Life and Miracles, 1884
- "Bl. Michael Rua (Beatified: 1972)". Salesian Missions. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
- "MARIA DOMENICA Mazzarello, santa in "Dizionario Biografico"".
- "Associazione Cooperatori Salesiani", Pontifical Council for the Laity
- "The Salesian Preventive System of St. John Bosco (Don Bosco) (Educational Philosophy of Don Bosco - Don Bosco's Way, Style, Approach, Method, System, etc.... of Educating and Accompanying Young People Today)". donboscowest.org/. Don Bosco West. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
- Bosco, Giovanni Melchor (1877). "Regolamento per le case della Società di S. Francesco di Sales". Tipografia Salesiana (OE XXIX): 3–13.
- Salesian Historical Institute (2017). Salesian Sources 1: Don Bosco and his work. Rome – Bangalore: LAS – Kristu Jyoti. pp. 1119–1479. ISBN 978-81-933745-7-3.
- Frith-Powell, Louise. "The "Preventive System": Walking Alongside". humanumreview.com. Humanum Review. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
- Nanni, Carlo (2003). "Il Sistema Preventivo di Don Bosco". Elledici: 7.
- Bosco, Giovanni Melchor (22 October 2018). A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire, Tr. and Completed to the Present Time by J.D. Morell. Creative Media Partners, LLC. ISBN 978-0344015984.
- Under Joseph Cafasso, Bosco would later become a priest when he started the work. It has since spread worldwide through the religious congregation that he founded: the Salesians of Don Bosco. He has also been declared a saint and their hometown has been renamed in his honor.
- Bosco, Giovanni Melchor. "The Life of St. Dominic Savio". Our Lady of the Rosary Library. Archived from the original on 2 December 2006. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
- "Writings of Don Bosco". Retrieved 15 July 2023.
- "San Giovanni Bosco – Opere Edite. Elenco cronologico". DonBoscoSanto.eu. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
- Cerrato, Natale; Ribotta, Michael (1993). "EXPO' 84 and Don Bosco's peerless-to- paper-to-print presentation". Journal of Salesian Studies. IV (1). Institute of Salesian Studies Berkeley California: 87–98. Retrieved 28 June 2023 – via Salesian OnLine Resources, 13 April 2020.
- ^ "Magicians Want Don Bosco Declared Their Patron". Zenit News Agency. 29 January 2002. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
Bibliography
- General
- Butler, Alan (1999). Butler's lives of the saints. Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates. ISBN 0860122522.
- Farmer, David Hugh (2004). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (5 ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0198609493.
- Coulter, Michael L.; Myers, Richard S.; Varacalli, Joseph A. (2012). "Bosco, St. John (1815–1888)". Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy Supplement. Vol. 3. Scarecrow Press. pp. 36–38. ISBN 978-0810882669.
- Publications of the Holy See
- Pope Pius IX (2 June 1929), Appostolic letter Mirabilis Deus on the occasion of the Beatification of Father John Bosco (in Italian), Vatican: Holy See
- Pope Pius IX (1 April 1934), Lettera Decretale di Sua Santità Pio Xi "Geminata Laetitia" che Proclama Santo Don Giovanni Bosco [Decretal Letter Geminata Laetitia for the canonization of Father John Bosco] (in Italian), Vatican: Holy See
- Publications of the Salesians of Don Bosco
- Lemoyne, Giovanni Battista; Amadei, Angelo; Ceria, Eugenio (1965–1988). Borgatello, Diego (ed.). Biographical Memoirs of St. John Bosco. New Rochelle, New York: Don Bosco Publications.
- Memorie Biografiche di San Giovanni Bosco (in Italian). Archived from the original on 18 June 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
19 volumes: Vols. 1–9 by Lemoyne); 10 (1939, by Amadei); 11–19 (1930–1939, by Ceria
- Memorie Biografiche di San Giovanni Bosco (in Italian). Archived from the original on 18 June 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
- Morrison, John (1999). The Educational Philosophy of Don Bosco (Indian ed.). Guwahati, India: Don Bosco Publications. ISBN 81-87637-00-5.
Further reading
- Publications of the Salesians of Don Bosco
- Bosco, Giovanni (1989). Memoirs of the Oratory. New Rochelle, New York: Don Bosco Publications. ISBN 0-89944-139-4.
- Desramaut, François (1996). Don Bosco et son Temps. Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale. ISBN 9782906295605.
- Lenti, Arthur J. Don Bosco: History and Spirit. Rome: Editrice Libreria Ateneo Salesiano. A 7-volume series.
- Stella, Pietro; Drury, John (1996). Don Bosco: Religious Outlook and Spirituality. New Rochelle, New York: Salesiana Publishers. ISBN 0-89944-162-9.
- Wirth, Morand (1982). Don Bosco and the Salesians. New Rochelle, New York: Don Bosco Publications. Translation of id. (1969). Don Bosco e i Salesiani: Centocinquant'anni di storia. Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale.
External links
- "Dreams (Prophecy) of Don Bosco".
- "Salesians of Don Bosco Official Website".
- "Salesians of the UK".
- "Don Bosco's important writings" (in Italian).
- "Founder Statue in St Peter's Basilica".
- "Saint John Bosco: Modern Apostle of Youth". Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 2 April 2008.
- "Development office of the Salesian". Province of St.Joseph, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA.
- Works by John Bosco at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Catholic Church titles | ||
---|---|---|
New institution | Rector Major of the Salesians 18 December 1859 - 31 January 1888 |
Succeeded byMichael Rua |
- 1815 births
- 1888 deaths
- 19th-century Christian saints
- Anglican saints
- Beatifications by Pope Pius XI
- Canonizations by Pope Pius XI
- Clergy from Turin
- Founders of Catholic religious communities
- Italian Roman Catholic saints
- Incorrupt saints
- Patrons of World Youth Day
- People from the Province of Asti
- Salesian Order
- Writers from Turin