BS-maggio-2025-en


BS-maggio-2025-en

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The New Headquarters of the
Salesians. Rome, Sacro Cuore
(Sacred Heart)
Today, the original vocation of the Sacred Heart House sees a
new beginning. Tradition and innovation continue to
characterise the past, present, and future of this significant
work.
So often did Don Bosco desire to come to Rome to
open a Salesian house. From his first trip in 1858, his goal
was to be present in the Eternal City with an educational
presence. He came to Rome twenty times, and only on his last
trip in 1887 was he able to realise his dream by opening the
Sacred Heart house in Castro Pretorio.
The Salesian Work is located in the Esquiline
district, established in 1875, after the breach of Porta Pia
and the Savoy’s need to build the ministries of the Kingdom of
Italy in the new capital. The district, also called Umbertino,
has Piedmontese architecture. All the streets are named after
battles or events related to the Savoy state. In this place
that recalls Turin, there had to be a Temple, which was also a
parish, built by a Piedmontese, Don Giovanni Bosco. Don Bosco
did not choose the name of the Church, but it was the will of
Leo XIII to revive a devotion, more relevant than ever, to the
Heart of Jesus.
Today, the Sacred Heart House is completely
renovated to meet the needs of the Salesian Central
Headquarters. From the time of its foundation to the present
day, the house has undergone several transformations. The Work
began as a Parish and International Temple for the spread of
devotion to the Sacred Heart. From the beginning, Don Bosco’s
declared goal was to build a home next door to accommodate up
to 500 poor children. Fr. Rua completed the Work and opened
workshops for artisans (arts and crafts school). In the

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following years, the middle school and classical high school
were opened. For some years, it was also the seat of the
university (Pontifical Salesian Athenaeum) and a training
house for Salesians who studied at Roman universities and were
involved in the school and oratory (among these students there
was Fr. Quadrio). It was also the headquarters of the Roman
Province first and of the Circumscription of Central Italy
from 2008. Since 2017, due to the move from Via della Pisana,
it has become the Salesian Central Headquarters. Renovation
began in 2022 to adapt the spaces to the function of the
Rector Major’s house. Don Bosco, Fr. Rua, Cardinal Cagliero
(his apartment was located on the first floor of Via Marsala),
Zeffirino Namuncurà, Monsignor Versiglia, Artemide Zatti, all
the Rectors Major successors of Don Bosco, and Saint John Paul
II, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and Pope Francis have lived or
passed through this house. Among the directors of the house,
Monsignor Giuseppe Cognata served (during his rectorship, in
1930, the statue of the Sacred Heart was placed on the bell
tower).
Thanks to the Sacred Heart, the Salesian charism
has spread to various neighbourhoods of Rome. In fact, all the
other Salesian presences in Rome have been an offshoot of this
house: Testaccio, Pio XI, Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco, Don Bosco
Cinecittà, Gerini, the Pontifical Salesian University.
Crossroads of Hospitality
From the beginning, there have been two
determining characteristics of the Sacred Heart House:
1) Catholicity, in that opening a house in Rome
has always meant for the founders of religious orders a
closeness to the Pope and a broadening of horizons at a
universal level. In the first conference to the Salesian
Cooperators at the monastery of Tor De’ Specchi in Rome in
1874, Don Bosco stated that the Salesians would spread
throughout the world and that helping their works meant living
the most authentic Catholic spirit;
2) attention towards poor young people: the

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location near the station, a crossroads of arrivals and
departures, a place where the poorest have always gathered, is
inscribed in the history of the Sacred Heart.
In the beginning, the House took in poor children
to teach them a trade, and later, the oratory gathered the
children of the neighbourhood. After the war, the shoeshine
boys (boys who shined shoes for people leaving the station)
were gathered and cared for first in this house and then moved
to Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco. During the mid-1980s, with the
first immigration to Italy, young immigrants were hosted in
collaboration with the nascent Caritas. In the 1990s, a Day
Centre gathered children as an alternative to prison and
taught them the basics of reading and writing and a trade.
Since 2009, an integration project between young refugees and
young Italians has seen many initiatives of welcome and
evangelisation flourish. The Sacred Heart House has also been
the headquarters of the National Centre of Salesian Works of
Italy for about 30 years.
The New Beginning
Today, the original vocation of the Sacred Heart
House sees a new beginning. Tradition and innovation continue
to characterise the past, present, and future of this
significant work.
First of all, the presence of the Rector Major
with his council and of the confreres who take care of the
global dimension indicates the continuum of Catholicity. It is
a vocation to welcome many Salesians who come from all over
the world and find in the Sacred Heart House a place to feel
at home, experience fraternity and meet with Don Bosco’s
successor. At the same time, it is the place from which the
Rector Major animates and governs the Congregation, tracing
the lines to be faithful to Don Bosco in the present.
Secondly, there is the presence of a significant
Salesian place where Don Bosco wrote the letter from Rome and
understood the dream of the nine years. Inside the house there
will be the Don Bosco House Museum of Rome, which, distributed

