John Bosco

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. 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, a 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. The ADMA was founded to promote the veneration of the Most Holy Sacrament and Mary Help of Christians.

In 1875, Bosco began to publish the Salesian Bulletin. The Bulletin has remained in continuous publication, and is 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.

John Bosco was born on the evening of 16 August 1815 in the hillside hamlet of Becchi, Italy. Becchi is in a region that was called Castelnuovo d'Asti and 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, when a man "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.