Buccellato - Don Bosco%27s experience of Spiritual Direction at the Convitto


Buccellato - Don Bosco%27s experience of Spiritual Direction at the Convitto

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DON BOSCO’s EXPERIENCE OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION AS IT WAS PRACTISED
DURING HIS YEARS AT THE TURIN CONVITTO ECCLESIASTICO (1841-1844)
SUMMARY
Don Giuseppe Buccellato SDB
INTRODUCTION
1. THE ORIGINS OF THE TURIN CONVITTO ECCLESIASTICO
1.1 Pio Brunone Lanteri
1.2 Retreats and the Sanctuary of Saint Ignatius above Lanzo
2. THE FORMATION PROGRAMME OF THE CONVITTO: CONTENTS AND METHOD
2.1 The study of moral theological practice
2.2 Exercises in Sacred Eloquence
2.3 Practice in the Apostolate
3. THE FATHER OF OUR FATHER
3.1 The gift of Counsel
3.2 Don Cafasso and Don Bosco
3.3 The 1860 Biography of the Priest Giuseppe Cafasso
4. DON BOSCO’s JUDGEMENT ON THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CONVITTO
5. THOSE THREE YEARS IN WHICH DON BOSCO BECOMES DON BOSCO
5.1 Here one learns to be a priest …
5.2 Pastoral Charity, “working class”boys and the first catechism lessons
5.3 A Society of lay people and ecclesiastics
5.4 Preaching retreats as the apostolic purpose of the Congregation
5.5 Don Bosco asks to join the Oblates of Pio Brunone Lanteri
5.6 «Seclusion» in Don Bosco’s spiritual experience
5.7 Engagement in the apostolate of good books
5.8 Man of prayer
5.9 The influence of Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori
5.9.1 The patron of confessors and moral theologians
5.9.2 Holiness within reach
5.9.3 Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and frequent communion
5.9.4 The doctrine of the four last things
5.9.5 Devotion to the Virgin Mary
5.9.6 Love for music and singing
5.9.7 The way of understanding religious life
5.10 In harmony with the Church [sentire cum Ecclesia] and obedience to the Pope
CONCLUSION
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INTRODUCTION
«Before I made a final choice, I sought out Fr Caffasso in Turin to ask his advice. For
several years now he had been my guide in matters both spiritual and temporal. That
holy priest listened to everything, the good money offers, the pressures from relatives
and friends, my own goodwill to work. Without a moment’s hesitation, this is what
he said: “You need to study moral theology and homiletics. For the present forget all
these offers and come to the Convitto". I willingly followed his wise advice; on 3 No-
vember 1841 I enrolled at the Convitto.»1
In the month following his priestly ordination, like many other young priests in his diocese and in his
times, Don Bosco was faced with a difficult process of discernment. The need to find the necessary
means of support in fact forced some of them to accept temporary appointments with the danger of
losing the « ecclesiastical spirit. » «Several of those, who on account of their talents, piety and virtue
gave the hope of becoming zealous workers» – one may read in one of the first drafts of the
Regulations of the Convitto –, «once ordained priests, in the fatal gap between ordination and a
permanent appointment lose their fervour and zeal and become of no use.»2
Following Cafasso’s «wise advice » marks the beginning of perhaps the most fruitful of Don Bosco’s
spiritual and apostolic experiences.
From the Memoirs of the Oratory we know that Don Bosco’s first real spiritual guide had been Don
Calosso. In spite of the fact that Don Bosco was still an adolescent, thinking back on it he realised that
the accompaniment relationship had left an indelible mark in the memory of the saint of Turin. «It
was then that I came to realise what it was to have a regular spiritual director, a faithful friend of one’s
soul. I had not had one up till then. »3
Cafasso’s accompaniment, in particular in the context of the Convitto Ecclesiastico in Turin, was to
be quite decisive in Don Bosco’s spiritual and apostolic process of maturing. «If I have been able to
do any good, I owe it to this worthy priest in whose hands I placed every decision I made, all my
study, and every activity of my life.»4
In order to understand just how fruitful and determining this relationship was we shall try to
reconstruct some of the essential features of the origins and of the « formation programme» of the
Convitto, in addition to the person of the one who, after having been himself a student at the Convitto
from 1833, the year of his ordination as a priest, for more than twenty five years was its heart and
soul. The teachings of Cafasso, in fact, were so much a vital part of the Convitto project and imbued
with the spirit of Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori, and therefore constituted the basic foundation of that
particular pedagogy aimed at holiness which was at the heart of «the deep personal relationship
which lasted for thirty years .»5 «This is the first objective reason to explain why the spirituality of
Cafasso was passed on to Saint John Bosco.»6
1 J. BOSCO, Memoirs of the Oratory of St. Francis of Sales between 1815 and 1855, Translated by Daniel Lyons
SDB, New Rochelle 2007, 99-100. From now on we shall refer to this text with MO.
2 AOMV [II Reg.] S. II, 255. The published and unpublished writings kept in the Archives of the Oblates of
Mary the Virgin in the Generalate in Rome, have been quoted electronically from the database of the Centre
Informatique et Bible of Maredsous (Belgium), and published and printed in: P.B. LANTERI, Writings and
documents from the archives, I-IV, Rome-Fossano 2002.
3 MO 44
4 MO 101
5 E. VALENTINI, Presentazione in San Giuseppe Cafasso. Memorie pubblicate nel 1860 da San Giovanni Bosco,
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In the first part, of an historical-analytical nature, in addition to the origins of the Convitto we shall
deal with its « formation plan», the person of Cafasso, of Don Bosco’s personal recollections, many
years after his experience as a student at the Convitto; in the second we shall try to bring out some key
aspects of Don Bosco’s spiritual and apostolic experience which have their roots in the relationship
of personal spiritual accompaniment which flourished in the three years spent at the Convitto. Finally
in an appendix we shall attempt to indicate some open questions, starting from the concrete and
historical experience of Don Bosco, but in relation to the present day context and to the changed
social and cultural conditions.
Turin 1960, 6.
6 L.c.
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1. THE ORIGINS OF THE CONVITTO ECCLESIASTICO IN TURIN
The Convitto Ecclesiastico in Turin began in 1817,7 under the inspiration of the Venerable
Pio Brunone Lanteri and on the initiative of Doctor Luigi Fortunato Guala, in premises
attached to the church of Saint Francis in Turin, on the road still today bearing the name of
the Poor man of Assisi.
The opening of the Convitto was a very significant event for the Piedmontese Church8; in
fact, with the Convitto, there opened in Turin a new « spiritual school» of priests with a clear
identity, which distinguished them from those trained in the Royal Theological University.
To the rigourism in the area of moral theology of the latter was contrasted the desire on the
part of the staff of the Convitto to dispel the last remnants of Jansenism (or what rightly or
wrongly was called such)9 and a defence without reserve of the authority of the Pope. This
different way of perceiving things would lead Monsignor Gastaldi, in 1878, to decide to close
the Convitto, accused by some of laxity. It would be re-opened by the nephew of Cafasso,
Canon Giuseppe Allamano, founder of the Consolata Missionaries, in 1882.10
The Convitto Ecclesiastico in Turin owed its prestige to the role it exercised in Piedmont and
beyond11 in spreading the moral theology of Saint Alphonsus and to some eminent figures as
its Directors, such as Saint Giuseppe Cafasso and his nephew Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, or
as its students such as Saint Giovanni Bosco, Saint Leonardo Murialdo and Blessed Clemente
Marchisio.
The declared aim of the Convitto was that of gathering together for two or three years young
priests, recently ordained, to give them a preparation more closely related to their priestly
ministry, in particular in view of preaching and «preparation » for the ministry of hearing
confessions. In a telling expression Colombero, a former student at the Convitto and a
biographer of Cafasso, describes it as «a group of priests who need the final touches to make
them sound in virtue and give them the ecclesiastical spirit so as to be prepared for the
exercise of the sacred ministry.»12
In the light of the documents connected with its foundation, the idea of setting up a Convitto
in premises attached to the church of Saint Francis of Assisi was that of Lanteri. An aide
memoire drawn up by Venerable Pio Brunone Lanteri13 between November and December
7 The official decree of approval by Mons. Chiaverotti, however, has the date 23 February 1821.
8 For a fuller examination of the history and of the role played by the Convitto and more in particular, by
Cafasso in the Piedmontese church see the extensive bibliography provided by G. TUNINETTI, San Giuseppe
Cafasso. Nota storico-biografica, in G. CAFASSO, Esercizi Spirituali al clero, edited by L. Casto, Cantalupa
(TO), 2003, 28-33.
9 Cf. G. PENCO, Storia della Chiesa in Italia, II, Milan, 1977, 266.
10 For a fuller examination of the reasons leading to this critical situation and to the closing of the Convitto, cf.
G. TUNINETTI, Lorenzo Gastaldi 1815-1883, II, Rome, 1988,165-184.
11 Cf. J. GUERBER, Le ralliement du clergè français à la morale liguorienne, Rome, 1973.
12 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, con cenni storici sul Convitto ecclesiastico di
Torino, Turin 1895, 79-80.
13 The complete text of this commemorative address is given by Mario Rossino in an appendix to his article Il
Convitto Ecclesiastico di S. Francesco d’Assisi. La sua fondazione, in Archivio Teologico Torinese, I (1995)
473-475.
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1816 preserved in Pinerolo in the General Archives of the Oblates of Mary the Virgin and
addressed to the Vicar Capitular Monsignor Gonetti,14 throws light on the intentions of the
founder to establish in Turin a community of Oblates, and to entrust to them in addition to the
preaching of retreats/the Spiritual Exercises, confessions and caring for the sick, the
management of a Convitto for young ecclesiastics.15 «The establishment of the aforesaid
Congregation» –Lanteri declares in this aide memoire– «would provide for new priests whose
previous studies were limited to the study of practical moral theology and who had been
forced to live in ordinary houses to the detriment of the ecclesiastical spirit […], the
advantage of a modest fee like that of the seminary, which the Congregation would itself
establish. »16 «Without [a Convitto] » – he adds later – «the hopes of the Superiors would not
be met, and the costs incurred in a fifth year for young students would be wasted.»17
This first project of Lanteri, however, did not receive the necessary approval. We do not
know whether this was due to the opposition of the ecclesiastical or the civil authorities.18
In any case, at this point Guala, a friend of Lanteri, comes on the scene and presents to the
royal administrator of ecclesiastical property, Andrea Palazzi, a new aide memoire, which
bears the date 8 August 1817.19
Having become Rector of the Church of Saint Francis in 1808 at the age of thirty-three, Luigi
Maria Fortunato Guala had already for a number of years begun to gather together in the
small residence he had available, a dozen or so young priests, with the aim of complementing
the formation received in the seminary with daily lectures in «practical» moral theology.20
This was the situation in which Guala found himself when, three years after this recognition
which bears witness to the esteem and the approval of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities,
he presented to Andrea Palazzi a request to be granted some premises for the Convitto.
In this new document he makes no reference to the Congregation of the Oblates. It is a
striking document, in some ways passionate. Guala says that a young cleric, without the
appropriate assistance runs the risk of «losing the ecclesiastical spirit. » «Very many of these
tender plants» – Guala writes – «who during their five-year course of study gave high hopes
of success, become barren through the lack of the final touches [...]. What a loss for souls,
and how lamentable at a time of such a shortage of ministers, which cannot be explained, and
yet it is all so evident. »21
The reply of Palazzi, bearing the same date, is a positive one. The third floor of the Convent
14 Mons. Emanuele Gonetti had been Vicar Capitular of the diocese of Turin between the death of Mons.
Giacinto della Torre (1814) and the appointment of Mons. Colombano Chiaverotti.
15 Cfr. G. USSEGLIO, Il Teologo Guala e il convitto ecclesiastico di Torino, Turin 1948, 11.
16 AOMV S. I, vol. VII, fasc. 3, doc. 289.
17 L.c..
18 For a fuller examination of this question see the contribution of Mario Rossino already mentioned, in
particular pages 458-461.
19 A.P. FRUTAZ, Beatificationis et canonizationis servi Dei Pii Brunonis Lanteri, fundatoris Congregationis
Oblatorum M.V. positio super introductione causae et super virtutibus ex officio compilata, Rome, 1945, 213.
20 Cfr. G. USSEGLIO, Il teologo Guala e il Convitto Ecclesiastico di Torino, cit., 14.
21 A.P. FRUTAZ, Beatificationis et canonizationis servi Dei Pii Brunonis Lanteri, cit., 213.
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of Saint Francis of Assisi then is made available to be used as proposed «to the benefit of
religion.»22
The idea of the Convitto, proposed by Lanteri and shared by Guala, who is about sixteen
years younger than he is, from now on has a single leader and promoter, Guala.23 While
remaining on excellent terms with his friend and disciple, 24 Lanteri will devote himself to
the concerns of the new Congregation of the Oblates.
It is also possible, as Calliari believes, that there were reasons of prudence that prevented
Lanteri from being seen to take the lead in the foundation, of which in all probability he was
the real originator and inspirer; Guala on the other hand was a disciple of Lanteri, as he was,
as we shall see, of Diessbach.25
The fact remains that the idea behind the Convitto which Guala also shared is the same as
that of Lanteri and is certainly derived from the programme of the Amicizia Sacerdotale,26 the
association of priests founded around 1783 by Nicolaus von Diessbach,an association to
which both Lanteri and Guala had belonged. Then, starting from 1815, meetings of the
Amicizia Sacerdotale were held at the Convitto and had as their leader Doctor Guala.27
1.1 Pio Brunone Lanteri
Pio Brunone Lanteri was born in Cuneo on 12 May 1759. Seventh child of a doctor who was
well-known for some medical publications but also for his Christian charity towards the poor,
as a youth he had entered the Cistercian Order perhaps worried about the subject of his
eternal salvation, so dear to preachers of the time. Not being able to keep up with the
22 Cfr. A.P. FRUTAZ, Beatificationis et canonizationis servi Dei Pii Brunonis Lanteri, cit., 215 The official
decree of ecclesiastical approval bears the date 23 February 1821 and is signed by Mons. Colombano
Chiaverotti; two years earlier the Vicar Gonetti had approved the first draft of the Regulations.
The disputed question of the «paternity» of the Convitto, which for years has fuelled the debate between the
supporters of Guala and those of Lanteri, after a reading of these documenti, seems to us to be CLARIFIED.
However, on this subject see the article already mentioned by Fr Mario Rossino Il Convitto Ecclesiastico di S.
Francesco d’Assisi, in particular, pages 470-471.
24 As confirmation of this statement see the letters which Guala and Lanteri continued to write to each other,
many of which are preserved in the positio Lanteri. Then in Lanteri’s last will and testament the Convitto, in the
person of Guala, is named as the universal heir, should the Congregation of the Oblates become extinct in the
meantime (cf. P. Calliari (ed.), Papers of the Venerable Pio Brunone Lanteri (1759-1830) founder of the
Congregation of the Oblates of Mary the Virgin, V, Turin, 1976, 413.
