(ANS – Rome) – How should one approach the 4,682 letters written by Don Bosco between 1836 and 1888 and collected in the ten volumes of the Epistolario, edited by Francesco Motto between 1991 and 2023 and now available online through the Salesian Historical Institute? There are, of course, many ways to read them, but several are explored in the new volume L’Epistolario di Don … Continue reading A New Study of Don Bosco’s Letters
(ANS – Barcelona) – Pope Leo XIV spent the second and longest stage of his apostolic journey in Spain in Barcelona, a city with deep ties to Don Bosco. The Pope’s messages and pastoral gestures left a profound impression on the faithful gathered there, just as Don Bosco’s visit to the Catalan city more than a century ago bore lasting fruit. With the insight of … Continue reading Pope Leo XIV in Barcelona, “In the Company of Don Bosco”
(ANS – Rome) – A new documentary dedicated to Don Bosco and his pastoral and inclusive work on behalf of young people and the most vulnerable has recently been produced and is set to be released soon on Sky Sport and the NOW streaming platform. Edited by Tommaso Liguori, the film highlights in particular Don Bosco’s insight that sport could — and still can — … Continue reading “Don Bosco: The Saint of Young People and Sport”: A New Documentary Coming Soon
(ANS – Rome) – The series of public presentations of the critical edition of Don Bosco’s correspondence continues. After meetings held in 2025 and the recent events on January 22, 2026, at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin, and on January 23 at the Salesian oratory-parish in Cuneo, a new event of international interest took place in Rome on Thursday, February 12, … Continue reading Don Bosco’s Correspondence Once Again the Focus of International Interest
(ANS – Rome) – On the Feast of St. John Bosco, the Don Bosco Nel Mondo Foundation celebrated the Salesian Founder at the Casa Generalizia with a reflective gathering centered on the theme “From the Oratory to the World: the Peace of Don Bosco.” Benefactors, ambassadors, Salesians, and friends came together for an evening of reflection, dialogue, and music, animated by Le Voci del Sacro … Continue reading From the Oratory to the World: Don Bosco’s Path of Peace
(ANS – Jerusalem) – Celebrating Don Bosco in the Holy City of Jerusalem is not merely a liturgical event; it is an act of hope. With this conviction, on Saturday, January 31, the Salesian community in Jerusalem gathered at the Ratisbonne Institute: Salesians, members of the Salesian Family, students of the Studium Theologicum Salesianum, religious men and women, and friends of Don Bosco came together … Continue reading Don Bosco Celebrated in the Holy Land
(Bellflower, California) – Faith in action! To kick off Don Bosco Week, a group of “Braves” from St. John Bosco High School helped out at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank alongside their moms in tribute to Mama Margaret, the beloved mother of Don Bosco who profoundly influenced his life and work. Learn more about her below! Margherita “Margaret” Occhiena When asked to go with … Continue reading Braves Serve at LA Regional Food Bank to Kick Off Don Bosco Week—Honoring Mama Margaret’s Legacy
(ANS – Rome) – Renewing a “beautiful tradition” of the Rector Majors, for the Feast of Don Bosco 2026 the 11th Successor of Don Bosco, Fr. Fabio Attard, will deliver a message of hope and engagement to the young people of the Salesian Youth Movement (SYM). The Rector Major emphasizes three main points. First, Fr. Attard refers to the Strenna message for 2026, renewing the invitation … Continue reading The Rector Major Speaks to the Young People of the Salesian Youth Movement
(ANS – Milan) – In view of the Feast of Don Bosco, celebrated on January 31, the Fondazione Opera Don Bosco Onlusrenews its commitment to the world’s most vulnerable children and young people, presenting a model of aid that has grown and expanded over time: long-distance support for educational communities. Alongside traditional long-distance support, which enables thousands of children to receive assistance, protection, and opportunities for growth, a … Continue reading Feast of Don Bosco: Happiness Multiplies When Shared
(ANS – Rome) – Among Don Bosco’s most well-known expressions, one in particular effectively summarizes his educational vision: forming “good Christians and honest citizens.” Numerous scholars—including Pietro Braido, who speaks of a true formula of Salesian educational humanism—have shown how this synthesis expresses a project of integral education, capable of uniting lived faith, human maturity, and social responsibility. In this context, cheerfulness is not an accessory … Continue reading “Good Christians and Joyful Citizens”: Don Bosco’s Educational Joy
(ANS – Rome) – Correcting without humiliating is one of the most delicate challenges in education. Don Bosco faced it throughout his life, transforming correction into an authentic act of mercy. In his writings and in the recollections of his contemporaries, a constant conviction emerges: correction is not about venting an educator’s irritation, but about helping young people grow. For this reason, he warns: “It is … Continue reading Anecdotes of Mercy: How Don Bosco Corrected Without Humiliating
