Bosco, Giovanni Melchior

(1815–88)

   Saint, Educator and Order Founder.

   Bosco was born into a poor family in Becchi, Italy. He was ordained priest at the age of twenty-six and exercised his ministry in Turin. Anxious to do something for the poor boys he saw in the city, he founded night schools and work shops. In 1859, he drew up the Rule for a new order, the Salesians, the society of St francis of sales. Today the order has spread to many parts of the world and, together with its sister organisation, the Daughters of our Lady Help of Christians, is now the third largest order in the Roman Catholic Church. It maintains orphanages, schools, savings banks, asylums and agricultural colonies. The foundation of Bosco’s system was reason and kindness; he used to say, ‘Try to gain love before inspiring fear’ and Salesian foundations are still guided by these principles.

   E.J. Docherty, Lambs in Wolfskins (1953);

   L.C. Sheppard, Life of Don Bosco (1957).