25 Paolo Calliari shares this opinion when he writes: «This is the certain fixed point of reference to which one
needs to return whenever one seeks the real origins of the Convitto Ecclesiastico: the three names Diessbach-
Lanteri-Guala» (P. Calliari, Gli Oblati di Maria. Fondazione a Carignano. Primi quattro anni di vita. 1816-1820,
San Vittorino 1980, 123). And further on: «( Lanteri) an outstanding man who courageously faced up to the
most difficult and complicated situations when it was a question of good to be done or evil prevented knew how
take a back seat so as not to appear in the limelight.» (163). Calliari’s treatment of the Convitto is full of
documentation (cf. in particular pages 118-174).
26 The Statutes of the Amicizia sacerdotale are given in C. Bona, Le «Amicizie». Società segrete e rinascita
religiosa (1770-1830), Turin, 1962, 503-511.
27 Cf. G. USSEGLIO, Il teologo Guala e il Convitto Ecclesiastico di Torino, cit., 17.
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austerity of the Rule he had to leave a short time afterwards.
Going to live in Turin he attended the faculty of theology at the Royal University where he
had Nicolas Joseph Albert von Diessbach as his teacher.
Diessbach was born in 1732 at Berne. Having become a widower he entered the Society of
Jesus in Turin in 1759. In this city he continued to work after the Society was suppressed in
1773. A friend of the Czech Redemptorist Clément-Marie Hofbauer, he had known
Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori and was an enthusiastic «Liguorian». Between 1778 and 1780
in Turin he founded the Amicizia Cristiana, a private association of clerics and laymen who,
binding themselves by vows and having Christian perfection as their aim, promoted the
spreading of good books, the struggle against Jansenism, the power of the crown and
jurisdictionalism and a sincere attachment to the Pope in the context of the ultramontane
tendency.28
In 1783 Diessbach had also founded the Amicizia Sacerdotale, a school of evangelical
perfection and a preparation for the apostolate through preaching, practical moral theology
and the distribution/ spreading of good books.
At the school of Diessbach, Lanteri also succeeded in involving many lay men in the «
cultural re-conquest » of society, using as the preferred apostolic means the cultivation of
the reading of good books in all situations, through the study and examination of individual
examples and their distribution among the different social classes; in particular his
opposition to the diffusion of Jansenist ideas and attitudes within the Catholic world found
its most effective method/ greatest means in the spreading of the works of Saint Alphonsus
Maria de' Liguori.
Caught up in the tragic events involving the relations between Napoleon and Pius VII, he
firmly insisted on papal authority and primacy, and because of this was subjected to
surveillance by the French police.29 After 1814 he took up his apostolate again re-organising
the Amicizia cristiana in two different associations, the Amicizia cattolica, for lay men and
Amicizia sacerdotale.
In this social and religious context there grew to maturity the idea of the foundation of the
Oblates of Mary the Virgin. In 1816, attentive to the signs of the times and in continuity with
the programme of the Amicizia Sacerdotale, Lanteri founded at Carignano a Congregation the
aim of which was the distribution of good books, the struggle against the more common
errors especially those against the Pope and the Holy See, the formation of good ecclesiastics
and effective preachers. The priority apostolic means was the preaching of the spiritual
28 Cf. G. DE ROSA, Il movimento cattolico in Italia. Dalla Restaurazione all’età giolittiana, Bari, 19882, 3-4.
The fullest treatment of the subject of the Amicizie still remains that quoted by Father Candido Bona.
29 Cf. G. DE ROSA, Il movimento cattolico in Italia, cit., 6-7. See also chap. 27, entitled Un prete temuto da
Napoleone, by P. CALLIARI, Servire la Chiesa. Il Venerabile Pio Brunone Lanteri (1759-1830), Caltanissetta
1989, 120-124.
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exercises according to the method of Saint Ignatius.30 Lanteri had been initiated in this work
by Diessbach.31
The Congregation, disbanded for four years on account of some lack of understanding with
the then Archbishop Mons. Chiaverotti, was re-established in 1826 with the approval of the
Pope. Lanteri died at Pinerolo, in Piedmont, in 1830.32
1.2 The spiritual exercises and the Sanctuary of Sant Ignatius above
Lanzo
Another indispensible element to understand the spiritual experience of Don Bosco and the
formative characteristics of the Convitto, is its links with the Sanctuary of Saint Ignatius,
located above Lanzo Torinese.
The periodic practice of the spiritual exercises is one of the more interesting characteristics of
the spirituality of the XIX century. Although already in existence in Europe in the previous
two centuries, it became more widespread and almost universal, in this century not only for
religious orders but also for the «secular clergy», for devout lay people, for students in
schools.33
In particular the piety of the laity was sustained and animated by the popular missions,
which can be considered a particular adaptation of the exercises34; closed or open annual
retreats, on the other hand, were made compulsory in religious houses and in seminaries
starting from the end of the XVII century, by order of Clement XI and Benedict XIV.35
The work of Lanteri, an enthusiastic promoter of the Ignatian method, in some ways had its
«official anointing » in the diocese of Turin from 1807 when together with Doctor Luigi
Guala, he was engaged to preach to the priests of the diocese.
For this purpose, Guala and Lanteri decided to restore and furnish the premises next to an old
sanctuary which after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, had been taken over by
the Turin archdiocesan curial offices and had fallen into a state of almost total disrepair.
30 Father Timothy Gallagher has demonstrated at length the centrality of the Exercises of Saint Ignatius in the
spirituality and in the charism of the Founder of the Oblates; these, even more than the Jesuits, who Lanteri saw
as being engaged in other educative work, devoted themselves to preaching the exercises/retreats according to
the method of Saint Ignatius, for the benefit of priests and lay people of all degrees and classes (cf. T.
GALLAGHER, Gli Esercizi di S. Ignazio nella spiritualità e carisma di fondatore di Pio Brunone Lanteri, Rome,
1983, 37-47).
31 Cfr. C. BONA, Le «Amicizie», cit., 283.
32 Regarding the spirituality of Lanteri and his relationship with Diessbach see also A. BRUSTOLON, Alle origini
della Congregazione degli Oblati di Maria Vergine. Punti chiari e punti oscuri, Turin 1995, in particular pages
82-90.
33 Cf. J. DE GUIBERT, La spiritualità della Compagnia di Gesù. Saggio storico, Rome, 1992, 386-387.
34 Regarding «predicabili» in this period of the history of Italian spirituality see G. TUNINETTI, Predicabili:
nell’otto-novecento, in Dizionario di omiletica, edited by M. Sodi and A.M. Triacca, Leumann-Gorle 2002,
1172-1177.
35 Cf. Enchiridion clericorum nn. 139 ss; G. NICOLAI, Il buon rettore del seminario, Turin, 1863.
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The construction of the sanctuary of Saint Ignatius36 at about 920 metres above sea level, a
short distance from the town of Lanzo, and about forty kilometres north-west of Turin, had
been completed in 1727 by the Jesuits who since 1677 had become the proprietors of a small
chapel where the Saint37 was venerated and of the surrounding land.
For the first few years there were inconveniences and material difficulties but already by
1808 the house was officially opened.
Then in 1814, Doctor Luigi Guala, who a few years earlier had been appointed Rector of the
church of Saint Francis of Assisi, became the administrator of the sanctuary, nominated by
the archbishop of Turin, Mons. Giacinto della Torre;38 an appointment confirmed in 1836 by
Mons. Fransoni.
This particular circumstance linked together the fates of the sanctuary and of the Convitto
Ecclesiastico and contributed in a very practical way to the formation project of the Convitto.
The retreat apostolate remained a constant reminder and provided a practical outlet for the
formation programme of the Convitto and, as we shall see, for the model of the priest that the
Convitto project was setting out to form.
In addition, the Regulations of the Convitto made the provision that each scholastic year
concluded with the Exercises at the Sanctuary of Saint Ignatius39; it will be precisely at the
end of his first year at the Convitto that for the first time Don Bosco will make his Exercises
at Saint Ignatius.
In this way the Convitto and the Sanctuary of Saint Ignatius acquire a central role in the
theological formation and in the spiritual life of the Piedmontese clergy in the eighteen
hundreds. Saint Ignatius, in particular, was almost the beating heart of the whole diocese of
Turin during the difficult years of the Italian Risorgimento.
On the death of Guala it was Cafasso, who already a number of years earlier had begun his
apostolate giving the exercises at the sanctuary, who also took on their organisation. «That
his preaching had great success, Don Lucio Casto informs us «is commonly affirmed by
36 For these and other historical accounts of the sanctuary see: G. TUNINETTI, Il Santuario di Sant’Ignazio presso
Lanzo. Religiosità, vita ecclesiale e devozione (1622 - 1991), Pinerolo (TO) 1992; F. DESRAMAUT, Don Bosco
en son temps (1815-1888),Turin 1996, 160-163; Storia del Santuario di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola presso Lanzo
Torinese, Turin, 1894; L. NICOLIS DI ROBILANT, Vita del Venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, Turin 1912, 265-273.
37 In 1622 Ignatius was declared a saint. Six years later in the village of Mezzenile in the Val di Lanzo a novena
to the saint put an and to a dangerous invansion of wolves; the following year a woman from a nearby hamlet
had a mysterious apparition which was repeated in the place where later the sanctuary of Saint Ignatius would
be built. As the result of popular devotion, a small chapel dedicated to Saint Ignatius was constructed there
which became the site of many pilgrimages and of various extraordinary events attributed to the intercession of
the saint (cf. L. NICOLIS DI ROBILANT, Vita del Venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 264-268).
38 In an appendix to the text of Giacomo Colombero already quoted it is also possible to find the Norms for the
direction of the Spiritual Exercises in the sanctuary of Saint Ignatius, compiled by Doctor Guala himself (367-
379). It is easy to see the many similarities between these Regulations and those compiled by Don Rua,
immediately after the third General Chapter of the Salesians (1883) which had devoted considerable time to the
subject of retreats. The text of the manuscript is made up of thirteen large pages and contains many corrections
by Don Bosco himself (cf. G.BUCCELLATO, Gli esercizi spirituali nell’esperienza di Don Bosco e alle origini
della società di San Francesco di Sales, in M. KO (ed.), È tempo di ravvivare il fuoco, Rome 2000, 128-132).
39 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit. 361.
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many witnesses: many times, there was not sufficient accommodation at Saint Ignatius for all
those who asked to make the Spiritual Exercises with him.»40
2. THE FORMATION PLAN OF THE CONVITTO: CONTENTS
AND METHOD
After having considered the origin and the requirements which were at the basis of life at the
Convitto, we shall now try to summarise the main features of its « formation plan». It seems
to us that it is possible to identify at least three of its principal ingredients:
- the study of practical moral theology;
- exercises in sacred eloquence;
- practice in the apostolate.
We shall look at them one by one trying to bring out in an analytical manner the methodology
adopted and the contents considered.
2.1 The study of practical moral theology
The more immediate objective of the lectures in moral theology was the preparation needed
to exercise the ministry of hearing confessions; during their stay at the Convitto, the young
priests took only one examination, that required to obtain faculties to hear confessions.
Relying on the Regulations and on the testimony of those at the Convitto, we can state that
the lectures on moral theology were normally two: one in the morning about 11.00 and
another in the evening at 19.00 which concluded with a « confession practice.»41 The
morning lecture was reserved for the Convitto residents and given by the tutor; the evening
lecture was a public one and was given by Guala (until 1844) while Cafasso, who before
succeeding Guala was the tutor of moral theology, at the end of the evening lecture generally
took the part of the penitent in the role play situation of a confession.42
The official text adopted, or we really ought to say imposed, for the Turin lectures was the
Commentaria theologiae moralis of Antonio Giuseppe Alasia,43 with a probabilioristic bent,
or his compendium in four volumes, edited by the Turinese Angelo Stuardi, entitled
Theologia Moralis breviori ac faciliori methodo in quattuor tomos distribuita,44 familiarly
called Alasiotto; but the text of Alasia, used at the Convitto, was presented and explained in
Alphonsian terms.
40 L. CASTO, Introduzione alle Meditazioni al clero, in G. CAFASSO, Esercizi spirituali al clero. Meditazioni,
Turin 2003, 36.
41 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 359.
42 Cf. M. ROSSINO, Gli inizi del Convitto ecclesiastico di S. Francesco d’Assisi, chap. IV, B, 1, b. This is a piece
of research never published which attempts to reconstruct the history of the first thirty years of this institution.
A copy of chapters IV and V of this study, in particular, which deal with the life and the priestly ideal of the
Convitto, were kindly made available to the author for his consultation; since this copy does not have page
numbers as we need to we shall refer to them by chapter and paragraph.
43 Antonio Giuseppe Alasia (1731-1812) was the Capo delle Conferenze di Teologia Morale a Torino dal 1761.
In 1783 he had begun a detailed treatise of Moral Theology in 10 volumes, a work completed more than twenty
years later.
44 The text was published for the first time in the years 1826-1827 in Turin by the Alliana and Paravia Press.
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In fact, already in 1828 Doctor Guala had sent a query to Rome in an attempt to obtain an
official reply from the Holy See which would declare that the teaching of Alphonsus de’
Liguori, who in fact had been beatified in 1816, was sound and appropriate. However, his
request did not receive any reply.45
The spirit of the work of Alphonsus had not had much following among Piedmontese
moralists. «The prevalence of the rigourist moral approach in Piedmont » – according to the
opinion of Francis Desramaut, biographer and distinguished scholar of the Convitto student
John Bosco – «can be explained in part, we believe, without the need to have recourse to
Jansenist origins, but starting from the reform of studies in favour of Thomism and
Augustinism, a reform which led to the affirmation of a demanding probabiliorism.»46
The work of Alphonsus which would probably be most suitable for a course of preparation
for the ministry of confession is the Homo apostolicus which Pio Brunone Lanteri had
distributed widely in Piedmont,47 at great effort and cost.48
In any case, the organisation of life at the Convitto tended to form a pastor of souls «benign
in teaching and kindly in bearing.»49
The main aim arising from the moral theological thinking of Alphonsus,50 in fact, is that of
never discouraging the penitent, while at the same time never neglecting the role of
“interpreting” - that of the judge.51 «Then as regards the theological system» attests Don
Reviglio at the process for Cafasso «whether he said he was more in favour of probabilism or
probabiliorism, it is certain that he adopted that which in the circumstances best promoted the
glory of God, the conversion of sinners, the perfection of devout souls; so that without being
attached to a single opinion, he declared that he would have been ready at any time to change
his way of seeing things if that would have been to the benefit of his penitents.»52
From a methodological point of view, in ordinary circumstances the lecture was developed
45 Cf. F. DESRAMAUT, Don Bosco en son temps, cit., 148.
46 F. DESRAMAUT, Don Bosco en son temps, cit., 148 [our translation].
47 According to Giuseppe Cacciatore «it is impossible to calculate even approximately the number of the works
of Saint Alphonsus which (Lanteri) distributed, especially of his Homo apostolicus. It can be said that all the
various editions of this work and of other ascetical and polemical works of Liguori, which were published in
Piedmont between 1790 and 1830 were the result of the efforts and the financial support of Lanteri and of his
three friends » (G. CACCIATORE, S. Alfonso de’ Liguori e il giansenismo, Florence, 1942, 430).
