Circular

E X, 4572

A moving final Circular on behalf of the Salesian missions in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Cile and Ecuador

Turin, 4 November 1887

Worthy Sir,

I am aware of how much you esteem and appreciate charitable and religious works, and how naturally inclined you are to promote and support them. This gives me great confidence that you will kindly consider these few lines and what I am about to explain. Your Excellency is well aware that one of the most praiseworthy and worthy causes is that of the holy Missions among foreign peoples. The divine Master recommended it to the Apostles and their Successors, saying: Go into all the world and teach all nations: Euntes in mundum universum.... docete omnes gentes; the Catholic Church recommends it and promotes it by every possible means; reason, enlightened by faith, recommends it; the very nature of the human heart recommends it. The divine injunction to teach and civilise all the peoples of the world has therefore been faithfully fulfilled at all times; and under the wise direction of the Roman Pontiff, it is still being fulfilled today by hundreds and thousands of priests with a generosity and intrepidity reminiscent of the early years of Christianity.

But despite the numerous apostolic legions scattered across the face of the earth to bring the torch of Faith and the benefits of true progress, many peoples still remain deprived of this most remarkable good. Unaware of religious truths, they are at the same time deprived of the material and civil benefits that these bring to the world; and therefore, without education, some still expose their children to the grazing of animals; others offer human sacrifices to false gods; others sell their fellow human beings as we sell animals; and others even slaughter them and feed on their flesh; all, to a greater or lesser extent, live and die like brutes.

What a heart-rending sight for those who have faith, for those who have a heart, for those who have a sense of humanity! From this we can see that the Catholic Missions, destined to evangelise and civilise so many unhappy creatures, are a work worthy of the highest praise; and today, especially, there is no one with a good heart who does not admire and, if able, comfort with their protection those religious men and women who abandon their homeland, their relatives and friends, and sacrifice comfort and rest to become apostles of the Lord, benefactors and saviours of tribes still abandoned in ignorance and barbarism. This glorious task, as Your Excellency well knows, has also been entrusted to the Salesian Society for the past twelve years.

Since 1875, the Salesians, comforted by the blessing of the Supreme Pontiff, have settled in various places in South America, with the aim not only of preserving the Christian faith among the already Christian populations, but with the main goal of reaching previously unexplored regions, to educate their inhabitants, bring them into the Church and, at the same time, win them over to civil society. Today, they are engaged in this endeavour in the Empire of Brazil, Uruguay, the Argentine Republic, the Republic of Chile, and soon they will also be engaged in Ecuador. All of the aforementioned states include within their borders numerous savage tribes still enslaved by error and subject to the empire of Satan. Brazil has millions of them, and all the aforementioned republics have thousands.

Among the others, Argentina and Chile embrace Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and countless islands, which form the last borders of the earth towards the Antarctic pole. There, among vast deserts, between the gorges of towering mountains, on the banks of deep and swirling rivers, numerous families of poor indigenous people roam like herds, deprived of all spiritual, material and civil goods.

However, among those distant and unhappy people, Salesian missionaries are working successfully. Settling there cost them not only sweat and hardship, but shipwrecks, falls, loss, hunger, thirst, and other obvious dangers to their lives. Nevertheless, they are happy to have succeeded in part in their endeavour. They have already established several stations there, such as those in Norquín, Santa Cruz, Punta Arenas, and others are considering establishing stations in the more central parts, in Tierra del Fuego and the Malvinas Islands.

What is very comforting is that the populations and their leaders or Caciches are very willing to embrace the Christian religion, and they open their hearts to the hope that the day is not far off when those lands will flourish like the rich gardens of the Catholic Church.

But a serious consideration must be made here, and it is this: in those parts, missionaries need many things that are indispensable for the exercise of their sacred ministry, and others that are necessary for the savages themselves, both to convert them and to cultivate them in the Faith, and to bring them into civilised life. For this purpose, chapels are needed where they can be gathered and instructed not only with words, but also with sacred rites and Catholic ceremonies; sacred furnishings are needed for the celebration of the divine mysteries and for the administration of the holy sacraments. For moral and civil life, clothes are needed to dress them decently, and buildings to house the girls and boys abandoned in the desert, and to educate them in time, in order to make them Christians and prepare them to be the missionaries' helpers in the civilisation of their fellow countrymen; Finally, tools are needed for agriculture, for learning and practising arts and crafts, and so on.

Now, all these and other similar items, necessary to meet the aforementioned needs, are not yet available in those inhospitable lands and must be procured and brought in from civilised and distant countries. One can well imagine how much it costs to start and maintain a mission. Don Bosco and the Salesians know this from experience and speak of it with the deepest conviction.

Having briefly outlined these things, I must now point out a matter of great importance. Your Excellency, listen to this, and in your goodness, take a keen interest in it: without the cooperation and charity of the faithful, Don Bosco and the Salesians cannot sustain their missions and will have to abandon them, as missionaries from other congregations have already done. I assure you that the mere thought of such an event deeply afflicts me.

I hope that the Lord, in his mercy, will not want to sadden the last days of my life with such a disaster; indeed, I trust that during my life and after my descent into the grave, the Salesian missionaries will be able to remain in their place, rejoicing the Church with new children, and also benefiting civil governments with wise citizens. But this confidence, after God, I place in the goodness of my Cooperators, among whom I am happy to count Your Excellency, who is so deserving. If all the people who have some connection with me will deign to offer me finds from their charity, I will soon be able to send the Salesian missionaries enough to support their works, to comfort their zeal, to urge them to pitch their tents and unfurl the banner of the Cross to the ends of the earth. With this confidence, I am also preparing to send a group of Salesians to Quito in the Republic of Ecuador, where on the eastern side of the Cordillera thousands and thousands of souls still sit in the shadow of death, awaiting the work of the Catholic missionary. This confidence will also be what prompts me to undertake other missions offered to the Salesians by the Pope, the bishops, and many governments.

Allow me, therefore, now that I am weighed down by the burden of years and the infirmities of old age, to ask you for some alms for my hundred or more missionaries, who, although far from my eyes, are nevertheless always close to my heart; I ask you for alms for the many poor savages, adults and children, whom they have already converted and who, without knowing me, call me father; I ask you for alms for thousands of others who invoke and await the Salesians as angels of deliverance.

I ask for this charity in the name of Jesus Christ, who gave his blood and his life for souls; in the name of Jesus Christ, who promised to share the merit and reward of the preachers of the Gospel with all those who, for his sake, will have helped and assisted them: Qui recipit prophetam in nomine prophetae, mercedem prophetae accipiet.

The humble undersigned and the three hundred thousand children who are now under the direction of the Salesians in various parts of the world will make daily petitions to the throne of God and of the Virgin Help of Christians, that they may pour out upon you and upon all your works the most chosen blessings, even temporal ones; may they grant you bodily health, peace and harmony in the family, and prosperity even in material interests. Experience teaches us that the benefactors of our missionaries enjoy a very special protection from Heaven in life and in death. This explains my feelings as a friend to a friend, full of hope that I have not spoken in vain to the mind and heart of Your Excellency.

Finally, as I await your charity, I commend my soul to your fervent prayers, and I express my high esteem and deep gratitude.

Your worthy Excellency’s

Most obliged servant

Fr John Bosco