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 pleasure of living next to a youngster, small among the small, poor among the poor, fragile among the fragile.

A priest friend and spiritual guide of his, Fr Cafasso, knew Don Bosco, knew his zeal for souls, sensed his passion for this multitude of boys; he urged him to go out into the streets. “Go, look around.” From the first Sundays, the priest from the countryside, the priest who had not known his father, went out to see the misery of the town’s suburbs. He was shocked. “He met a large number of young people of all ages,” testified his successor, Fr Rua, “who were wandering around the streets and squares, especially in the outskirts of the town, playing, brawling, swearing and even doing worse.“

He entered building sites, talked to workers, contacted employers; he felt emotions that would mark him for the rest of his life when he met these boys. And sometimes he found these poor “bricklayers” lying on the floor in a corner of a church, tired, asleep, unable to tune into meaningless sermons about their vagabond lives. Perhaps that was the only place where they could find some warmth, after a day of toil, before venturing off in search of somewhere to spend the night. He went into the shops, wandered around the markets, visited the street corners where there were many boys begging. Everywhere, badly dressed and undernourished boys; he witnessed scenes of malpractice and transgressions: all carried out by boys.

After a few years, he moved from the streets to the prisons. “For a full twenty years I assiduously visited Turin’s city prisons. I continued my visits later, though not as regularly…” (BM XV, 600)

How many misunderstandings at the beginning! How many insults! A “cassock” was out of tune in that place, frowned upon. He approached those angry and distrustful “wolves,” he listened to their stories, but above all he made their suffering his own.

He understood the drama of those boys: clever exploiters had pushed them into those cells. And he became their friend. His simple and humane manner restored dignity and respect to each of them.

Something had to be done and soon; a different system had to be invented, to stand by those who had gone astray. “Whenever he had the time, he would spend entire days in the prisons and several times he conducted spiritual retreats there. He regularly visited the inmates on Saturdays, his pockets bulging with tobacco or bread. He was especially interested in the juveniles whom misfortune had brought there. … By helping and befriending them, he sought to draw them to the festive oratory after their release from prison.” (MB II, 136-137)

In the “Generala”, a House of Correction opened in Turin on 12 April 1845, as stated in the regulations of the Penal House, “young people condemned
to a correctional sentence for having acted without discernment in committing the crime and young people supported in prison by paternal love” were “gathered and governed by the method of working together, in silence and segregated by night in special cells.” This was the context for the extraordinary excursion to Stupinigi organized by Don Bosco alone, with the consent of the Minister of the Interior, Urban Rattazzi, without guards, based only on mutual trust, a commitment of conscience and the fascination of the educator. He wanted to know the “reason why the State does not have the influence” of the priest over these young people. “The force we have is a moral force: unlike the State, which knows only how to command and punish, we speak primarily to the heart of the youth, and our word is the word of God.”

Knowing the system of life adopted inside the Generala, the challenge thrown down by the young Piedmontese priest took on incredible value: to ask for a “Free Release” day for all those young inmates. It was madness yet such was Don Bosco’s request. He obtained permission in the spring of 1855. The whole thing was organized by Don Bosco alone, with the help of the boys themselves. The consent he received from Minister Rattazzi was certainly a sign of esteem for and trust in the young priest. The experience of leading boys out of that House of Correction in complete freedom and managing to bring them all back to prison, despite what ordinarily took place inside the prison structure, was extraordinary.

It was the triumph of an appeal to trust and conscience, the testing of an idea, an experience, that would guide him throughout his life to rely on the resources hidden in the hearts of so many young people doomed to irreversible marginalization.

(to be continued)