48 Cfr. F. DESRAMAUT, Don Bosco en son temps, cit., 174.
49 P. BRAIDO, Don Bosco prete dei giovani nel secolo delle libertà, I, Rome, 2003, 163. Gioberti in Gesuita
moderno accuses the Convitto of laxism as well as of Jesuitism (Cf. V. GIOBERTI, Il gesuita moderno, IV,
Naples 1848, 279-281). In fact, the position of the Convitto, and of Cafasso in particular, is a moderate one and
if sometimes it seems to tend more towards probabilism than to probabiliorism that is only in comparison with
the dominant rigourist position.
50 This approach can be linked to the spirituality of Saint Ignatius. «Don’t let anyone go away with feelings of
bitterness» Saint Ignatius had written to Simone Rodriguez. In the second rule on the discernment of spirits in
the first week of the Exercises we read: «It is precisely the work of a good spirit to give courage and energy,
consolation and tears, inspirations and serenity, reducing and removing every difficulty so as to go ahead on the
path of good».
51 According to Saint Alphonsus «the duties that a good confessor ought to carry out are four in number: they
are those of the father, of the doctor, the teacher and the judge » (quoted in F. DESRAMAUT, Don Bosco en son
temps, cit., 149).
52 This testimony is provided in M. ROSSINO, Gli inizi del Convitto, cit., chap. V, 5, b.
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with references to a study of Rossino, according to a predetermined scheme. «A prayer
having been said, the text of Alasia or the compendium edited by Stuardi was read; it appears
that the reading of the text was entrusted to one of the students of the Convitto. Then the text
was explained yet without going on for too long. One or more cases were put forward. The
opinions of those present were requested. The lecturer offered some clarifications and then
gave the final solution. At least once a fortnight a case was presented to be solved in writing
[…]. The public lecture had a further element which was a practical exercise in hearing
confessions. »53
A curiosity: some witnesses affirm that in the public lectures Cafasso was wont to use the
Piedmontese dialect to make himself better understood by his listeners.54
2.2 Exercises in Sacred Eloquence
This is another key element in the formation programme of the Convitto, and the Regulations
declare «some exercise and preparation for the pulpit should be always considered necessary
for young Ecclesiastics before they find themselves obliged by their office to preach; and
therefore our Archbishops have already issued some provisions in this regard.»55
While not being its absolute priority, the school of eloquence is a vital part of the formation
programme of the Convitto, especially as regards the experience of the Ignatian exercises. It
does not surprise us therefore to find the names of the Jesuits Minini,56 Grossi, Sagrini among
the teachers of eloquence at the Convitto, in particular in the years prior to the time when
Cafasso was Rector.57
From the testimonies of some former students of the Convitto, it is possible to deduce that it
was not only a matter of lessons of theory, there were also «exercises in the pulpit,» for
which a theme was offered and which had then to be written up and assessed by the teachers
and sometimes also by their companions.58 «He used to assign a sermon topic» Colombero
writes «or part of a sermon to be written within a fortnight and to be read out in public at the
53 M. ROSSINO, Gli inizi del Convitto, cit., chap. IV, B, 1, d.
54 Cf. ibidem, chap. IV, B, 1, e.
55 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 357. The first of the decrees referred to here
is, probably, a letter of Mons. Della Torre dated 26 November 1811, republished, as the Salesian Fr Pietro Stella
tells us, the following year with some clarifications (P. STELLA, Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità
cattolica, II, cit., 26). In the previous pages Fr Pietro Stella also tells us about the institution, in 1816, of a Chair
of Eloquence at the University of Turin. The letter is almost entirely dedicated to preaching, «the importance of
which –Tuninetti declares– is emphasised by the setting up in the seminary of a three year course of practical
moral theology and of eloquence, compulsory for the clergy after the quinquennium of theology» (G.
TUNINETTI, Predicazione nell’Otto-Novecento in Dizionario di Omiletica, M. SODI - A. M. TRIACCA (ed.), cit.,
2002, 1240).
56 Father Ferdinando Minini preached the instructions in the first retreats in which in 1842 the young John
Bosco took part at the end of his first year at the Convitto (cf. The Biographical Memoirs of St John Bosco, by
Fr JB Lemoyne etc. Salesiana Publishers New Rochelle, New York 1967 - II, 96.) From now on we shall use BM
for the English version and where necessary MB for the original Italian text.)
57 Cf. M. ROSSINO, Gli inizi del Convitto, cit., chap. IV, II, B, 2, b.
58 L.c. In the Archives of the Generalate of the Salesians there are some exercises written by Don Giovanni
Bosco during the years he spent at the Convitto (1841-1844). Many of the topics dealt with have a distinctly
Ignatian background (Introduzione agli Esercizi Spirituali, la morte, il peccato, fine dell’uomo, i due Stendardi,
la comunione frequente…). Cf. ACS A 225.
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Conference, on Saturday unless I am mistaken.»59
To understand the importance given to the ministry of preaching by Cafasso who gradually
also took on responsibility for the lessons in eloquence, we have at our disposal an instruction
which he prepared for a retreat for the clergy entirely devoted to this topic. Far from focusing
primarily on the form rather than the content60 or from considering sacred eloquence as a
purely oratorical art, Cafasso insisted that the sermons were not to be abstract but practical
and connected to the situations of his listeners.
«Let us leave aside that which never or hardly ever can happen to our people» – he writes in
this instruction – «and apply ourselves as much as we can to the virtues, the sins and the
ordinary daily defects, to prayer, the sacraments, to peace, to sufferings in the family […]; and
deal with these points in a suitable and practical way so that everyone can see in themselves the
picture the preacher is describing, helping them to see in what the evil consists and teaching
them the way to overcome it.»61
While the moralising tone is evident, so too is the concern to avoid a certain style of
intellectual speculative preaching remote from the lives of those listening. At the same time
in this instruction of Cafasso there is a certain pleasant tone of optimism and exhortation to
encourage the listener rather than worry him by presenting virtue and holiness as
unattainable.
«I don’t know why» Cafasso writes, «but we preachers are accustomed and more inclined to
speak more often and more willingly about the difficulties the law of the Lord can present, and
to highlight the efforts needed to observe it rather than to seek to smooth out the difficulties that
are to be encountered in it […] Hence, ‘it is difficult to observe the commandments, difficult to
make a good confession, difficult to receive Holy Communion well, even difficult to hear Mass
with devotion, difficult to pray as one should, above all difficult to save one’s soul, there being
few who are saved.’ And what happens on account of so many difficulties, if not exaggerated or
magnified at least frequently repeated? Good people become worried and discouraged, the bad
ones lose hope and almost think no more about it.»62
2.3 Exercises in the apostolate
Another of the formative elements in the Convitto Ecclesiastico in Turin is provided by the
opportunities offered to the young priests for «directed» apostolic activities in particularly
difficult situations, experiences which greatly enhanced their human and spiritual qualities
and at the same time gave them guidance in the choice of the apostolate most suited to
themselves in view of a definitive commitment.
The aim of Cafasso was twofold. «In addition to educating his disciples for the priestly life»
Colombero explains– «our wise teacher made another great effort in the direction of the
Convitto and that was the study of the students, their characters, their dispositions, their
inclinations so as to be able to assign them a suitable placement after the two years of
lectures. And this he did both in private conversations and in the fifteen minutes of recreation
59 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 89.
60 Cf. G. TUNINETTI, Predicazione nell’Otto-Novecento, cit., 1241.
61 The text is given by Lucio Casto in Gli Esercizi Spirituali al clero di San Giuseppe Cafasso, in Archivio
Teologico Torinese I (1995) 496.
62 Ibidem 496-497.
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he spent with us, either sitting at table or elsewhere in the course of the year.»63 The best way
of getting to know these young men, of guiding them, of discerning with them, therefore, was
simply sharing their everyday lives.
3. THE FATHER OF OUR FATHER
Joseph Cafasso was born on 11 January 1811 at Castelnuovo d’Asti, the same hamlet which
about four years later would be the birth place of Don Bosco.64
Physically frail, «slightly-built, bright-eyed, kindly and angelic,»65 Cafasso was one of the
first students at the new seminary in Chieri in 1827.
In 1833, immediately after being ordained a priest he entered the Convitto Ecclesiastico in
Turin, first as a student then as an assistant lecturer and teacher of moral theology66 and
finally as Rector after the death of Doctor Guala in 1848. He held this position until his death
on 22 June 1860.
In addition to the teaching of moral theology he devoted himself in particular to ministering
to prisoners and those condemned to death and to preaching the spiritual exercises to the
clergy and laity; this latter fundamental aspect of his priestly apostolate was to have
repercussions on the spiritual and apostolic experience of Don Bosco.
Cafasso meticulously kept his notes in a number of exercise books but published nothing; a
nephew of his Canon Giuseppe Allamano,67 at the beginning of the last century for pastoral
63 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 93-94.
64 For a biographical and spiritual study of Cafasso see: Taurinen. Beatificationis et canonizationis Servi Dei
Josephi Cafasso sacerdotis saecularis collegii ecclesiastici taurinensis moderatoris…,5 vv., Rome 1906-1922;
G. COLOMBERO, Vita del Servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, Turin 1895; L.N. DI ROBILANT, Vita del venerabile
Giuseppe Cafasso, 2 vv., Turin 1912; L. ZANZI, Lo spirito interiore del beato Giuseppe Cafasso : proposto ai
sacerdoti e ai militanti nell'Azione cattolica, Bassano del Grappa 1928; C. SALOTTI, Il santo Giuseppe Cafasso.
La perla del clero italiano, Turin 19473; A. GRAZIOLI, La pratica dei confessori nello spirito di san Giuseppe
Cafasso, Colle Don Bosco (AT) 1953; F. ACCORNERO, La dottrina spirituale di san Giuseppe Cafasso, Turin
1958; AA.VV., San Giuseppe Cafasso maestro e modello del clero, Chieri 1960; AA.VV., Morale e pastorale
alla luce di san Giuseppe Cafasso, Torino 1961; L. MUGNAI, S. Giuseppe Cafasso prete torinese, Siena 1972; S.
QUINZIO, Domande sulla santitá : Don Bosco, Cafasso, Cottolengo, Turin 1986; G. BUCCELLATO (ed.)., San
Giuseppe Cafasso. Il direttore spirituale di Don Bosco, Rome 2008.To be consulted also: the introductions to
the critical editions of the Edizione Nazionale delle opere di San Giuseppe Cafasso. These are six volumes
recently published by the Effata press in Turin, between 2002 and 2009: Esercizi spirituali al clero.
Meditazioni, Missioni al popolo. Meditazioni, Predicazione varia al popolo. Istruzione e discorsi, Epistolario e
testamento, Esercizi spirituali al clero. Istruzioni, Scritti di morale.
65 The description comes from Don Bosco himself in MO 47.
66 For 24 years Cafasso occupied the chair of practical moral theology having as the essential foundation of his
approach the teaching of Saint Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori, at a time when the predominant official teaching
was still rigourist. «An eminently practical apostle, he did not set out to found a “school” of moral theology, nor
endorse one system more than another, even though, in order to keep faith with his resolution to seek with all
means the salvation of souls, he was happy to accept probabilism.» (DEPARTMENT OF FORMATION, Sussidi 2,
Rome 1988, 246).
67 Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, who was Rector of the Sanctuary of the Consolata in Turin and of the Convitto
Ecclesiastico and the Founder of the Consolata Foreign Missions, was the son of a sister of Cafasso. As he
himself was to testify during the cause of beatification, he saw his uncle only once when he was six. In addition
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motives published some volumes of meditations and instructions for the people and the
clergy.68
Starting in 2002 a critical edition of the writings of Cafasso was begun. In the Edizione
Nazionale delle opere di San Giuseppe Cafasso, with the contributions of some prominent
Turin scholars six volumes have already been published of meditations, instructions,
conferences, and lessons of the saint from Castelnuovo. These volumes are an indispensible
means to understand the kind of priest and Christian Cafasso was attempting to form. «Here
more than anywhere» Don Lucio Casto President of the Academic Commission which
produced this Edizione Nazionale declares « clearly emerge the thoughts of Cafasso about the
priest, about who he is and what he does, and at the same time quite clearly a delicate
critique of other models or styles of priestly life not just imagined by Cafasso, but alive and
to be found in his time.»69
3.1 The gift of Counsel70
The influence exercised by the teaching and the pastoral zeal of Saint Joseph Cafasso
on the Turin clergy was profound. Although his field of action might appear limited to the
students at the Convitto, as the Salesian Don Flavio Accornero declared he was a teacher of
priests and therefore, «multiplied» his influence on the Piedmontese Church:
«He was a man capable of opposing evil » Accornero writes «and of fighting the Lord’s battles
carrying out with undescribable zeal his activities on behalf of souls as a priest and as a teacher
of priests. Precisely having worked in a restricted and closed field such as the confessional, the
pulpit and the Convitto meant Cafasso had an undisputable impact, since his work was
multiplied through others: one could say the whole Piedmontese clergy had in him an inspirer
and animator along new paths, all the directors of souls had him as their director. So his
teaching, his words, his ideas passed from priest to priest, from parish to parish, from soul to
soul … Therefore it is possible to identify a flourishing mass of former students, of the
founders of religious institutions, marked by their ascetical and moral qualities and the seeds of
holiness. How much is there of Cafasso in their work and in their holiness? Certainly, many
features drawn from the source which was Cafasso are channelled into the lives of these men
who represent the most spiritually distinguished personalities of the world of Piedmont and
who in their gigantic spiritual stature prove the quality and the strength of the seed from which
to information gathered in the family his testimony was based on the sermons and the observations of Don
Bosco whom he had known during the four years he spent at the Oratory of Saint Francis of Sales, where he did
his secondary school studies (cf. Taurinen. Beatificationis et canonizationis Servi Dei Josephi Cafasso…,
Positio super introductione causae, 9-10). Regarding the Servand of God see I. TUBALDO, Giuseppe Allamano,
Il suo tempo, la sua opera, Turin 1982.
68 Cf. G. CAFASSO, Meditazioni per esercizi spirituali al clero. Pubblicate per cura del Can. Giuseppe
Allamano, Canonica, Turin 1892; G. CAFASSO, Istruzioni per esercizi spirituali al clero. Pubblicate per cura del
can. Giuseppe Allamano, Turin 1893; G. CAFASSO, Sacre missioni al popolo, Turin 1923. These writings form
part of the collection in five volumes of the Opere complete published in Turin by the International Institute-
College of the Consolata for the Foreign Missions between 1923 and 1925.
69 L. CASTO, Gli Esercizi Spirituali al clero di San Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 483. In this article Casto points out,
consistent with this premise, some negative impressions of the priest as Cafasso labelled them, such as the
lazy priest, doing nothing and living a comfortable life, or the amphibious priest, that is to say one who casually
passes from the duties of his ministry to secular or wordly pursuits (cf. 490-491).