(ANS – Rome) – When Don Bosco presented his Preventive System, he summarized it in three simple yet powerful words: reason, religion, and loving kindness. On these three pillars, he educated thousands of young people in Valdocco and in many other houses, and on these same foundations the Salesian world continues to build schools, oratories, and social works throughout the world. This is not an … Continue reading Three Words That Have Educated Generations: Reason, Religion, and Loving-Kindness
(ANS – Turin) – In preparation for the Solemnity of St. John Bosco, to be celebrated on Saturday, January 31, the Salesian complex of Valdocco and the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin are once again offering a wide-ranging program for 2026. The initiative brings together cultural reflection, educational offerings, artistic events, and liturgical celebrations, providing the Salesian Family, the faithful, and the … Continue reading Valdocco Prepares to Celebrate the Solemnity of St. John Bosco with a Rich Cultural, Spiritual, and Pastoral Program
(ANS – Rome) – With the Novena to St. John Bosco beginning today (1/22/2025), ANS is offering a series of articles intended to accompany this time of preparation for the Feast of the Saint of Youth through a genuine spiritual and charismatic journey. Starting from the original call, narrated in the dream of the nine-year-old in “The Dream That Changed a Life,” the journey moves … Continue reading “The Dream That Changed a Life”: From a Nine-Year-Old’s Dream to the Discernment of a Mission
(ANS – Rome) – If the dream of the nine-year-old reveals the “why” of Don Bosco’s life, the kitchen at Valdocco tells the “how.” In nineteenth-century Turin, shaped by rapid industrialization and populated by young people who had come from the countryside as apprentices and workers, Don Bosco encountered a new and often invisible form of poverty: young people without families, without homes, and without … Continue reading “A Home for Those Who Have None”: The Kitchen at Valdocco and the Family Style
(Los Angeles, California) – In preparation for the Feast of St. John Bosco, let us join in a novena to God through the intercession of our beloved founder, St. John Bosco, whose feast we will celebrate on Saturday, January 31. The Strenna for 2026 reminds us that all our initiatives are to be rooted in Christ, led by discerning his call, and responding as Don … Continue reading Don Bosco Novena: Let Us Pray Together January 22 to January 30
(ANS – Castelnuovo Don Bosco) – With a deep sense of gratitude and joy, the 210th anniversary of the birth of St. John Bosco, Father and Teacher of Youth, was celebrated at Colle Don Bosco (Becchi). Making the day even more significant was the presence of Fr. Fabio Attard, Don Bosco’s 11th Successor, who presided over the Eucharist at Colle Don Bosco for the first time on the occasion of the birth … Continue reading A Memorable Day of Grace and Renewal: 210th Anniversary of Don Bosco’s Birth at Colle Don Bosco
(ANS – Colle Don Bosco) – On August 16, 2025, the Salesian community of Colle Don Bosco celebrated a momentous occasion with the inauguration of a 200 kWh photovoltaic plant. The date of the inauguration took on profound historical and spiritual significance, as it coincided with the 210th anniversary of the birth of St. John Bosco, which took place in this very place in 1815. The inauguration ceremony … Continue reading Inauguration of a Photovoltaic Plant at Colle Don Bosco: A Milestone for Sustainability
(ANS – Rome) – Today marks the start of the campaign ‘Lettere [IM]possibili. Risposte dall’800’ ([IM]possible Letters: Responses from the 1800s), which aims to raise awareness and curiosity about the monumental work of Don Bosco’s Epistolary, a documentary heritage collected with passion and dedication over many years by Salesian priest Fr. Francesco Motto. With the publication of the tenth and final volume in 2024, the … Continue reading LETTERE [IM]POSSIBILI: A Social Media Campaign on Don Bosco’s Correspondence
(ANS – Rome) – On May 16 1887, exactly 138 years ago, Don Bosco, by then tired and physically undermined, celebrated his first and only Mass at the altar dedicated to Mary Help of Christians in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the Castro Pretorio in Rome. It was a deeply symbolic event: the church, built amidst a thousand obstacles and pains, was … Continue reading Don Bosco and the Altar of Tears: a Mass, a Mission, and Fulfillment
(ANS – Facebook) – On Easter Sunday of the Holy Year of Redemption (April 1, 1934), Pope Pius XI declared Don Bosco a saint, to the great joy of the entire Catholic world, especially the Salesian Family. “He preferred above all to dedicate himself to boys and young people, particularly those abandoned by their parents, who led idle and wandering lives, exposed to the dangers … Continue reading April 1, 2025: 91st Anniversary of the Canonization of Don Bosco
Editor Note: This inspiring article is the script for a short video tribute to St. John Bosco prepared by ANS. The link to the video is at the end. Enjoy a happy feast of Don Bosco! (ANS – Rome) – Don Bosco is perhaps the most amazing and fascinating saint history has ever produced. The humble work that he began for the welfare of his poor … Continue reading Don Bosco: “The Fascinating Saint”
