austraLasia #2949 Symposium on the late Fr John Trisolini SDB
SEOUL: 23 November 2011 -- On 22 November evening, a
symposium was held in the provincial house in Seoul,
organised by the Salesians, with presence of two bishops,
many Salesian Cooperators, staff and lay people involved in
the workers pastoral ministry, and a good number of Salesian
Family and friends. The topic of the symposium was the ‘Life
and Spirituality of the late Fr John Trisolini’ (on the
first anniversary of his death).
"Fr John, during the fifty years of hard
life in this land until the moment he was called home by The
Father, dedicated himself totally to youth and migrant
workers, following Don Bosco' example of bringing them the
salvation that comes from Our Lord's sacrifice. As a member
of the Episcopal Conference of Korea, I express my sincere
thanks to the Salesian Congregation for sending us such an
excellent, valuable confrere. And I would like to ask you to
continue to form and send good Salesians for the universal
mission of the Church, especially for the poor and
marginalised." these were the words of Bishop Lazaro Yu, Daejeon
diocese.
John (more commonly and familiarly known
simply as 'Jack') Trisolini was born in 1937, in New Jersey
USA, and in 1959 was sent to Korea as a missionary. He died
last year after more than 50 years dedicated entirely to the
poorest of the young, and especially young workers, and in
recent years especially young migrant workers.
He was involved in the JOC (Jeunesse
Ouvrière Chrétienne) from the beginning
of its organisation in Korea when it emerged as a strong
workers' manifestation against a dictatorial government. JOC
was 'militant' only in the sense that it fought for human
dignity and basic rights for workers in the early 1970s.
Jack, always in the full spirit of Church, and with
Christian values foremost, helped the movement to focus more
on the preservation of human dignity of the young workers,
instead of fighting for ideological and fundamentalist
principles, always a danger in social movements of this
kind.
He was the Assistant for
IYCW-Asia-Pacific ( the International Young Christian
Workers Movement) from 1993-2010.
"We can define his life as entire
dedication to poor and abandoned youth. He was always the
first one to set out looking for the poor in society and
felt distressed, at times, when our privileged interest in
poor youth in the Salesian mission seemed to have been
neglected. He visited the jail for young prisoners every
Saturday to celebrate the Sacraments and to make friends
with them. He established a youth centre with a dormitory
for those who did not have a place to stay; hundreds of
ex-prisoners spent their youthful days learning some job
skills, like carpentry or ceramics, or studying school
subjects with which they could then integrate into society”,
explained Fr Michael Chang, the chief inspiration behind the
symposium.
Especially in the last twenty years of
his life, Fr Jack paid much attention to helping migrant
workers in Korean society emerge as a new phenomenon from
the '90s, by opening a counselling office for migrant
workers in order to better integrate them into the Korean
reality, and by building up nationally-based immigrant
communities: Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai, Mongolian,
Peruvian, Bangladeshi.... to help them address their own
problems by themselves.
There was also an impressive testimony
from a Salesian Cooperator, Anselmo Kim, who was a member of
the team led by Jack. “As we know very well, he contracted
infantile paralysis shortly after he arrived in Korea. It
became a personal crusade for him, I heard this from him
directly. He was selected as a representative amongst the
theological students to go to the installation ceremony of
Pope Paul IV, in 1963, during which he felt strongly that he
would be healed if he made a pilgrim to Lourdes. He also
told the Rector Major of the time about this. The RM was
also present at the celebration in St Peter's. Three weeks
later, the RM sent him a round ticket to Lourdes. But
instead, he prayed before Our Blessed Mother telling her
that if she wanted to intercede for someone, she should do
it for whoever was in greater need than he was..., and that
evening he heard that someone was cured”.
There were many more testimonies of the
heroic life of this good Salesian, who spent his life until
his last breath working for the salvation of youth. _________________
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