70 The gift of counsel is considered in Catholic tradition one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; the other six
are: wisdom, understanding, fortitude,knowledge, piety and the fear of the Lord. This term gives us an important
key to the understanding of the real nature of the relationship in spiritual accompagniment, that is
accompagniment in, through and with the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who assists both those involved in the
relationship.
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they grew.»71
The first two biographies of Cafasso, the one by Colombero (1895) and that by Di
Robilant (1912) devote many pages to what is called the gift of counsel.72
«Counselling those in doubt», the first one writes, «is one of the most beautiful works of
mercy, but not everyone can do it: in order to exercise it a special approach is needed. This
approach our servant of God possessed to the highest degree, as those who knew him attest
unanimously. His disposition was the result of serious studies which he never stopped, from a
certain natural facility in applying the theory to particular cases, from a profound experience of
men and of reality, from a refined intuition that never failed him, from the ability to penetrate
hearts, from a certain inexplicable supernatural intuition, with which a loving Providence had
endowed him.»73
The biography by Di Robilant, in particular, mentions among the many disciples who
benefited from Cafasso’s gifts of discernment, bishops, priests, founders, men of every rank
and class; among the founders, in particular, the biographer refers in addition to Father
Aglesio, the first successor of Cottolengo, the well-knowm Marquess Giulietta Falletti di
Barolo, Don Giovanni Cocchi, Domenico Sartori, founder of the Daughters of St Clare,
Francesco Faà di Bruno, the theologian Gaspare Saccarelli, founder of the Institute of the
Holy Family, Francesco Bono, founder of the Sisters of Santo Natale, Clemente Marchisio,
founder of the Daughters of Saint Joseph and Lorenzo Prinotti, founder of the Institute of the
Poor Deaf and Dumb74; and finally our Don Bosco, to whose relationship with Cafasso Di
Robilant devotes a whole chapter.75
«As well as doctor» –Di Robilant writes – «community principal, confessor and apostle the
Venerable was then described as Vir consiliorum. “In fact, it is well-known” it was written of
him after his death, “that both in the Capital and elsewhere, whoever among the clergy or the
laity was looking for good advice regarding the conduct of his life […] used to go to Don
Cafasso as to a safe spring.” “Starting with the Bishops and going through all the levels of
society and right down to those that the world considers insignificant […] they all used to find
in him that word which although lacking human force, was marked with the divine seal of truth
and adapted to all social levels.”»76
Among the many observations and testimonies illuminating the person of Cafasso as a
spiritual director and depositary of the gift of counsel, we shall limit ourselves to emphasising
two features:
- the gift of reading «the heart of the one who was speaking to him.» Di Robilant, reporting
the testimony of P. Bargetto says: «Everyone used to say […] that Don Cafasso knew
people’s innermost thoughts before they had finished speaking to him. Many of these indeed
used to say that he could read the hearts and feelings of those who had recourse to him »77.
71 F. ACCORNERO, La dottrina spirituale di san Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 155. 157.
72 In the work of Colombero referred to we find a chapter entitled Don Cafasso e il dono del consiglio (pages
167-187), and in Di Robilant Book VI entitled Il consigliere, subdivided into chapters: Dono del consiglio, I
Vescovi, I Parrochi, I Sacerdoti, I Chierici, I Fondatori, Don Giovanni Bosco, Le famiglie cristiane, Le persone
di servizio, for a total of 76 pages (149-225).
73 G. COLOMBERO, Vita del Servo di Dio D. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 166.
74 Cf. L.N. DI ROBILANT, Vita del venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 202-208.
75 Cf. ibidem 208-230.
76 Ibidem 149-150. The two quotations given are taken from two newspapers of the time, L’armonia and Il
campanile..
77 Ibidem 152.
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- Another characteristic of Cafasso’s accompaniment was his authority: «The answers given
by our Venerable, in addition to being clear, prompt and decisive were also eminently
authoritative […]. With such certainty allied to the other gifts no room was left for hesitation
in those who questioned him; and so his replies while they brought serenity of heart were
considered an oracle by those who had sought them.»78 «From this belief » – the biographer
later adds - «that he was assisted by supernatural insight in giving advice, there then came
that compliance mentioned above in those who turned to him.»79
3.2 Don Cafasso and Don Bosco
Joseph Cafasso (1811) and John Bosco (1815) were both born, only a few years apart,
at Castelnuovo d’Asti, which in 1817 became part of the diocese of Turin. Both were students
at the philosophical-theological seminary in Chieri; the first in the three year period 1830-
1833 (the year of his ordination; Cafasso was 22 years of age…) and the second in the years
1835-1841.
Their first meeting is recorded in the Memoirs of the Oratory by Don Bosco himself,
more than forty five years after the event. According to the recollections of the author of the
Memoirs, it was the second Sunday of the month of October 1827; the inhabitants of
Murialdo, a fraction/hamlet of Castelnuovo d’Asti, were celebrating the feast of the
Motherhood of Mary. Don Bosco writes:
«There was a great air of activity about the place; some were preparing the church, others engaged in
family chores; some were playing games, others looking on. One person I noticed was taking no part
in the festivities. He was a slightly-built, bright-eyed cleric, kindly and pure in appearance. He was
leaning against the church door. Though I was only twelve years old, I was struck by his appearance
and felt I would like to meet him. I went over and spoke to him. "Father," I said, "would you care to
see what’s going on at our feast? I'd like to act as your guide." He kindly beckoned me closer. He
asked me how old I was, what studies I had done, if I had made my first communion, how often I
went to confession, where I went to catechism, and so on. I was spellbound by his manner of speaking
and answered all his questions without hesitation. To show my gratitude for his friendliness, I once
more offered to show him round the various entertainments and novelties. “My dear friend," he
replied, "the entertainments of a priest are church ceremonies. The more devoutly they are celebrated,
the more pleasurable do they turn out for us. The new attractions are the practices of religion. These
are ever new and therefore should be diligently attended. I’m only waiting for the church to open so I
can go in." I plucked up my courage to add to the discussion. "But Father," I suggested, "though what
you say is true, there's a time for everything, a time to pray and a time to play." He smiled. But I have
never forgotten his parting words, which were his plan of action for his whole life: "A cleric gives
himself to the Lord. Nothing in the world must be more important to him than the greater glory of
God and the salvation of souls.»80
It is almost unnecessary to emphasise that the recollections of Don Bosco are offered to
a Congregation scarcely begun to serve «as a record to help people overcome problems that
may come in the future », and «as a pledge of fatherly affection»81. The austere view which
emerges from Cafasso’s final comment is a clear hint from Don Bosco for his Salesians.
78 Ibidem 153.
79 Ibidem 156.
80 MO 47-48. In fact the meeting would have taken place in 1829, according to a study by the Salesians Klein
and Valentini (cf. J. KLEIN – E. VALENTINI, Una rettificazione cronologica delle «Memorie di San Giovanni
Bosco», in Salesianum 17 (1955) 3-4, 581-610).
81 MO 30.
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The influence exercised by the personality of Cafasso on Don Bosco, four and a half
years younger than him, was decisive. In this regard Don Bosco himself leaves us in no
doubt: «If I have been able to do any good, I owe it to this worthy priest.»82
The relationship between the two saints was described as follows by the Salesian John
Cagliero, who was then Archbishop of Sebaste and Vicar Apostolic of Patagonia, at the
process for the beatification of Cafasso:
«Our Ven. D. Bosco had for the Ven. Cafasso an altogether special veneration, that was
intimate and united to a holy affection which linked him and made him a humble disciple in the
face of the goodness and holiness of his great teacher, and during 20 years he had him as his
spiritual director, his supreme confident and advisor. We who used to have for D.Bosco the
highest esteem of his goodness and his virtues combined with the greatest affection and the
deepest veneration for his holiness, came to an even greater appreciation of the goodness,
virtues and holiness of his Master Don Cafasso. And I myself in the few situations in which I
had occasion to meet with the Ven. Cafasso, having heard his warm exhortations, I was
persuaded of the truth of what Don Bosco had told us,»83
In this regard Fr Eugenio Valentini wrote in the presentation to the new edition of the
Biografia del Sacerdote Giuseppe Caffasso,84 on the occasion of the centenary of his death in
1960:
«Humanly speaking, without St. Joseph Cafasso, we would not have had St. John Bosco, and
probably we would not have had the Salesian Congregation either. He it was who advised him,
guided him in his choice of his state of life, trained him at the Convitto Ecclesiastico, and then
directed him, defended him and supported him in the difficult moments of his life. The
spirituality of the Master was passed on in large measure to the Disciple, and we today reading
these pages again a century later can easily recognise the interconnection and one might say the
fusion of these two spiritualities. This in fact is the main characteristic of this documentation.
Don Cafasso was for Don Bosco the Teacher, the Spiritual Director, the Confessor, the
Benefactor par excellence. Now this deep personal influential relationship lasting for thirty
years could not fail to leave its mark – and what a mark! – on the life of the disciple. This is the
first reason objectively speaking why the spirituality of Cafasso was passed on to St John
Bosco.»85
It would be useful to look briefly at some episodes and occasions when these two saints
were together in order to arrive at a clearer appreciation of how decisive in the life of Don
Bosco this «deep personal influential relationship » of which Fr Valentini86 speaks would
be. We shall try to recall at least some of the fundamental stages.
After the first meeting most probably in 1829, the guidance and the support of Fr
Cafasso were decisive, as Don Bosco remembered them, in some discernment situations and
in particular:
- in the decision not to give up studies so as to be able to embrace the ecclesiastical
state (cf. MO 48; BM I, 215);
- in the decision not to enter the novitiate of the Friars Minor of Our Lady of the Angels
82 MO 101.
83 Taurinen. Beatificationis et canonizationis Servi Dei Josephi Cafasso… Positio super introductione causae,
482.
84 The full reference is G. BOSCO, Biografia del Sacerdote Giuseppe Caffasso esposta in due ragionamenti
funebri, Turin 1860.
85 E. VALENTINI, Presentazione in San Giuseppe Cafasso. Memorie pubblicate nel 1860 da San Giovanni Bosco,
Turin 1960, 6.
86 For a summary of the main events see pages 208-230 of the second volume already mentioned Vita del
Venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso by Di Robilant and the biography by Colombero Vita del Servo di Dio… on pages
188-198.
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(cf. BM I, 229);
- in the decision to enter the seminary in Chieri (cf. BM I, 230);
- in dispelling the doubts prior to taking the clerical habit and to requesting to be
admitted to orders (cf. BM I, 271-2; MO 95);
- in the decision to enter the Convitto Ecclesiastico immediately after priestly
ordination (cf. MO 100; BM II, 30-31) and the first Mass celebrated by Don Bosco in the
church of Saint Francis of Assisi attached to the Convitto Ecclesiastico where Cafasso was
«dean of the conferences» (cf. MO 95);
- in guiding his first steps of pastoral experience (cf. MO 101. 106. 108);
- in dissuading him from the decision to leave for the missions and to «enter the
religious life» with the Oblates of the Virgin Mary at the end of a retreat;87
- in contributing to guiding the general direction of his apostolic life including the
apostolate of good books;88
- in the guidance given regarding some of the particular projects of the developing
Oratory of Saint Francis of Sales.89
Don Bosco’s affection, esteem and gratitude to his teacher and benefactor are shown in
the deep suffering occasioned by his death90 and by his desire to preserve and to perpetuate
his memory.
The Servant of God Giuseppe Allamano declares:
«On the basis of the suggestions made to me by the Servant of God D.Giovanni Bosco, a year
before his death, aimed at preserving the memory of the Venerable I sent a circular letter to all
the people I believed to have had contacts with him in order to collect information about his
life. I then gave the records of these memories Canon Colombero, the curate at St.Barbara in
Turin.»91
Colombero’s biography, as has already been said, was the first real, documented
biography of Cafasso. Before him, for a long time Don Bosco had cherished the idea of
writing one, so the nephew confirmed, also saying that it had not come to fruition, according
to the saint, because of the mysterious disappearance of some documents he had collected in
a cupboard at the Oratory.92
3.3 The 1860 Biography of the priest Giuseppe Cafasso
On 23 June 1860 Don Cafasso died. At that time Don Bosco was almost forty five years
old.
Two weeks later in the church of the Oratory, with a voice that was often interrupted by
his emotion,93 he celebrated a Mass of suffrage. About two months later, the thirtieth of
August, another Mass was celebrated in the church of Saint Francis of Assisi, attached to the
Convitto Ecclesiastico; on that occasion too Don Bosco gave the eulogy.
87 Cf. MB II, 159: L.N. DI ROBILANT, Vita del Venerabile Giuseppe, cit., 215-216.
88 Cf. L.N. DI ROBILANT, Vita del Venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 222.
89 Cf.ibidem, 216-221. From the beginning Don Cafasso supported Don Bosco’s work not only spiritually but
also as a generous benefactor. At his death Cafasso was still the owner of a part of the Oratory of Saint Francis
of Sales which he bequeathed to Don Bosco, together with a sum of money as well as cancelling all debts (cf. G.
COLOMBERO, Vita del Servo di Dio D.Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 198).
90 Cf. E. VALENTINI, Presentazione in San Giuseppe Cafasso. Memorie pubblicate…, cit., 30-32.
91 Taurinen. Beatificationis et canonizationis Servi Dei Josephi Cafasso… Positio super introductione causae,
10.
92 He was told this secret by Don Bosco himself near to death (cf. E. VALENTINI, Presentazione in San Giuseppe
Cafasso. Memorie pubblicate…, cit., 33-34).
93 Cf. D. RUFFINO, Cronache dell’Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales. n. 1, 1860, 10.
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At the end of the year the two sermons were put together in a pamphet of the Catholic
Readings. Don Bosco added an introduction, the public notices announcing the death of his
teacher, some devotions favoured by Cafasso, and promised, on a later occasion to work on a
proper biography.
The frequency and the depth of the relations between these two saints obliges us to
approach these pages with particular care.
«Who are you, I ask myself» –Don Bosco says at one point – «who presumes to narrate
the feats of this hero? Don’t you know that his most beautiful actions are known only to
God?»94
In spite of this premise, it is precisely on this «private» life that Don Bosco shows he
wants to focus the attention of the reader. «By this private life I mean in particular the
practice of hidden virtues in his everyday life, those things which for the most part are
scarcely seen by the eyes of the world but which are perhaps the most meritorious in God’s
sight.»95
What is most striking in these two addresses is Don Bosco’s ability to identify in the
spiritual experience of Cafasso, that special combination of apostolic charity and ascesis, of
untiring work and of prayer.
