ROME: 23rd June 2006 -- Now, you think this is
going to be about Benedict and his Secretary of State to be, don't
you. Other than the fact that yesterday's small hint came to
reality a little more rapidly than expected (the pundits were saying
29th June), what follows is not, indeed, about this Pope and this
Bishop, but about Don Bosco, His Pope and His Bishop, the title
of the recently published work by Arthur Lenti SDB from Berkeley.
The University Press from the UPS (known as LAS) has published the item
this month.
Diligent readers of the Berkeley-based Journal of
Salesian Studies will already have read the contents of the work, but
will need a long memory, since it draws from articles published as far
back as 1993. The real clue to the contents of this collection of
previously published articles, edited to come together in an attractive
252 page volume as part of the Studi Storici Collana from LAS,
comes in the subtitle only visible once one turns to the title
page: The Trials of a Founder. The work covers two
major periods in Don Bosco's life from 1858 until 1882. The
second of these, the conflict with Gastaldi, is broken into two
parts. In total, then, the book contains just three chapters.
The first period, 1858-1871, contains many letters
of Don Bosco's to Pope Pius IX at a time when the Holy Father and the
Church in Italy were undergoing many trials. They offer an
insight into the relationship between Don Bosco and his Pope, as the
former agonised over the religious situation of his own world and the
Church. Each letter is placed in brief historical context then
commented on. The author wants us to understand Don Bosco's
political and religious attitudes and their significance for our
understanding of our Founder in the context of the Church and his
world. The great value for the English reader is obvious - he or
she is able to read this material in fluent English! Lenti builds
on the work of Francesco Motto, who retrieved these original texts,
previously unpublished, from various archives. His comments,
however, go beyond Motto. They are very much the classroom
teacher at work, explaining in readily acceptable and balanced
language, the intricacies of textual interpretation.
The second period, the 'Gastaldi' period, is handled
a little differently, since it deals with the entire period and a range
of clashes - over ordinations, over the Constitutions. Here Lenti
establishes a framework for understanding the events. It is good
at this stage to remember the title of the book: His Pope and His
Bishop. Knowing by now the relationship Don Bosco had with 'His
Pope', it is not hard to guess that he relied on this too, when it came
to difficulties with 'His Bishop'. One picks up or is reminded of
many interesting little facets of the scene - the fact that Gastaldi
had been a religious for a short period (Rosminian), but was released
from his vows; the partly devious ploy by Don Bosco of getting Rua
ordained deacon by shifting him to another diocese, the fact that Don
Bosco was taking in seminarians who had left or were dismissed from the
diocesan seminary. Lenti helps us to understand that maybe both
players in the conflict could play rough if they needed to!
In his preface, Arthur Lenti thanks two people who
have been particularly significant in helping him get to the point of
publication - his editor, Fr Ralph Murphy, and his good friend Fr Frank
Moloney who provided the impetus and some of the connections to move to
publication as soon as possible.
One final comment - it is to be hoped that further
works by this author are in the pipeline. Is it not time to be
thinking of one of the Creative Commons licenses to get these works
moving and to ensure an even wider use amongst the people who need them
most - you and I, the ordinary English language Salesian readers?
___________________
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