By JC Montenegro, Ph.D, Mission Animation Delegate – (Bellflower, California) – The following article seeks to share something beautiful about Don Bosco with those who have a relationship with this amazing saint. It is inspired by a retreat developed in Spain by Fr. Javier Moreno López, SDB, based on the writings of Fr. Carlos Viglietti and Brother Pedro Enria, two Salesians privileged to accompany Don … Continue reading Lessons from the Last Days of Don Bosco
(ANS – Rome) – Don Bosco, a man of prayer and action, not only laid the foundations of an immense movement of people dedicated to the salvation of the young, but also left all his spiritual children a wealth of useful pointers for never losing direction. Between what he used to repeat, which was then picked up and witnessed by his contemporaries, and what he wrote … Continue reading Twenty Posters Recalling Don Bosco and His Most Famous Sayings
“Give me souls, take away the rest.” + Don Bosco Continue reading To the Salesian Family
By Fr. Pascual Chávez, SDB – Excerpt from ON THE 150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE SALESIAN CONGREGATION “With a religious society eventually in mind, Don Bosco was not able and did not want to bring a significant nucleus of adult collaborators together choosing them from among those who were already working in the three oratories.” [17]He realized that rather than have a group of … Continue reading For the Young and with the Young, Don Bosco Founder
(Quetzaltenango, Guatemala) – The Mesoamerican University, headquarters of Quetzaltenango, presented the short film “Don Bosco’s Dream,” which celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Dream at Nine Years of Age. The students from the seventh semester of the Degree Course in Audiovisual Production, together with their professors, carried out the audiovisual production with the support of very young actors from the San Juan Bosco School in Quetzaltenango. The short film, … Continue reading The Mesoamerican University Celebrates the 200th Anniversary of Don Bosco’s Dream with a Film Produced by Students
Written by St. John Bosco | August 6, 2024 – Salesian Bulletin Online Don Bosco’s dreams are gifts from on high to guide, warn, correct, encourage. Some of them were set down in writing and have been preserved. One of these – made at the beginning of the saint’s mission – is the dream about the pergola of roses, which he had in 1847. We … Continue reading A Pergola of Roses (1847)
(ANS – Rome) – The Salesian annual retreat is something precious and during this time of the year many Salesians are doing their annual retreat. It is also good to go back to our origins and reclaim its value and what was lost along the way. From 1842 to 1872 (32 years), Don Bosco would walk for 7 hours from Turin to Saint Ignatius at Lanzo to do his annual spiritual exercises. This was a practice he learned at the Convitto with Fr. Cafasso. … Continue reading The Annual Retreat in the Life of Don Bosco and the Beginnings of the Salesian Society
By Redaktor Strony / June 14, 2024 / Salesian Bulletin Online – (Continued from previous article) The Market for Young Workers The historical time in which Don Bosco lived was not one of the happiest. In the neighborhoods of Turin, the saintly educator discovered a real “market for young workers”: the city was becoming more and more full of inhumanly exploited minors. Don Bosco himself remembers that the first boys he was … Continue reading Don Bosco’s Educational Journey (4/4)
Don Bosco’s Education Journey (Continued) – By Redaktor Strony / June 14, 2024 / Salesian Bulletin Online – (Continued from previous article) Even today, in a different cultural and social context, Don Bosco’s grasp of things is not all all outdated, but still works. Especially surprising, in the dynamics of rehabilitating children and young people who have entered the penal circuit, is the inventive spirit in creating concrete job opportunities for … Continue reading Onward and in Shirt Sleeves (3/4)
Don Bosco’s Education Journey (Continued) – By Redaktor Strony / June 14, 2024 / Salesian Bulletin Online – (continued from previous article) Sedentary by profession or by choice, computerized in thought and action, we risk losing the originality of “being”, of sharing, of growing “together.” Don Bosco did not live in the era of test-tube preparations: he left humanity the pedagogy of ‘companionship’, the spiritual and physical … Continue reading Go, Look Around! (2/4)
Written by Redaktor Strony / June 14, 2024 / Salesian Bulletin Online Following the Paths of the Heart Don Bosco wept at the sight of the boys who ended up in prison. Yesterday, as is the case today, evil’s timetable is relentless: fortunately, so is the schedule for good. And even more so. I feel that yesterday’s roots are the same as today’s. Like yesterday, others today … Continue reading Don Bosco’s Educational Journey (1/4)
Summer 1859. The war between France and Piedmont against Austria left many orphans after the battles of Magenta and Solferino and Don Bosco welcomed dozens of them. To cheer them up, he prepared a 20-day itinerary through the mountains of Monferrato. The places to visit are described in the “Casalis Dictionary“. This Dictionary, from Turin thanks to Abbot Godofredo Casalis, had the official name “Historical, geographical, … Continue reading Don Bosco’s Summer Resource
