E IX, 4381

Extensive report on the Salesian missions in America: situation, dangers, material and spiritual needs, extensive projects of Fr Cagliero, Fr Fagnano and Fr Lasagna — need for personnel — new departure of missionaries — need to support them financially

Turin, 15 October 1886

Worthy and esteemed Cooperators,

It gives me great pleasure to be able to share with you, dear Cooperators, the interesting news that has reached me from Patagonia and the many other missions already established in South America, and at the same time to outline plans for new ventures which, given the urgent needs of those distant populations, should be set in motion as soon as possible.

After travelling back and forth across Patagonia, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes Mountains, and crossing those famous mountains twice to reach Chile, after catechising and baptising various tribes of savages, at the cost of incredible hardship and danger on the part of our missionaries, the time has come to think seriously about consolidating and perpetuating the good work done so far.

For those tribes, pacified and converted to the Faith, having begun to taste the first sweetness of Christian and civilised life, cannot resign themselves to only occasionally seeing the missionary who called them to social life and to the light of the Gospel.

They would rightly want him always among them, to be guided, instructed and comforted by him, and especially to be assisted by him in cases of illness and danger of death.

It is therefore not surprising that Bishop Cagliero, Vicar Apostolic of Patagonia, cannot bring himself to deny these religious and most just comforts to the poor savages, who are also his dearest children in Jesus Christ. But he has neither the personnel nor the means to satisfy their ardent desires. Having to establish permanent residences for missionaries in the Patagonian desert, as the savages gather in colonies or villages, he needs, as you can well understand, a large number of priests, catechists and nuns, and many material resources that are indispensable for social life and divine worship.

Those poor neophytes, despite their good will, can offer our missionaries nothing but the spectacle of their pitiful misery. They themselves are in need of everything, even clothing and sustenance, especially at the beginning of their conversion. Therefore, the fate of those missions depends entirely on the Salesian Pious Society and on the charity of our Cooperators. Should we lose heart? Oh no! On the contrary, we will redouble our efforts so as not to let those works, which have already cost us so much sweat and sacrifice, come to nothing.

In addition to this, you should know that, in order to ensure the complete conversion of Patagonia, we have already decided to open a route from the western part of Chile, and a group of Salesians are already on their way there to establish a house beyond the Cordillera, in the city of Concepción, which belongs to the Chilean Republic.

It is from there that colonies of missionaries will have to depart to evangelise Araucania and western Patagonia, then gradually spread to the Chiloe and Magellan Archipelagos, in the so-called Tierra del Fuego, all populated by countless indigenous tribes completely devoid of any idea of religion and civilisation.

Fr Fagnano must already have gone down to the Malvinas Islands, and from there he will rush to explore all those islands up to Cape Horn, where he will study the most strategic and suitable points for planting the tents of the new soldiers of the Cross, who will soon join him.

You can never imagine, dear Cooperators, how many urgent requests and pleas I receive from our tireless missionaries and the local populations themselves, asking us to send new and substantial reinforcements of men and money.

And precisely to make better known the needs and conditions, which, thank God, are satisfactory in our missions in America, our missionary Fr Luigi Lasagna has come expressly from those distant countries, leaving no stone unturned to persuade me to prepare once again a large expedition of Salesian missionaries and Sisters of Mary Help of Christians. He too needs a good number for the missions I entrusted to him in the vast empire of Brazil, which is larger than the whole of Europe, and where there are boundless regions populated only by savages who roam immense forests, sighing for centuries for a friendly hand to rescue them from the shameful barbarism in which they lie buried and will continue to lie for who knows how many generations unless the zeal of missionaries, supported by the charity of the faithful, soon brings them some help.

Prompted by these powerful motives, we have decided to prepare for next November the dispatch of a new group of missionaries, who will be at least thirty in number, and there may even be more if the aid of benefactors reaches us in time and in abundance.

That being said, it will not be difficult for you to understand, dear Cooperators, that in order to prepare this new group of conquerors of souls and propagators of the kingdom of God on earth, there are very serious expenses for sacred vestments, clothing and linen, furnishings for the church, school and housing, and urgent expenses for sea and land travel. Therefore, I have no choice but to place all my hope in God and in your generosity, dear Cooperators, so that, as you have already come to my aid in previous expeditions, you will not delay in helping me in the expedition we are currently undertaking, despite the great scarcity of material resources that afflicts us.

I therefore make a new appeal to your charity. Listen, as I do, to the voice of our dear missionaries and the cry of so many poor and destitute people in those faraway lands.

I therefore beg the Cooperators to make this new expedition possible by helping us with their fervent prayers and with whatever offerings they can make in the form of cloth or linen, clothes or garments, church furnishings or sacred vessels, and even more so in the form of money, with which to cover the costs of travel and transport by land and sea, and finally with any alms that their piety suggests and their circumstances allows.

At the Oratory of Turin, from where the new missionaries will set out, we will gratefully receive, either by hand, by rail or by post, whatever your industrious charity will send for this noble cause.

On the day chosen for the missionaries' departure, before the farewell ceremony a special conference will be held for the Cooperators in the sanctuary of Mary Help of Christians, and this will be notified to you in good time so that those who wish to do so may attend. While I invite you now, I would also ask you to kindly seek among your acquaintances and friends who would also like to contribute with their offering to this work of humanity and faith.

We will record your names and theirs in the registers of our pious institute, to remember them every day in our prayers, to implore abundant blessings from heaven upon you and upon all those who will benefit us, upon their families and their works, confident that God will mark them in the book of life, in the book of the predestined, for it is the judgement of the great St Augustine that whoever effectively procures the salvation of souls, secures his own soul: Animam salvasti, animam tuam praedestinasti.

May Mary Most Holy, Help of Christians, who has made herself the protector and mother of our missionaries and of those poor savages, obtain for you from God every chosen spiritual and temporal blessing

Yours most affectionately in Jesus Christ

Fr J. Bosco

N.B. The charitable benefactors of our missions are kindly requested to send their donations directly to Don Bosco in Turin, Via Cottolengo, No. 32.