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Giovanni Melchior Bosco ( August 16 1815 – January 31 1888 ), commonly called '''Don Bosco''', was an Italian religious and saint. CHILDHOOD AND VOCATION Giovanni Bosco was born in 1815 in the farming hamlet of Becchi, in Monteferrat ( Piedmont , Northern Italy). Turin was the nearest large city. When he was little more than two years old his father died, leaving the support of the sons Antonio (oldest) and Giovanni (youngest) to the mother, Margherita. Giovanni Bosco's early years were spent on the farm, but he showed ready intelligence and aptitude for study. His mother was for it, but Antonio, now head of the family, was opposed. Bosco liked to gather other children, entertain them with magic, jokes and stories, and teach them Catholic catechism (something like Sunday school). Through a series of vocation dreams, he felt called to help poor children like himself. He would do this by becoming a priest they could approach easily, not like the cold, standoffish clergy he had known. Bosco frequented the public elementary school in Castelnuovo at the age of 15. He zipped through the lower grades and eventually graduated with honors in 1835. Then he was accepted into the diocesan seminary at Chieri . After six years of study, in 1841, he was ordained priest in Turin . Now he became known as Don Bosco, or “Father Bosco”. “Don” is the Italian honorific for priests to this day. EARLY MINISTRY Don Bosco began as the chaplain 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: visiting prisoners, teaching catechism, helping out at country parishes. Rather quickly he had a growing gang of boys who would come to the Rifugio on Sundays and feast days to play and learn their catechism. They were too old to join the smaller children in regular catechism classes in the parishes, which mostly chased them away. This was the beginning of the “Oratory of St. Francis De Sales ”. Because of all their disorderly racket, the Marchioness spared her girls the distractions by terminating Bosco’s employment at the Rifugio. Don Bosco and his Oratory wandered around town for a few years, getting kicked 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: it was in the new Valdocco neighborhood on the north end of town. Next year, he and Mamma Margaret began taking in orphans. FOUNDATION OF THE SALESIAN FAMILY Even before this, however, Don Bosco had the help of several friends at the Oratory. There were zealous priests like Don Cafasso and Don Borel, some older boys like Giuseppe Buzzetti, Michele Rua, Giovanni Cagliero and Carlo Gastini, and Don Bosco’s own mother. Some local politicians helped out; some hindered. One friend was Justice Minister Urbano Rattazzi , no tender with the Church, but anyway fond of the value of Don Bosco’s work. While he was pushing a bill through the Sardinian legislature to suppress religious orders, he advised Don Bosco 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, Pius IX . Finally, in 1859, he made his move: selecting the experienced priest Don Alasonatti, 15 seminarians and 1 high school boy, he 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. Now the Salesian Congregation had priests, seminarians, and “coadjutors” (the lay brothers). Next, he worked with Don Pestarino, to found in 1871 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”. Then, 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. By this time Italy Was United , with borders similar to those of today, under Sardinian leadership. The poorly-governed Papal States were conquered into the new kingdom. Everybody knew Don Bosco supported the Pope, but he never commented on politics. THE PREVENTIVE SYSTEM Don Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was conected 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. Don Bosco gained very early a reputation of a saint and miracle worker. It was for this reason that 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 19 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 teenagers and young adults under the spell of a remarkable and beloved father figure. DEATH AND CANONIZATION Don Bosco died on January 31 , 1888 . His funeral was attended by thousands, and very soon after there were popular demands to get him canonized. The Archdiocese of Turin accordingly began to investigate; 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 1970s with Archbishop Gastaldi, and some others high in the Church thought him a loose cannon and a wheeler-dealer. In the Canonization process was heard testimony about how he went around Gastaldi to get some of his men ordained, and about their lack of academic preparation and ecclesiastical decorum. He was certainly not above exaggerating the number of boys in his schools and oratories to market his enterprises. 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, were not forgotten. These opponents, including some Cardinals, were in position to block his canonization. Many Salesians feared around 1925 that they would succeed. Pope Pius XI had known Don Bosco, and pushed the cause forward. Bosco was declared Blessed in 1929, and a Saint on Easter Sunday of 1934. Mussolini called him “a great Italian”. STUDY RESOURCES Sources
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