Regarding Cafasso’ youth our author notes: «With what diligence he went to church,
took part in the sacred ceremonies, received the sacraments! What marvels followed. He went
to listen to the word of God and then repeated it to his companions and friends. He worked
but his labours were interspersed with short prayers, acts of patience, the constant offering of
his heart to God.»96
To heroic charity Don Cafasso joined a profound spirit of prayer:
«D.Caffasso devoted himself tirelessly to the study of Bible History, Church History, to
Patrology, to theology - moral, dogmatic, ascetical, mystical, to preaching, preparing cases for
the course for parish priests, conducting the examinations for faculties for confession, and yet
whenever I came into this church I found him on his knees praying before the Lady altar, then
prostrate in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, or else in the confessional with a long line
of the faithful anxious to tell him of their anxieties of conscience and to receive from him
advice about good living. You might go to the sanctuary of the Consolata, and you would see
D. Cafasso at his devotions; visit the church where there was the Forty Hours and there too see
him prostrate pouring out his loving thoughts to his beloved Jesus.»97
On the same subject in the first funeral address one can read: «And so in the bitter
winter cold, even when suffering from aches and pains in his stomach, his head, his teeth, so
that he could scarcely stand, before four in the morning he was on his knees praying,
meditating, or carrying out one of his particular occupations.»98
What is the «secret» of this «marvellous amount of different activities» which
nevertheless did not distract the Saint in his life of prayer? Don Bosco identifies not one but
five:99 his constant calm, his long experience in many affairs, together with his great
confidence in God, the exact and constant use of time, his temperance, the short time given to
rest. In this regard, Don Bosco wrote:
«Don Caffasso saved time by limiting his time of sleep. The only relief he gave during the day
94 G. BOSCO, Biografia del Sacerdote Giuseppe Caffasso esposta in due ragionamenti funebri, Turin ny
affairs,1860, 18.
95 Ibidem, 25.
96 Ibidem, 68.
97 Ibidem, 89-90.
98 Ibidem, 33 .
99 Cf. ibidem, 91-97.
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to his weak body was three quarters of an hour after his lunch, during which in his room he first
of all prayed, meditated or performed some special act of piety. In the evening he was always
the last to go to bed and in the morning the first to get up. His rest during the night never
exceeded five hours and often it was four and sometimes only three. He used to say that a man
of the Church should only wake up once during the night. With these words he let us know that
once he was awake, whatever time it might be, he rose from his bed to pray meditate, or carry
out some of his other business.»100
These secrets which he «could not keep hidden so that they came to the notice of those
who admired his holy deeds and reflected on his rare virtues,»101 and which provoked the
grateful admiration of of his disciple, enable us once again to appreciate more deeply Don
Bosco’s own response.102
In this regard Don Valentini wrote in his Biography and concerning the spiritual
affinity between the two saints: «There is another reason … why we find in these pages some
marvellous coincidences. It is because everyone in describing another person in good
measure describes himself. We recognise in fact in others those features that strike us, in
which we are particularly interested, which in some way partly reveal solutions to problems
that concern us.»103
This interesting hypothesis seems to be confirmed in some testimonies from our own
tradition.
On 29 September 1926 Fr Philip Rinaldi, at the time the Rector Major of the Salesian
Congregation, sent to Cardinal Antonio Vico, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites a
letter in which, on oath, among other things he declared:
«In his final years...every day he used to retire to his room between two and three o’clock in
the, and during that hour the Superiors did not allow him to be disturbed. But since I was
responsible for a formation house for aspirants to the priesthood between 1883 and the death of
the Servant of God, and he had told me that I should go to see him whenever I needed to,
perhaps rather indiscretely, so as to be able to approach him more easily, I broke the rule, and
not only at the Oratory but also at Lanzo and at S.Benigno, where he often used to go, and at
Mathi, and in the house of St. John the Evangelist in Turin several times I went to see him to
talk to him at that hour. And at that time, everywhere and always, I caught him each time by
surprise and found him recollected with hands joined meditating.»104
The similarity is noteworthy, but, all things considered not surprising; it is only natural
that the disciple should have assimilated the habits of the master into whose hands for so
many years he had placed, every decision I made, all my study, and every activity of my
life.105
Also with regard to Cafasso’s «nightime habits» it is possible to find similarities in Don
Bosco’s life. Until he was forty-five years of age, in fact, according to a confidence he
himself shared with Don Lemoyne on 5 April 1884, Don Bosco did not sleep more than five
100 Ibidem, 95 .
101 Ibidem, 92.
102 There is a curious anomaly in a quotation which Fr Juan Vecchi makes from these pages, in the letter When
you pray say «Our Father »… of 2001. Don Bosco writes «With these five secrets D. Caffasso found the way to
undertake many varied things in a short time and in this way to bring charity to the highest degree of
perfection... ».In Fr Vecchi’s quotation however one reads: «With these four secrets –Don Bosco concludes –
Don Caffasso found the way to undertake many varied things in a short time and in this way to bring charity to
the highest degree of perfection.». The secret which «disappears» in the letter of the RM is that of his habit of
praying during the night …
103 E. VALENTINI, Presentazione in San Giuseppe Cafasso. Memorie pubblicate , cit., 6-7.
104 The letter, dated 29/9/1926, is attached in an appendix to the documents of the cause.
105 Cf. MO 101.
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hours a night, and he stayed up all night once a week;106 only subsequently as ill-health began
to take its toll, did he give up this demanding way of life.
Knowledge of the writings of the founder in this as in many other cases is seen to be a
means, indirect but precious, of coming to know his spiritual experience.
4. DON BOSCO’S JUDGEMENT REGARDING THE EXPERIENCE
OF THE CONVITTO
What personal effect did these three years at the Convitto have on Don Bosco? In his mature
years what was his judgement? We can read it in the Memoirs of the Oratory:
«The Convitto Ecclesiastico completed, you might say, the study of theology. In the seminary
we studied only dogma and that speculative; and in moral theology only controversial issues.
Here one learnt to be a priest. Meditation, spiritual reading, two conferences a day, lessons in
preaching, a secluded life, every convenience for study, reading good authors - these were the
areas of learning to which we had to apply ourselves.»107
In one of the first drafts of the Regulations for the Convitto the same thing can be seen: «It
can be seen that even after the study of the dogmatic and speculative sciences for five years
in the Seminaries, when they are ordained priests these young men know little or nothing
about hearing confessions, preaching, how to behave appropriately in the world especially
given the modern difficulties in exercising the ministry, for which there is need of much
greater knowledge and prudence. »108
The three «protagonists» in the formative experience at the Convitto, Guala, Golzio and
Cafasso, are remembered by the founder of the Salesians as follows:
«At the time, two prominent men were in charge of this most useful institution: Doctor Louis
Guala and Fr. Joseph Caffasso. Doctor Guala was the work’s founder. An unselfish man, rich
in knowledge, prudent and fearless, he was everyone’s friend in the days of the regime of
Napoleon I. He founded that extraordinary seedbed where young priests fresh from the
seminary courses could learn the practical aspects of their sacred ministry. This proved very
valuable to the Church, especially as a means of eradicating the vestiges of Jansenism that still
persisted in our midst. Among other topics the most controversial was the question of
Probabilism and Probabiliorism…. Doctor Guala took a strong stance between the two parties;
starting from the principle that the charity of O.L.J.C. should be the inspiration of all systems,
he was able to bring the two extremes together. Things came together so well that, thanks to
Doctor Guala St. Alphonsus became our theological patron. This was a salutary step, long
desired, and now we are reaping the benefit. Fr. Caffasso was Guala’s right hand man. His
virtue which withstood all tests, his amazing calm, his shrewd insight and his prudence enabled
him to overcome the acrimony that was still alive in some probabiliorists against the
Liguorians. Dr Felix Golzio,109 a hidden gold mine among the Turinese clergy, was also at the
106 G.B. LEMOYNE, , Ricordi di gabinetto, April 1884; he later included the contents of this in the Biographical
Memoirs (cf. IV, 130-1). In another place Don Lemoyne writes «Ardent incessant prayer kept Don Bosco
always united with God. Savio Ascanio was convinced that Don Bosco kept vigil during long hours of the night
and sometimes for the whole night, deep in prayer.» (BM III, 414).
107 MO 99
108. AOMV [II Reg.] S. II, 255.
109 Felice Golzio (1807-1873) was the spiritual director at the Convitto, where he had been a student of Cafasso,
and whose confessor he became (cf. DI ROBILANT N., Vita del venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., II, 196). He
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Convitto. In his modest life-style he was hardly noticeable. But he was a tireless worker,
humble and knowledgeable; he was a real support or better, Guala and Caffasso’s right-hand
man. The prisons, hospitals, pulpits, charitable institutes, the sick in their homes, the cities, the
villages, and we might add, the mansions of the rich and the hovels of the poor felt the salutary
effects of the zeal of these three luminaries of the Turinese clergy. These were the three models
placed in my path by Divine Providence. It was just up to me to follow their example, their
teaching, their virtues.»110
This extremely positive judgement expressed by Don Bosco in the years when the
Constitutions were definitively approved (1874) and the Society was being consolidated
indirectly provides some indications about the kind of programme regarding how «one learns
to become a priest »: meditation, spiritual reading, two conferences a day, exercisies in
preaching, a secluded life…
Once again a re-reading of the Memoirs of the Oratory on this particular chronological level,
that is, as an historical document enabling us to recognise the plan of priestly life proposed in
his mature years to the Congregation he had founded, allows us to understand better the
judgement of Don Bosco concerning a “successful” formation programme and in particular,
about the role played by the life of prayer and a secluded life.
5. THOSE THREE YEARS IN WHICH DON BOSCO BECOMES
DON BOSCO
In November 1841, therefore, Don Bosco entered the Convitto Ecclesiastico in Turin where
he was to stay for almost three years as was permitted «for those young priests most noted for
piety and study.»111
The formation model of the Convitto left an indelible mark in his human and religious
experience; in fact it seems to us that it can be said that it is not possible to really know Don
Bosco without considering one by one the key elements of the « formation project » of the
Turin Convitto and finding them reflected in his spiritual and pastoral experience.
Don Cafasso, in particular, exercising his gift of discernment, accompanies Don Bosco
towards a plan of life in which love for God and love for the young come together in a
coherent pedagogy for holiness.
We shall now attempt in a synchronised way to highlight some of the features of this project,
without pretending to be exhaustive, but with the desire to recognise, to come to know the
origin of some of the characteristic features of the life and spiritual development of our
founder.
5.1 Here one learnt to be a priest …
The «model» proposed by the Convitto is still that which emerged at the end of the
Concil of Trent, although with some particular characteristics and original emphases.
was a man of great humility and knowledge to which Don Bosco bore witness. After the death of Cafasso in
1860, he was Don Bosco’s confessor until 1873, the year he died.
110.MO 100-101
111Cf. G. COLOMBERO, Vita del Servo di Dio D.Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 190.
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Confirmation of this can be found implicitly in the second of the Regulations when «it
entrusts this Convitto to the special protection of St. Francis of Sales and of St. Charles who
established and promoted a number of similar ideas.»112 On the whole the Regulations seek to
form an ecclesiastic who is reserved and detached from the world.
The resolutions made by Don Bosco on the occasion of his ordination as a priest reveal even
before he went to the Convitto, the effects of an austere concept of priestly life. These
resolutions as we know are not found in the Memoirs of the Oratory but rather in a hand-
written exercise book the contents of which are known to Salesians with the name Spiritual
Testament, but its real title also written in his own hand is Memorie dal 1841 al 1884-5-6 pel
Sac. Gio. Bosco a’ suoi figliuoli salesiani113.
Don Bosco began drawing up this important autobiographical document in 1884 and
concluded it on 24 December 1887, little more than a month before the end of his earthly life,
the day on which the notebook passed into the hands of his secretary at the time, Don Carlo
Viglietti.
At the beginning of this little book devoted mainly to a series of provisions, pieces of advice
and recommendations for the period following his death, Don Bosco returns to the time of his
priestly ordination and the resolutions made on that occasion:
«I began the retreat in the House of the Mission on 26 May the feast of St. Philip Neri, 1841.
The sacred priestly ordination was carried out by Mons. Luigi Franzoni our archbishop in his
chapel on 5 June that year.
I celebrated my first Mass in St. Francis of Assisi assisted by my benefactor and spiritual
director D. Giuseppe Caffasso from Castelnuovo d'Asti on 6 June Holy Trinity Sunday.
My conclusion from the retreat made in preparation for the celebration of the first Holy Mass
was: the priest does not go to heaven or to hell alone. If he does good he will go to heaven with
the souls he has saved by his good example; if he does evil, if he is a cause of scandal he will
go to perdition with the souls that were damned through his scandal.
Resolutions:
1. Never to go for a stroll unless for grave reasons; visiting the sick etc.
2. Be very rigorous in the use of time.
3. To suffer, work, humble myself in all things whenever it is a question of saving souls.
4. The charity and gentleness of St. Francis of Sales are to be my guide in everything.
5. I will always be satisfied with whatever food is presented to me, if not harmful to my health.
6. I shall drink my wine mixed with water and only as a remedy: that is to say only when and to
the extent it is a benefit to my health.
7. Work is a powerful weapon against the enemies of the soul. Hence I shall not take more than
five or six hours of sleep. I shall take no rest during the day, particularly after lunch. Only in the
case of illness shall I make an exception to this rule.
[8.] I shall put aside some time every day for meditation and spiritual reading. During the day I
shall pay a brief visit to the Blessesd Sacrament or a least raise my heart in prayer. I shall spend
at least a quarter of an hour in preparation for Mass and another quarter of an hour in
thanksgiving.
[9.] I shall never indulge in conversations with women except to hear their confession or when
it is necessary for their spiritual welfare.
112 AOMV S. II, 255.
113 Fr Francesco Motto has produced a critical edition of this notebook with about 140 pages. Cf G.BOSCO,
Memorie dal 1841 al 1884-5-6 pel Sac. Gio Bosco a’ suoi figliuoli salesiani edited by F. Motto, Roma 1985.
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These were written in 1841»114.
This understanding of the life of a priest will find its authoritative confirmation in the
teaching of Cafasso, which aims to give to the young priests a great awareness of their
«dignity» but at the same time, also of their being «different» from other men.
From this point of view, the model and the style of the priest is Jesus Himself.
«If my thoughts» –Don Cafasso declares in one of his meditations to the clergy, «my affections,
my actions are not those of this Divine Redeemer, I must stop deceiving myself: I may have the
name, the title, the role of the priest, but in reality I am not one; I will be a priest yes, but
unconnected, separated from the principle which ought to be animating me; a priest, but a
deformed degenerate copy of the type and of the model.»115 It would be anachronistic to
imagine, in the project of the Convitto, a theological reflection on the shared common
priesthood, or a basis for the ministerial priesthood starting from Christ.
Just as Jesus is the model of the priest so in a similar way the priest ought to become the
model for his flock; if he is holy, his whole life becomes a more effective means of
preaching. «Nothing predisposes others more effectively for piety and the faithful worship of
God» the Council of Trent had affirmed «than the life and example of those who have
dedicated themselves to the divine ministry.»116
5.2 Pastoral charity, “working class” boys and the first catechism
lessons
From the identity of the priest flows his role in the world. The image that emerges the
most is that of the priest-pastor, who takes the place of Jesus Christ on the earth, dedicated
to preaching and to the confessional, totally taken up with a burning zeal for souls, which
makes him «creative», so as to respond to the challenges and to the needs of the «local area».