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on three floors, will tell the story of the Saint’s presence
in the eternal city. The centrality of education as a “thing
of the heart” in his Preventive System, the relationship with
the Popes who loved Don Bosco and whom he first loved and
served, the Sacred Heart as a place of expansion of the
charism throughout the world, the difficult path of approval
of the Constitutions, the understanding of the dream of the
nine years and his last educational breath in writing the
letter from Rome are the thematic elements that, in an
immersive multimedia form, will be revealed to those who visit
the Museum.
Thirdly, the devotion to the Sacred Heart
represents the centre of the charism. Don Bosco, even before
receiving the invitation to build the Church of the Sacred
Heart, had oriented young people towards this devotion. In The
Companion of Youth there are prayers and practices of piety
addressed to the Heart of Christ. However, with the acceptance
of the proposal of Leo XIII he becomes a true apostle of the
Sacred Heart. He spares no effort to seek money for the
Church. The attention to the smallest details infuses his
thought and devotion to the Sacred Heart into the
architectural and artistic choices of the Basilica. To support
the construction of the Church and the house, he founded the
Pious Work of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the last of the five
foundations created by Don Bosco throughout his life together
with the Salesians, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians,
the Salesian Cooperators, the Association of Devotees of Mary
Help of Christians. It was erected for the perpetual
celebration of six daily masses in the Church of the Sacred
Heart in Rome. All the members, living and deceased,
participate through the prayer offered and the good works
performed by the Salesians and young people in all their
houses.
The vision of the Church that derives from the
foundation of the Pious Work is that of a “living body”
composed of the living and the dead in communion with each
other through the Sacrifice of Jesus, renewed daily in the

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Eucharistic celebration in service of the poorest young
people. The desire of the Heart of Jesus is that all may be
one (ut unum sint) as He and the Father. The Pious Work
connects, through prayer and offerings, the benefactors,
living and deceased, the Salesians of the whole world and the
young people who live at the Sacred Heart. Only through
communion, which has its source in the Eucharist, can
benefactors, Salesians and young people contribute to building
the Church, to making it shine in its missionary face. The
Pious Work also has the task of promoting, spreading,
deepening devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the world
and renewing it according to the times and the feeling of the
Church.
The central station for evangelising
Finally, attention to poor young people is
manifested in the missionary will to reach the young people of
all Rome through the Youth Centre open on Via Marsala, right
at the exit of Termini station where about 300,000 people pass
every day. A place that is home for the many Italian and
foreign young people, who visit or live in Rome and are
thirsty, sometimes unconsciously, for God. Moreover, various
poor people, marked by the fatigue of life, have always
crowded around Termini station. It is another open door on Via
Marsala, in addition to that of the Youth Centre and the
Basilica, that expresses the desire to respond to the needs of
these people with the Heart of Christ. In fact, the glory of
His face shines in them.
Don Bosco’s prophecy about the Sacred Heart House
of April 5, 1880, accompanies and guides the realisation of
what has been told:
But Don Bosco looked further into the future. Our own Bishop
John Marenco recalled a mysterious remark he made which we
should not let time obliterate. On the very day he accepted
that burdensome assignment, Don Bosco asked him:
– Do you know why we accepted that house in Rome?

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– No, he answered.
– Listen, then. We agreed because one day, when there will be
another Pope and he shall be the right one, we shall set up
our headquarters there to evangelise the Roman countryside. It
will be no less important a task than that of evangelising
Patagonia. Then will the Salesians be acknowledged and their
glory shine forth! (BM XIV, 474)
don Francesco Marcoccio