John Bosco

John Bosco (Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco), popularly known as Don Bosco, was born on 16 August 1815 in the hamlet of Becchi in Castelnuovo d'Asti, Piedmont, then in the Kingdom of Sardinia. He was a son of the peasant farmer Francesco Bosco and of Margherita Occhiena. Francesco died in 1817, leaving the family in severe poverty. Margherita, a woman of strong Catholic faith and practical charity, raised her children with hard work and religious instruction that left a lasting mark on John. In childhood he reported a dream, later famous in Salesian tradition, in which a dignified man and a lady showed him a crowd of fighting boys whom he was to win over not by blows but by gentleness; he came to regard this as the first indication of his life's work. To help support the household and to pay for schooling he labored in the fields, served as a farmhand, and later took jobs in a tavern and as an apprentice. He also taught himself juggling, acrobatics, and simple magic tricks, which he used to gather village children, entertain them, and then lead them in prayer and catechism.

His path to the priesthood was long and interrupted by poverty and by the need to work. He received early instruction from local clergy, including Don Giuseppe Calosso, who briefly became a mentor before dying suddenly. After further studies in public schools at Castelnuovo and Chieri, he entered the seminary of Chieri. He was ordained a priest in Turin on 5 June 1841 by Archbishop Luigi Fransoni. The city was then capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia and a center of early industrial growth. Rural youths arrived in large numbers seeking work as chimney sweeps, bricklayers, and factory apprentices; many lived on the streets, without schooling or sacramental life, and were exposed to anticlerical and revolutionary currents. Don Bosco, encouraged by his spiritual director St. Joseph Cafasso, began to seek out these boys in prisons, workshops, and public squares. He formed a Sunday oratory that combined Mass, catechesis, recreation, and basic literacy. After several forced moves, he settled in 1846 at the Pinardi house in the Valdocco district of Turin, which became the motherhouse of his work under the patronage of St. Francis de Sales.

Don Bosco's educational method, later called the Preventive System, rested on reason, religion, and loving-kindness rather than on repression. He insisted that the educator be a father and companion present among the young, that the sacraments especially Confession and Communion be frequent, and that a cheerful atmosphere of play and music accompany instruction. He opened workshops so that boys could learn trades—shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry, printing, and bookbinding—and thus earn an honest living. He also founded a boarding school and night classes. His success and his independence from both liberal anticlerical politicians and from some cautious ecclesiastics brought him enemies. He was accused of gathering a private army of boys, of doctrinal or disciplinary irregularity, and of political unreliability; several assassination attempts were reported in the 1840s and 1850s. He remained a loyal priest of the archdiocese while gradually giving his work a more stable institutional form.

In December 1859 he gathered a group of his closest collaborators and founded the Society of St. Francis de Sales, a congregation of priests and lay brothers dedicated to the Christian education of poor youth. Papal approval followed in stages, with definitive approval of the constitutions in the 1870s. Together with Maria Domenica Mazzarello he established in 1872 the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters) for the education of girls. He also created the Association of Salesian Cooperators so that lay men and women could share the same apostolate without entering religious life. A deep Marian devotion, especially to Mary Help of Christians, marked his spirituality; he attributed the survival and growth of his works to her intercession and built the basilica of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice at Valdocco, consecrated in 1868. He was a prolific popular writer: he published the monthly Catholic Readings, lives of saints and of his own pupils (including Dominic Savio), educational treatises, and a history of Italy intended for the young. From 1875 he sent missionaries to Argentina and other parts of South America, beginning a worldwide expansion.

In his later years Don Bosco suffered from declining health, including failing eyesight and respiratory illness, while continuing to govern a congregation that had spread through Italy and beyond. He died at Valdocco in Turin on 31 January 1888. The cause for his canonization was introduced soon afterward. Pope Pius XI beatified him on 2 June 1929 and canonized him on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1934, presenting him as a model of Catholic education and of care for working-class youth. His liturgical feast is 31 January. He is invoked as patron of young people, schoolchildren, students, apprentices, editors and publishers, stage magicians, and juvenile delinquents, among other causes. The Salesian Family that grew from his foundations remains one of the largest networks of Catholic schools, oratories, and youth ministries in the world.