«Considerable support in the formation of the priest-pastor» Tuninetti writes in this regard
«undoubtedly came from the Convitto Ecclesiastico at Saint Francis of Assisi, firstly under the
direction of Dr Luigi Guala and then especially under the guidance and through the example of
Fr Giuseppe Cafasso, and then from the Convitto Ecclesiastico at the Consolata, under the
guidance of Fr Giuseppe Allamano. Both of them were schools for pastoral studies, at which
those in charge knew how to discover and to propose new paths and much wider horizons in the
face of the unforeseen needs to which the ordinary parochial pastoral approach seemed unable
to respond in a satisfactory manners. And so Don Cafasso, Guala’s deputy, in the face of the
immigration of so many young people left to themselves, suggested to a group of young priests
at the Convitto, among them Don Bosco, the new way of the festive oratories and the work for
street-sweepers.»117
Already in a first document, of Lanterian origin, this approach is clearly indicated. Regarding
the purposes of the developing Congregation of the Oblates, it says: «assisting the sick in
hospitals, prisoners, lower-class people, that is to say servants, artisans, etc. about 5 thousand
of whom every year come out of hospital cured, having received there care for their souls and
the teaching of the eternal truths and cultivating them by means of confession so that they
114 FdB 748 D 7-10.
115 G. CAFASSO, Manoscritti [Camisassa Copy], Medit. X, f. 1.
116 SS. Conc. Tridentini decreta, sess. XXII, 17 sept. 1562.
117 G. TUNINETTI, Il prete e i preti nell’ottocento piemontese, in Rivista Diocesana Torinese 74 (1997) 572.
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ought to become good Christians and useful citizens.»118
Good Christians and useful citizens … This quotation explains the inspiration which is at the
foundation of one of the most characteristic summaries of the Salesian educative plan.
This care given to «those in prison and the lower-class people» to artisans, in continuity with
the project of Lanteri, is a special feature of the apostolic activities of the Convitto. Cafasso’s
own activities are well known in assisting young prisoners and those condemned to death.
Don Bosco explains: «It was (Don Cafasso) who first took me into the prisons, where I soon
learned how great was the malice and misery of mankind. I saw large numbers of young lads
aged from 12 to 18, fine healthy youngsters, alert of mind, but seeing them idle there, infested
with lice, lacking food for body and soul, horrified me. Public disgrace, family dishonour and
personal shame were personified in those unfortunates.»119
Another initiative promoted or supported by the Convitto was catechetical activity and the
«animation» of children and adolescents. Di Robilant, drawing on many witnesses, states
«with absolute certainty that (catechism lessons) began well before 1841»120 and, therefore,
before that 8 December which the Sons of Don Bosco have always considered the real
beginning of the work of the oratory.121
5.3 A Society of laymen and ecclesiastics
As can be easily deduced from the first texts of the Constitutions, Don Bosco had it in mind
to create a single Society, made up of ecclesiastics and extern members, in other words, of
priests and of lay men who while continuing to live in their families, would be linked/tied by
the same rules and together would collaborate in the education of poor youth.
In 1873, in discussions with the consultors who had the task of examining the text of the
Constitutions of the emerging Society, the rejection of the chapter of the constitutionas about
extern members was considered definitive. This had been a difficult debate from the
beginning; in spite of the observations he had received Don Bosco had not wanted to have to
give up his original plan and stubbornly presented it once again.
In the year following the approval of the Constitutions of the Society, in 1875, he began to
draw up the general outlines of a plan for a lay association to which he initially gave the
name Union of St. Francis of Sales, but which two years later was given recognition in a
brief of Pius IX dated 9 May 1876 with the title of the Union of Salesian Cooperators. Its
first Rule stated:
«The same harvest is proposed to the Salesian Cooperators as to the Congregation of St.
118 L.c..
119 MO 101.
120 L. NICOLIS DI ROBILANT, Vita del venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 8.
121 Pietro Stella comes to the conclusion: «The catechism lesson that Don Bosco gave to Bartholomew Garelli in
December 1841, only a few weeks after his arrival in Turin, was decisive for him as a young priest, but it was
not the first given at the Turin Convitto ecclesiastico. In fact, it would appear that the teaching of doctrine to the
young was part of the pastoral formation programme of the priests living there » (P. STELLA, Don Bosco nella
storia della religiosità cattolica, I, cit. 95).
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Francis of Sales, to which they intend to associate themselves. 1. To promote novenas,
triduums, retreats and catechism lessons especially in those places where material and moral
means are lacking. 2. Since in these days the great shortage of vocations to the ecclesiastical
state is being seriously felt, so that those who are able take special care of those boys and even
adults who possessing the necessary moral qualities and an aptitude for study give signs of
being called […]. 3. To promote good books in opposition to the irreligious press, through the
distribution of good books, pamphlets, printed material of all kinds in those places and among
those families where it appears prudent to do so. 4. Finally practising charity towards children
at risk, gathering them together to instruct them in the faith, preparing them for sacred
functions, advising them about dangers, leading them where they can be instructed in religion
are other harvests for the Salesian Cooperators.»122
The plan for the founding of the Salesians Cooperators, therefore, from an historical
point of view can be seen as something of a necessary «backward step».
This idea of this kind of special link with laymen was certainly also a result of the formation
received at the Convitto. In the Constitutions of Pio Brunone Lanteri’s Congregation of the
Oblates of Mary the Virgin, in fact, it is possible to find something similar. At the school of
Diessbach, Lanteri wanted to involve laymen too in the activity of the « cultural reconquest
» of society, using as its main method in the apostolate the spreading everywhere of good
books through the reading, study and examination of individual works among the different
social classes. For this purpose, when in 1816 he founded the religious Congregation of the
Oblates of Mary the Virgin, dissolved four years later and then re-established in 1826 with
papal approval, he envisaged in the Constitutions the presence of the so-called « extern
members»123.
This idea and this terminology were to be taken up by Don Bosco who in the drawing up of
the Constitutions of the Society of St. Francis of Sales would make wide use of the
aforementioned Constitutions of the Oblates.
5.4 Preaching the Spiritual Exercises as the apostolic purpose of the
Congregation124
The Biographical Memoirs tell us that the tradition of the annual retreat became from the
beginning one of the key aspects of Salesian work for the education of youth to the faith.125
The first draft of the Constitutions of the Society of Saint Francis of Sales, known as the
Autografo Rua126, lists the purposes of the budding society. The first two are the
122 MB XI, 542 [this appendix is not found in the English translation BM]
123 Cf. Costituzioni e regole della Congregazione degli Oblati di Maria V., Turin 1851.
124 On this subject see our study: G.BUCCELLATO, Gli esercizi spirituali nell’esperienza di Don Bosco e alle
origini della società di San Francesco di Sales, cit., 101-134.
125 There could be very many references. See by way of example, BM III, 377ss. 423 ss; IV, 85 ss; 4, 124
ss.3284 ss; V,41, 139 ss. 605 ss; VI, 294. 526 ss; VII, 249. 390 ss; VIII, 216; X, 27. 41-2; XII, 110. 126 ss;
XIII, 328 ss. 577.
126 This is the oldest manuscript of the Constitutions, dictated by Don Bosco to Don Rua; for this reason it is
usually called Autografo Rua. It probably dates from 1858 (cf. G. BOSCO, Costituzioni della Società di
S.Francesco di Sales [1858] – 1875, critical texts by Francesco Motto, Rome 1992, 17). The quotations from
the Constitutions which follow are taken from this critical edition.
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sanctification of the members and the imitation of Christ; immediately afterwards the three
«apostolic»127 purposes are listed:
- to gather together poor and abandoned boys to instruct them in religion, especially on
feast days;
- to accommodate some of them in hostels and teach them an art or trade;
- to give the spiritual exercises and spread good books. In this regard one reads in the
first text of the Constitutions: «The need is now being seriously felt to support the Catholic
religion also among adults of the lower classes and especially in country places, and so the
the members will devote themselves to giving the spiritual exercises, spreading good books,
making use of all those means that hard-working charity suggests so that through both word
of mouth and the written word there may be a barrier against ungodliness and heresy.»
This reference will remain substantially unchanged throughout the life of Don Bosco, as can
easily be seen from the outlines in the critical edition edited by Fr Francesco Motto in relation
to these articles on the Purpose of the Society of Saint Francis of Sales.128
Then, in the last three revisions by Don Bosco, it is possible to find a reference to the
obligation for clerical confreres at the completion of their studies in preparation for priestly
ordination to draw up a course of retreat talks. «Let each member» one reads in the version
of 1875 – «to complete his studies, in addition to the daily moral lectures, apply himself to
compose a course of meditations and instructions suitable in the first instance for the young
and afterwards adapted to the understanding of all the faithful.»129 It is not difficult to verify
that the practice of the young Congregation was consistent with this proposal.130
This last reference in the early constitutional text takes us back to the Amicizia sacerdotale of
Diessbach. The Statutes of the Amicizia, describing the apostolic means that the amici
sacerdoti should use in order to «subject the whole world to Jesus Christ,» stated: «To scatter
the holy word of God effectively, each one should compose with great care for his own use a
good course of Missions, and a good set of the spiritual exercises.»131
The Constitutions of the Oblates also contained at that time, a similar reference in the first
article of Chapter Two, entitled With regard to one’s own sanctification: «(The members) in
addition will prepare a course of meditations, and instructions in order to give the Exercises
according to the method of St.Ignatius.»132
127 Cf. G. BOSCO, Costituzioni, cit., 72-79.
128 Ibidem, 72-81.
129 Ibidem, 181.
130 Many of these collections of meditations
compiled by the first Salesians are preserved in the Central
Archives of the Congregation.
131 Cf. C. BONA, Le «Amicizie». Società segrete e rinascita religiosa (1770-1830), Turin 1962, 503-511.
132 Costituzioni e regole della Congregazione degli Oblati di Maria V., Turin 1851,17. There are many other
points of contact between the spirituality of the Society of Jesus and early Salesian tradition: the first formula of
profession and the idea of the rendiconto are derived from the Constitutions of the Society; the Jesuit formula
AMDG (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam) is constantly repeated in the early documents; the main devotions and
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5.5 Don Bosco asks to enter the Oblates of Pio Brunone Lanteri
Another circumstance shows us the importance given by Don Bosco to preaching retreats.
The Biographical Memoirs tell us that at the end of his three years stay at the Convitto Don
Bosco made contact with the Oblates of Mary the Virgin, and for a certain time nourished the
desire to «enter religious life» in that Congregation133 and, therefore to devote his whole life
to preaching the Exercises of Saint Ignatius.
The circumstances are confirmed in the biography of Cafasso, published in 1912 by Nicolis
Di Robilant134, and from a handwritten page in the Cronichetta anteriore of Don Giulio
Barberis, the first master of novices of the Salesian Congregation, who writes:
«Here are some details from the life of D. Bosco that he himself narrated to someone in
particular…"When the third year of moral theology was finished I had decided to join
the Oblates of Mary the Virgin; I had everything ready and went alone to St. Ignatius to
do the spiritual exercises there. When I had finished them I spoke with D. Cafasso so
that he could give me a definite answer and he said no. This was a terrible blow for me,
but I didn’t even want to ask him for a reason. I returned to the Convitto and continued
to study, to preach and to hear confessions."»135
Cafasso, in whom Don Bosco continued to confide would have been, according to the
accounts of Don Lemoyne and of Di Robilant, very decisive in guiding the discernment of his
disciple. In June 1844 on the advice of Don Cafasso, after having gone to Saint Ignatius «to
think about things better before the Lord,» Don Bosco took the decision to leave for the
novitiate of the Oblates, prepared his bags and presented himself to his Master to say good
bye to him. «But the good Father with a sweet smile on his lips, –“Oh! How thoughtful!” – he
said to him, “and who now will look after your boys? Did working with them not seem a
good thing to you? […] My Dear Don Bosco,” he told him, “give up all thoughts of a
religious vocation, go and unpack your bags and continue your work on behalf of the young.
This and no other is God’s will.”»136
In a letter to the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, with a view to the approval of
the Constitutions, Pio Brunone Lanteri, founder of the Oblates, writes describing the period
of the foundation: «The Oblates of Mary make known in this regard that according to the
Constitutions and the Rules … it is clear that the primary purpose is to give the Exercises of
St.Ignatius without charge, as they always do and I can assure you so tirelessly that in the
practices of piety (Month of May, Exercise for a Happy Death, Devotion to the Sacred Heart …) are of Ignatian
inspiration; teachings about and the texts for meditation of the first generations of Salesians (Rodriguez and Da
Ponte) clearly hark back to the Ignatian method; the choice of Saint Aloysius as a patron of the Society; the
continuing excellent relationships Don Bosco had with his Jesuits contemporaries.On this subject which really
needs further serious academic study see G. BUCCELLATO, Appunti per una storia spirituale del sacerdote Gio'
Bosco, Torino 2008, 144-148.
133 Cf. BM II, 159.163.
134 Cf. L.N. DI ROBILANT, Vita del venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 215-216.
135 ACS A 003.01.01, 15.17.
136 L.N. DI ROBILANT L., Vita del venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 216.
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first years that is from November 1817 until May 1820, they gave 61 sets, while in the 4
following years although reduced to a very small number they gave another 115 sets.»137
This therefore was the apostolate that Don Bosco at almost 29 years of age had in mind to
carry out for the whole of his life.
5.6 A “retiring life” in Don Bosco’s spiritual experience
The expression retiring life/recollection/seclusion appears six times in the Memoirs of the
Oratory. Speaking about two members of the Society for a good time, Guglielmo Garigliano
and Paolo Braje Don Bosco writes: «Both were reserved and pious, and they gave me plenty
of good advice. On feast days after the practices of piety in common at the college, we used
to go along to St Anthony’s Church, where the Jesuits gave marvellous catechetical
instructions. »138 The precious advice of Dr Borel is: «A vocation is preserved and perfected
by recollection and frequent communion.» 139 The expression also appears in the resolutions
he made on the occasion of his clothing as a cleric: «I will love and practise a retiring life.»140
It is not difficult to appreciate the meaning of the term retiring life or recollection in Don
Bosco’s mind. About a year before he began drafting the Memoirs of the Oratory he wrote to
a woman: «You are giving a lot of thought to the choice of a state of life and you do well …
Prayer, frequent Communion and recollection are its foundations.»141
The term brings to mind many of the acts of renunciation on Don Bosco’s part with regard to
«profane» games and entertainments, but it seems to us that it refers most of all to an interior
life, to a fruitful solitude that needs to be cultivated in the secret of one’s own room and one
that fosters recollection and prayer.
In this regard preaching to priests, Cafasso said:
«The Divine Redeemer, Head and Master of all priests every so often was able to enjoy a
moment of rest from his constant labours as we read in the Gospel, as he used to go off alone
and pray. Retreat/withdrawal and prayer, here then are the two wings which can raise the priest
up so high as to make him like a God on earth. Retreat/withdrawal and prayer are two
inseparable qualities; the one flowing from the other; I am speaking about a pious and virtuous
retreat/withdrawal not just natural or a whim. The man who is naturally withdrawn loves
prayer; the man who prays necessarily withdraws from the clamour of the world and seeks
quiet and solitude. Retreat/withdrawal and prayer are two virtues which suffice because they
bring with them and pre-suppose what is required to form a worthy and holy priest. It is
impossible for someone who lives withdrawn and prays not to have a heart detached from this
world and full of the spirit of the Lord.»142
The first, the main «place» that Cafasso indicates for this daily «retreat» is the bedroom.