(ANS – Rome) – Don Bosco had a great devotion to the Sacred Heart, and he recommended it to his boys. This devotion was displayed in many forms and expressions during his life: writings, prayers, good advice and recommendations, and even churches. And his devotion was so compelling that it became part of the Salesian Charism itself, being spread by his Successors and Spiritual Sons to … Continue reading Don Bosco and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
By P. Natale CERRATO Did Don Bosco do politics? Yes, but not in the immediate sense of the word. He himself said that his politics were of the Our Father: souls to be saved, poor young people to be nurtured and educated. Don Bosco and Politics:Don Bosco lived intensely and with a conscious awareness of the problems, unprecedented for him also, of the great cultural … Continue reading Don Bosco, Politics, and the Social Question
(ANS Turin) – To refer to the life of St John Bosco (1815-1888), a leading figure of nineteenth-century Piedmontese social holiness, without mentioning the world of dreams, is to suppress an important aspect of his identity. Through the dreams that God sent him, the life of the saint was marked by the supernatural. Between the ages of nine and ten Don Bosco had his first dream, … Continue reading The Bicentenary of Saint John Bosco’s Childhood Dream, ‘Between Past and Present’
In order to mark the bicentenary of the foundational dream that Saint John Bosco experienced when only nine years of age (1824), this book offers readers reflections on a number of biblical and theological themes that emerge from the simplicity yet depth of that dream. In the first place, certain elements from the life and person of Jesus are presented as the model for a … Continue reading Remembering A Dream – Studies for the Bicentenary of Don Bosco’s Dream of 1824
(ANS – Rome) – “Hope is a dimension of faith and can give meaning to daily life. We must make people understand the value of a life lived from the perspective of a project to be carried out with others and among these a friendly, personal, and merciful God.” This is how Fr Joseph Costa, co-spokesperson of the Salesian Congregation, spoke on the day commemorating Saint … Continue reading Don Bosco and young people. Fr. Costa: “Fight loneliness and give hope for life”
Rome, RMG – January 31, 2024 – The Salesian Congregation’s Sector for Social Communication, on the occasion of the feast of St John Bosco, has made videos in several languages that present 20 graphics on some of the most famous sayings of Don Bosco. The videos are available on ANSChannel‘s language channels, on YouTube. Continue reading A Video Brings Together 20 Posters to Remember Don Bosco and His Most Famous Sayings
(ANS – Rome) – Don Bosco, a man of prayer and action, not only laid the foundations of an immense movement of people who, throughout the centuries, have dedicated themselves to the salvation of the young, but he also left all his spiritual children a great wealth of useful, indications for never losing one’s way. Between what he used to say and what was later picked … Continue reading 20 Posters to Remember Don Bosco and His Most Famous Sayings
(ANS – Rome) – A perennial warning for the Salesian Congregation and all its sons, never to lose sight of what should be the characteristics and attitudes in their actions to please God and serve our brothers and sisters: this is how Don Bosco interpreted another of his most famous dreams, that of the ten diamonds (Biographical Memoirs XV, 148-151), which took place in September 1881: … Continue reading Don Bosco the Dreamer: The Ten Diamonds
(ANS– Rome) – After recalling some of Don Bosco’s famous dreams with a clearly educational and pedagogical value, today begins the mini-cycle of three events dedicated to rediscovering the “missionary” dreams of the holy founder of the Salesian Congregation. Given the development of the Society he founded, the countless works started and carried out with the collaboration of many other men and women religious and lay … Continue reading Don Bosco the Dreamer: the First Missionary Dream
(ANS – Rome) – Many of the dreams that Don Bosco told his boys had obviously educational purposes, so much so that very often, not even his biographers were able to clearly demarcate the boundary between dream, vision, and pedagogical storytelling. Among these, we can certainly include the one known as “the dream of the snake and the rosary” (Biographical Memoirs – VII 141-145). Occurring in … Continue reading Don Bosco the Dreamer: the Dream of the Snake and the Rosary
(ANS – Rome) – The novena begins today, 22 January, in preparation for the feast of the Father and Teacher of Youth, St John Bosco. In this bicentenary year of the Dream at Nine years of Age, the Salesian iNfo Agency would like to accompany this journey of preparation, following up on his countless “dreams” to let us once again be guided by Don Bosco and … Continue reading Don Bosco’s Dreams: A Novena to Get to Know Them, Deepen Them and Receive New Energy