137 T. GALLAGHER, Gli Esercizi di s.Ignazio nella spiritualità e carisma di fondatore di Pio Brunone Lanteri,
Rome 1983, 33.
138 MO 55.
139 MO 92.
140 MO 78.
141 This is a letter of 24 March 1872; the original letter, not yet included in the critical edition of the Letters
which is being prepared, can be found in the Salesian house in Chiari (Brescia).
142 G. CAFASSO, Istruzioni per Esercizi Spirituali al clero pubblicate per cura del Can. Giuseppe Allamano,
Turin 1893, 88-89.
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«Only in the bedroom will we find that quiet, » he affirms, «that tranquillity, that calm that is
so necessary to form a good priest.»143 It is this «cell» that the priest has to learn to love:
«Love for the cell where the air is purer for the soul, heaven more open, the Lord closer and
familiar.»144
Having left the Convitto Ecclesiastico, Don Bosco continued to go for confession every
week to Don Cafasso until his death which occurred in 1860. For long periods he used to go
every day to the Convitto to study and to find peace and quiet in a room that was kept for
him, in particular while preparing the Catholic Readings, for which he often made use of the
library.145 In the teachings of Cafasso study in fact is considered as «one of the specific duties
of the ecclesiastical vocation.»146
Even more significant is Don Bosco’s custom of going each year to the Sanctuary of
Saint Ignatius for the annual spiritual exercises; and this even after the new Congregation, in
1864, «institutionalised» the practice for Salesians of the retreats, retreats which in the first
years were held in the house at Trofarello, particularly dedicated to this purpose.
Starting from 1842 Don Bosco was a frequent visitor to the sanctuary. In fact, he went
there each year almost without interruption147 for more than thirty years until 1874. When
Cafasso died (1860), Canon Eugenio Galletti suceeded him as Rector of the Convitto and of
the sanctuary; then in 1864 Doctor Felice Golzio, Don Bosco’s confessor between 1860 and
1873, the year he died. After their deaths Don Bosco again went for his retreat at the
sanctuary in 1874; only the chilly welcome he received that year from the new Rector of the
sanctuary, according to one of his biographers, Fr Angelo Amadei, persuaded him not to
return the following years.148
5.7 Commitment to the apostolate of good books
Also a commitment to the apostolate of good books, which as we have seen is one of
the apostolic aims of the budding Congregation, draws its inspiration from the situation at the
Convitto.
Diessbach, the teacher of Pio Brunone Lanteri, set himself to respond to the propaganda
of adversaries through «good books » and the «private» union of men of good will, founding
the Amicizie cristiane. Then Lanteri made a not inconsiderable contribution to the spreading
of good books and, in particular, of the works of Saint Alphonsus, maintaining contacts with
bookshops and printers in many European countries. As a response to the widespread
Jansenistic and royalist spirit, Lanteri aimed to present the teaching of Alphonsus de’
Liguori, either on his own initiative or through the good offices of the Amicizie and the
apostolate of lay people and priests, by spreading the works of the holy Doctor,149 which he
143 G. . CAFASSO, Manoscritti, vol. V, 2085 B [85]. For this and the following quotation we have made use of the
work of Flavio Accornero, giving the quotation just as the author does , and between square brackets the page of
the text where we came across the quotation. The indications A and B refer to the fact that the pages of the
manuscript often give two different texts separated by a horizontal line.
144 G. CAFASSO, Manoscritti, vol. V, 1951 A [85].
145 Cf. L.N. DI ROBILANT, Vita del Venerabile Giuseppe Cafasso, II, cit., 222-223.
146 F. ACCORNERO, La dottrina spirituale di S. Giuseppe Cafasso, cit., 90.
147 The only exceptions were in the years 1848 and 1849, since on account of the political movement for the
unity of Italy, the retreats at Saint Ignatius were not held.
148 Cf. DEPARTMENT FOR FORMATION, Sussidi 2, cit., 172; MB X, 1277 ss [ not found in BM (English
translation)].
149 It is difficult to arrive at even an approximate number of the copies of the works of the holy Doctor which
Pio Brunone spread in Piedmont and beyond. Tommaso Piatti writes that «he distributed in a single edition
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described «as a library of all moral teaching».
Fr Pietro Stella has written: «Don Bosco gave himself no rest as a writer, publisher and
propagandist, because he was personally convinced that preaching the good news by means
of the press was a service which he necessarily had to provide for Religion, an essential
expression of his vocation as an educator of youth and of the people. This was a belief he
held in common with many of his contemporaries.»150
In addition to his own personal commitment, that of his collaborators should be noted.
There are a huge number of publications by the first Salesians which can be found in the
Catholic Readings and in other places. The commitment to spreading good books was taken
up by everyone, according to what the Constitutions declared as a essential element of the
mission and of the «charism» of the budding Congregation.
5.8 Man of prayer
The priest formed by the Convitto is a man of prayer. For Cafasso prayer ought to be
considered the fundamental duty of an ecclesiastic:
«Among the duties and the offices of the priest it can be said quite clearly that the first is that of
praying: omnis pontifex pro hominibus constituitur in iis quae sunt ad Deum. The principal
means, indeed the only means he has to keep this pathway open, this relationship, this
communion with God, the means by which he is to carry out this great mission and special task
is prayer: take prayer away from me, and at the same time you will take away every contact
between heaven and earth, between God and man.»151
He has to be a master «in the great art of praying »: «And how will you succeed when you
don’t know how to and don’t do so yourself?»152
The writings and teaching of Don Bosco on prayer show us the results of the formation he
had received.153
In a pro memoria written by him on 16 April 1843, towards the end of his second year at the
Convitto, concerning a fellow student of his at the seminary in Chieri, the young man
Giuseppe Burzio154 who had then become an Oblate of Mary the Virgin and had died
prematurely in 1842, we read:
without counting smaller ones 36,000 copies of the Massime eterne alone » (T. PIATTI, Il servo di Dio Pio
Brunone Lanteri, Turin 1934, 109).
150 P. STELLA, Don Bosco nella storia della religiosità cattolica, I, cit., 247
151 G. CAFASSO, Manoscritti,[Copia Corgiatti] VII, 2679.
152 Ibidem, VII, 2681.
153 For a fuller treatment of the topic of prayer and in particular of mental prayer in Don Bosco see the doctoral
thesis of G. BUCCELLATO, Alla presenza di Dio. Ruolo dell’orazione mentale nel carisma di fondazione di San
Giovanni Bosco fondatore della Società di san Francesco di Sales, Rome 2004, published by the Pontificia
Universitas Gregoriana.
154 Giuseppe Burzio (1822-1842) arrived at the Chieri seminary at the beginning of the final year of theology of
the cleric John Bosco, in Novenber 1840. Don Bosco, ordained subdeacon in September of that year, had been
appointed «prefect of the hall» and immediately established a close spiritual friendship with Burzio. In
September 1841 Giuseppe Burzio entered the Congregation of Lanteri. Falling seriously ill he died with a
reputation for holiness in 1842. One of his confreres, Father Felice Giordano, wanted to collect some evidence
from those who had known him during his short life in order to write a biography which was then published in
1846. Father Giordano also asked Don Bosco for this purpose, to send him a memoir on his young companion;
the testimony of Don Bosco can be found scattered throughout the short biography. It is possible to find it in G.
BOSCO., Epistolario, edited by F. Motto, I, Rome 1991, 48-53.
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«Great was his commitment to piety, in which he was indeed outstanding; I can only speak
about what took place under the eyes of everyone; but whoever knew the sincerity of this cleric,
his perseverance in good, could easily guess at the more and better hidden acts of his interior
virtues. There was never a time in fact when he came to the practices of piety or took part in
them in an indifferent manner or as a matter of routine; on the contrary, he was admirable for
the pleasure and the desire that showed on his face; in fact no sooner had a sacred function or
some customary exercise such as, for example prayer, or meditation begun or he had simply put
his foot inside the chapel than he was was immediately recollected and all his senses became
focused so that on account of his devout disposition everyone could see how he was
participating with all his heart, and how great was the spirit of faith that was animating him.
Whether or not the Superiors were present Berzio’s pious behaviour was always the same, since
of him it could well be said that ambulabat coram Deo… In addition to the religious practices
undertaken in common by all, and by him with great fervour, I could observe from his words
and actions that he had a great devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to the Madonna,
for which if there was any extra time available he consecrated it to expressions of love and
gratitude. Quite often I saw him during recreation time like this. And above all on holidays,
leaving his companions he went to church and spent time in sweet conversation with Jesus in
the Blessed Sacrament and with his most holy Mother.»155
Don Bosco was almost twenty-eight years of age and at the end of his time at the Convitto;
the interest and the esteem that he shows to have nourished for that «spending time in sweet
conversation» also «in the time of recreation» shows how he was thinking and his ideal of the
Christian and priestly life.
He will never consider the time of prayer, of personal and silent communion with God
«excessive» or inopportune; on the contrary his appreciation of this will be a link between
many of those whose biographies he wrote - of young people and the not-so-young - who
throughout his life he will continue to present as genuine models of Christian virtue and
holiness.
5.9 The influence of Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori156
The first contact Don Bosco had with the writings and the spirituality of Alphonsus
was probably through his first spiritual director, Fr John Calosso, chaplain at Morialdo, a
place only a few kilometres from Castelnuovo. According to the Biographical Memoirs it
was Fr Calosso who gave Don Bosco the ascetical works of Saint Alphonsus (cf. BM I, 177);
but his much deeper familiarity with the teaching and the spirituality of Alphonsus certainly
came in the years at the Convitto.
I think it can be said that the person and the work of Saint Alphonsus, known directly
or through the teaching of Cafasso, had, in comparison with any other spiritual author, the
most important influence on Don Bosco’s writings, his spiritual pedagogy, even on his
understanding of religious life. In addition, there are many works of Alphonsus quoted
explicitly or implicitly or published by Don Bosco in the Catholic Readings.
5.9.1 The patron of confessors and exponents of moral theology
155 F. GIORDANO, Cenni istruttivi di perfezione proposti a' giovani desiderosi della medesima nella vita
edificante di Giuseppe Burzio, Turin 1846, 139-140. Don Bosco’s long letter to Father Giordano is given in its
entirety in G. BOSCO., Epistolario, edited by F. Motto, I, 48-53; it is dated 16 April 1843.
156 Regarding comments about Don Bosco and Saint Alphonsus see, in particular, A. PEDRINI, Don Bosco e
Sant’Alfonso M. De’ Liguori. La dottrina salesiana e alfonsiana nella luce delle celebrazioni centenarie, in
Palestra del clero 67 (1988) 921-936; VALENTINI E., Don Bosco e Sant’Alfonso. Con aggiunta Vita cronologica
di S. Alfonso M. dei Liguori Dottore della Chiesa a cura di Alfonso Maria Santonicola, Pagani (SA) 1972.
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The spirit found in the works of Alphonsus did not have much of a following among
Piedmontese moralists; only the Jesuits were the more convinced supporters of this point of
view. In contrast and in opposition to the rigourism of the Turin major seminary, there was
the approach of the Convitto which was accustomed to forming a pastor of souls who was
«benign in teaching and with a kindly manner.»157
The option for benevolence was aimed mainly at the practice of the sacrament of
penance and the formation of confessors. The patron of confessors and moral theologians
achieved in this field a Copernican revolution, in so far as he knew how to exercise «the
pastoral ministry in the context of human frailty,» making «forgiveness depend more on the
mercy of God than on the law» and giving «to confession and to the confessor the role of an
act of love.» From the pages of his work full of practical advice emerges a form of ministry
in which fidelity to the mercy of God makes the confessor first of all a father and a doctor
and then a teacher and a judge.158
It almost goes without saying that the pastoral experience of Don Bosco was influenced by
similar teaching. From this point of view it is more understandable that he should have so
firmly opposed his Archbishop when faced with the possibility that his clerics might be
forced to study at the Turin Major Seminary.159
5.9.2 A holiness within reach
At the time when Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori was alive, holiness seemed to be almost
a privilege linked to other privileges: social class, the professions, money, studies. Also from
this point of view the Neapolitan saint was an innovator and the precursor of future times
since he devoted himself to the socialisation of holiness, that is, making it universal and
egalitarian: «God wants everyone to be saints, » Alphonsus used to say, «each one in his own
state of life: the religious as a religious, the lay man as a lay man, the priest as a priest, the
married man as a married man, the merchant as a merchant, the soldier as a soldier and so
on.»160
We can sum up his way of seeing things with one of his own telling phrases: it is a
question of a holiness «alla buona»161, that is to say a holiness accessible to all classes of
persons, of whatever age, culture or social class.
Don Bosco’s pedagogy of holiness is based on these teachings. Don Bosco writes in the
preface to The Companion of Youth: «I have drawn up a way of life brief and easy enough,
which will enable you to be a joy to your parents, a glory to your country, good citizens on
157 P. BRAIDO, Don Bosco prete dei giovani nel secolo delle libertà, I, Rome 2003, 163. Gioberti in Gesuita
moderno will accuse the Convitto of laxism as well as of Jesuitism (cf. V. GIOBERTI, Il gesuita moderno, IV,
Napoli 1848, 279-281).
158 Cf. M. VIDAL, Nuova morale fondamentale, Bologna 2004, 416; S. MAJORANO, Il confessore, pastore ideale
nelle opere di sant’Alfonso, in SM 38 (2000) 329.
159 Among the various reasons given by Don Bosco for his rejecting the obligation for Salesian clerics to reside
at the seminary as boarders is the explicit unreliability of the professors of the seminary, in particular in the area
of moral theology, of sacred hermeneutics and church history (cf. G. TUNINETTI, Gli arcivescovi di Torino e
Don Bosco fondatore in DEPARTMENT FOR FORMATION, Don Bosco fondatore della famiglia salesiana, Rome
1989, 263).
160 ALFONSO M. DE’ LIGUORI, Pratica di amare Gesù Cristo, in Opere ascetiche, Rome 1996, 90.
161 ALFONSO M. DE’ LIGUORI, Lettere, I, Introduzione a cura di S. Brugnano, Rome 1887, 95.
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earth and one day blessed inhabitants of heaven.»162
Don Bosco’s main concern is the salvation of all young people; but his spiritual
teaching goes further than that. In fact, his gaze and his « educative drive» are fixed much
higher so as to point out clearly that not only salvation but holiness itself is possible for
everyone.
The biographies of Comollo, of Savio, of Besucco, of Michael Magone are examples of
holiness achieved, which Don Bosco presents to everyone as possible models to imitate; it is
precisely this form of imitation that is the key in which to interpret these and other
biographies as a proposal and a plan for a life of holiness.
5.9.3 Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and frequent communion
The practice of the so-called short visits to the Blessed Sacrament which Don Bosco so
much recommended to his boys was taken from the well-known work of Alphonsus, Visits to
the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary Most Holy for each day of the month.163 This little book
was so successful that Giuseppe Cacciatore could write: «We can affirm without fear of
contradiction that the reawakening of eucharistic devotion in Europe throughout the second
half of the XVIII century and the whole of the XIX is due to this little book, the real key to the
piety of St Alphonsus and of the most undiluted Catholic religious spirit.»164
In this regard Karl Keusch explains:
«It was not Alphonsus who introduced into the Church the pious practice of visiting the
Blessed Sacrament of the altar. All pious souls, all the saints of God have nourished their faith
and built up their strength there. Nevertheless to our saint goes the merit of having given a
particular form to this holy practice with his very affectionate and classic visits. And when they
had a fixed form he allocated them to certain hours of the day and gave them a fixed time and
place in the plan of all the works aimed at perfection.»165
Don Bosco writes in his Short Treatise on the Preventive System: «Frequent
confession and comunion and daily Mass are the pillars which must support the edifice of
education, from which we propose to banish threats and blows.» Also in the biographies of
the boys Savio, Besucco and Magone, Don Bosco devoted space to dealing with the
Liguorian teaching on frequent reception of the sacraments, in particular drawing on the text
of Alphonsus La Monaca Santa; among other texts dealing with this subject we can mention:
The Month of May, the Companion of Youth and two short works published in the Catholic
Readings in 1866 and 1870 respectively, entitled, firstly Devout Practices for adoration of
the Blessed Sacrament, and secondly Nine days consecrated to Mary Help of Christians.
5.9.4 Teaching about the Four Last things
Among the more frequent topics dealt with in Don Bosco’s teaching about holiness
there is an important place for the four last things: death, judgement, hell and heaven. «One
of the evil features of modern pedagogy» – the holy educator used to say –«is its aversion to
mentioning eternal truths, and above all death and hell.»166
In some of Don Bosco’s works dedicated to this issue the influence of the teaching of
162 G. BOSCO, Il Giovane Provveduto per la pratica de’ suoi doveri degli esercizi di cristiana pietà per la recita
dell’uffizio della Beata Vergine e de’ principali Vespri dell’anno coll’aggiunta di una scelta di laudi sacre ecc.,
Turin 1847, 7.
163 This is a 1748 reprint of the original publication of 1745, which had as its title Pensieri ed affetti divoti nelle
visite al SS. Sacramento ed alla sempre immacolata SS. Vergine.
164 G. CACCIATORE, S. Alfonso de’ Liguori e il giansenismo. Le ultime fortune del moto giansenistico e la
restituzione del pensiero cattolico nel secolo XVIII, Florence 1942, 295.
165 K. KEUSCH, La dottrina spirituale di S. Alfonso, Milan 1931, 413.
166 BM II 168.
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Alphonsus can be recognised, easily confirmed by a comparison between the works of the
two authors. In particular two of Don Bosco’ writings in which we can identify his direct
dependence on the thought of Alphonsus are the Companion of Youth and The month of May,
linked respectively to the Eternal truths and the Preparation for a Happy Death.
In the short introduction to the Companion of Youth, entitled Means needed to lead a
good Catholic life, the author issues an explicit invitation to the young, those to whom the
book is addressed, to devote some time «to reading some book which deals with spiritual
things, such as the Preparation for a Happy Death by St. Alphonsus.»167 In his Don Bosco e
Sant’Alfonso, written in 1972, the Salesian Fr Eugenio Valentini has clearly shown how The
month of May depends on the work of Alphonsus.168
5.9.5 Devotion to Mary the Virgin
Also with regard to devotion to Mary, as Fr Valentini again points out, «in his
expressions and in his fervour [Don Bosco] was perfectly Alphonsian»169. In the booklet Nine
days consecrated to Mary Help of Christians, for example, on seven occasions Don Bosco
quotes the Glories of Mary,170 the first major work of Saint Alphonsus from the year 1750.
Again, in the Exercise of the devotion to the mercy of God, we find intercessions
addressed to Mary clearly drawing inspiration from Liguori, such as this one: «O most loving
Mother of mercies, sweetness and consolation of sinners, grant that I may be heard, since you
have never asked any grace from God that was denied.»171 The text of Alphonsus that is
evoked in the Preparation for death, where we read in the XVI Consideration On the Mercy
of God: «O Mary, my hope. You are the mother of mercy, pray to God for me and have pity
on me.»172
5.9.6 Love for music and singing
Alphonsus wrote and composed music for many hymns, some of which were not only
familiar in Italy and in Church circles but became famous throughout the world: «For his
poetic gifts» – Father Pichler writes « the artist Alphonsus deserves the highest honours. His
songs have been translated into Latin and German, and some into French, English and Dutch.
He is assured of a place of honour in world literature.»173
Don Bosco too loved music and singing. He published some booklets such as Scelta di
laudi sacre and Arpa cattolica o Raccolta di laudi sacre in onore di Maria Santissima,174 in
which he included some hymns which he said were by accredited authors; among these were
a dozen or so which Alphonsus had published in his Glories of Mary.175 Finally, among
hymns to be found in the Companion of Youth could be mentioned the very well-known Tu
scendi dalle stelle, which Alphonsus had published in his Opere spirituali.176
167 G. BOSCO, Cose necessarie ad un giovane per diventare virtuoso, introduction to Il Giovane Provveduto, cit.,
18.
168 Cf. E. VALENTINI, Don Bosco e Sant’Alfonso, cit., 58-59.
169 E. VALENTINI, Don Bosco e Sant’Alfonso, cit., 61.
170 Cf. l. c.
171 G. BOSCO, Esercizio di divozione alla misericordia di Dio, Turin 1846, 38.
172 ALFONSO M. DE’ LIGUORI, Apparecchio alla morte, in Opere ascetiche, II, Turin 1846, 154.
173 K. KEUSCH, La dottrina spirituale di S. Alfonso, cit., 125-126.
174 G. BOSCO, Scelta di laudi sacre ad uso delle missioni e di altre opportunità della Chiesa, Turin 18793; ID.,
Arpa cattolica o Raccolta di laudi sacre in onore di Maria Santissima, S. Pier d’Arena 1882.
175 Cf. E. VALENTINI, Don Bosco e Sant’Alfonso, cit., 64.
176 ALFONSO M. DE’ LIGUORI, Canzoncine spirituali, 239-240; ; they can be found on the site of the Biblioteca
Alphonsiana IntraText at http://www.intratext.com/ixt/ITASA0000/P 9J.HTM (27.12.2010).
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5.9.7 The understanding of the religious life
Already in 1854 John Bosco had gathered together his closest collaborators to tell them
about his plans to give to the work of taking care of the poorest abandoned boys, which had
been in existence for a decade, a stable long-term structure. On 18 December 1859 the
Society of St. Francis of Sales was officially established.
In 1866 «for the budding Congregation the experience of the «self-managed» exercises
began at Trofarello». In that and in successive years Don Bosco gave the instructions, based
on the ascetical writings of Liguori.177
A significant text to confirm the clear influence of Alphonsus on Don Bosco the
founder is the Constitutions of the Society of St. Francis of Sales, definitively approved on 3
April 1874, in which– in the opinion of Fr Pietro Braido – «from the point of view of their
literary dependence the role of St Alphonsus was absolutely paramount.»178 The introduction
Ai Soci Salesiani179 in the edition printed in 1877, which is considerably expanded compared
with that of 1875, containing various additions attributable to Fr Giulio Barberis,180 is clearly
of Alphonsian derivation. Fr Braido has written:
«The sources on which Don Bosco draws most widely and explicitly in putting together the
pages Ai Soci Salesiani are without any doubt the Esercizio di perfezione e di virtù cristiane
(virtù religiose, in the third volume, interestingly) by the Jesuit Alphonsus Rodríguez (1541-
1616) and La vera sposa di Gesù Cristo and the Opuscoli sullo stato religioso by the founder of
the Redemptorists St. Alphonsus M. de Liguori (1696-1787).»181
A final important observation needs to be made regarding an appendix added at the end
of the third and last edition in Italian of the Constitutions in Don Bosco’ lifetime, that of
1885. In this appendix there is a circular letter by St. Vincent de’ Paoli and six letters by St.
Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori «addressed to their religious and also very useful for
Salesians.»182
A serious detailed study of these seven letters would enable us to recognise the plans,
the expectatons and above all the concerns of the founder of the Salesian in the years of the
consolidation of the new foundation.
5.10 The sentire cum Ecclesia and obedience to the Pope
In the field of ecclesiology the ideas of the Convitto followed the path of
ultramontanism which was a characteristic of the founding of the Amicizie. The authority and
the prestige of the Pope were defended against the «enemies of the Primacy» and misleading
teachings, but also in consequence against every possible opening towards «modernism».
To create this atmosphere of enthusiasm regarding the Pope several factors made their
contribution coinciding with the French Revolution. Above all Gallicanism, which having
underlined the particular nature of the French church in opposition to that of Rome, had
poured cold water on relationships between the two; and in the second place, Jansenism,
which showed itself to be at odds with the centralism of the Roman Curia. Already
177 Cf. E. VALENTINI, Don Bosco e Sant’Alfonso, cit., 38.
178 P. BRAIDO, Don Bosco prete dei giovani nel secolo delle libertà, II, Rome 2003, 269.
179 This introduction is fundamental as it makes more explicit the fundamental theological basis and the special
understanding of religious life that constitutes the key to interpreting the text of the Constitutions.
180 The additions by Fr Giulio Barberis, the first Director of Novices of the Salesian Congregation, were revised
and corrected by Don Bosco himself, as can be seen from the manuscript preserved in the Archives of the
Generalate (cf. ACS D 473.02.10).
181 P. BRAIDO, Don Bosco fondatore. «Ai Soci salesiani» (1875-1885). Introduzione e testi critici, Rome 1995,
37.
182 G. BOSCO, Regole o Costituzioni della Società di S. Francesco di Sales secondo il Decreto di approvazione
del 3 aprile 1874, Turin 18853, 87.
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Diessbach, distancing himself from these attitudes, had founded the Amicizie based on a
programme of «adhesion without reserve » to the «Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman
Church.»183
The priest formed at the Convitto, therefore, was able to sentire cum ecclesia; even more so
he was markedly pro-Roman on all issues not only religious but also political, and with a
critical attitude towards all the social tendencies which in those years looked on the Pope as a
possible adversary.
It is not difficult to recognise in this description the «political» position which Don Bosco
constantly maintained even during the difficult years of the wars of independence, and the
characteristic features of his love for and devotion to the Pope.
183 Cf. P. ZOVATTO, La spiritualità dell’ottocento italiano, in Storia della spiritualità italiana edited by P.
Zovatto, Rome 2002, 508-511.
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CONCLUSION
«My brothers, let us never forget that the meaning of our life is found more in the
spirit than in works […]; that if we want this spirit to reign in us, not to be hindered,
but rather increased, set on fire, a continuous and constant vigilance over ourselves
is necessary, is indispensible; and absolutely necessary is a place, a time of retreat, of
study, of examination of our day, otherwise what is the result? We study, we preach,
we hear confessions, we undertake a thousand things but in the meantime what is
happening inside, what profit do we make and how do the reckonings of our heart add
up?»184
At the conclusion of our journey it seems opportune to make some reflections.
The first is of a semantic nature. From the beginning of our contribution, we have chosen to
use expressions such as spiritual direction, spiritual accompaniment, spiritual guide and
similar ones, considering them as equivalents, without concerning ourselves with the modern
day reflection that as we know gives to these terms different connotations and emphases.
From what has been said it is sufficiently evident that the relationship that links Don Bosco
with Don Cafasso has a strongly asymmetric nature in spite of the difference in age between
the two being relatively modest. The expression spiritual accompaniment, of more recent
origin, is intended to safeguard the role of the one being helped as a protagonist in the
relationship and does not belong to the language of the 1800s.
It is scarcely needs to be pointed out that obedience to the spiritual director does not
necessarily imply passivity, but, basing ourselves on a very ancient tradition in the history of
spirituality, contains in itself an active acceptance in the Faith, of a plan or of a task in
addition to a guide; analogously the nature of such a relationship does not imply an affective
distance or an emotional detachment. Perhaps in these days of radical subjectivism, in which
everyone seems to have become the norm for himself, a relationship like this constitutes an
occasion for reflection and a sort of provocation.
In the course of our study we have been able to recognise how great is the debt that the
founder of the Salesians and his spiritual family owe to Don Cafasso and to the formation
received at the Convitto; a debt, which perhaps was never entirely paid not even by the first
generations of Salesians, too much taken up by the extraordinary person of the founder and
more inclined to highlight his originality, in addition to his virtues and merits. Along these
lines what has always seemed particularly strange to us has been the neglect of the sanctuary
of Saint Ignatius which is rarely included in the itineraries for visits to the places of Salesian
interest, which undoubtedly represents a not-to-be-forgotten «dimension» of the spiritual
experience of Don Bosco.185
184 G. CAFASSO, Manoscritti, [Corgiatti Copy], 5, 1874-1875.
185 For more than thirty years Don Bosco went to the sanctuary of Saint Ignatius for his retreat, but also on many
other occasions, at first with Cafasso and then with Golzio, to help with retreats for lay people and as a
confessor. By way of example see, BM II, 371; BM III, 377; MB X, 892 [BM does not give these appendices].
At the sanctuary Don Bosco nearly always occupied the same room, where now there is a lift; only since 2007
has a small notice recorded his presence.
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When at the end of June 2007 the small Sant'Alfio (CT) Centre for Studies of Salesian
Spirituality organised a Congress on the subject Saint Joseph Cafasso, Don Bosco’s spiritual
director, 186 the intention was to highlight the person of the Saint from Castelnuovo and his
relations with the founder of the Salesians, as well as to examine more deeply and personally
the spiritual experience of Don Bosco. «Research into the spirituality of Don Bosco and of
the Salesians today» Fr Stella wrote in 1973 «has perhaps not been so developed as that into
the educational system. This impacts on the studies of the historian and on whoever wants to
predict the next possible developments in the Salesian question […]. It might be said that the
emergence or not of a spiritual reflection within or associated with the Salesian movement,
could be symptomatic of what the Salesian Family might be.»187
The living memory of Don Bosco requires listening lovingly to the founder, meditation on his
writings, fostering the interior life, study, prayer and reflection; and this needs to be
undertaken without any simplistic generalisations, without any dangerous playing down of
the charism and starting from well-founded hermeneutical criteria, so as to «recognise» and
to give due weight to some of the essential charismatic elements.
186 The Acts of the Congress were published the following year by LAS with the same title. The volume, which
we edited, also contains the talks by Fr Giuseppe Tuninetti, Fr Lucio Casto and Fr Raimondo Frattallone.
187 P. STELLA, Don Bosco e le trasformazioni sociali e religiose del suo tempo in La Famiglia salesiana riflette
sulla sua vocazione nella chiesa di oggi, edited by P. Brocardo and M. Midali, Turin-Leumann 1973, 167-168.
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