Today, the original vocation of the Sacred Heart House sees a new beginning. Tradition and innovation continue to characterise the past, present, and future of this significant work.

            So often did Don Bosco desire to come to Rome to open a Salesian house. From his first trip in 1858, his goal was to be present in the Eternal City with an educational presence. He came to Rome twenty times, and only on his last trip in 1887 was he able to realise his dream by opening the Sacred Heart house in Castro Pretorio.
            The Salesian Work is located in the Esquiline district, established in 1875, after the breach of Porta Pia and the Savoy’s need to build the ministries of the Kingdom of Italy in the new capital. The district, also called Umbertino, has Piedmontese architecture. All the streets are named after battles or events related to the Savoy state. In this place that recalls Turin, there had to be a Temple, which was also a parish, built by a Piedmontese, Don Giovanni Bosco. Don Bosco did not choose the name of the Church, but it was the will of Leo XIII to revive a devotion, more relevant than ever, to the Heart of Jesus.
            Today, the Sacred Heart House is completely renovated to meet the needs of the Salesian Central Headquarters. From the time of its foundation to the present day, the house has undergone several transformations. The Work began as a Parish and International Temple for the spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart. From the beginning, Don Bosco’s declared goal was to build a home next door to accommodate up to 500 poor children. Fr. Rua completed the Work and opened workshops for artisans (arts and crafts school). In the following years, the middle school and classical high school were opened. For some years, it was also the seat of the university (Pontifical Salesian Athenaeum) and a training house for Salesians who studied at Roman universities and were involved in the school and oratory (among these students there was Fr. Quadrio). It was also the headquarters of the Roman Province first and of the Circumscription of Central Italy from 2008. Since 2017, due to the move from Via della Pisana, it has become the Salesian Central Headquarters. Renovation began in 2022 to adapt the spaces to the function of the Rector Major’s house. Don Bosco, Fr. Rua, Cardinal Cagliero (his apartment was located on the first floor of Via Marsala), Zeffirino Namuncurà, Monsignor Versiglia, Artemide Zatti, all the Rectors Major successors of Don Bosco, and Saint John Paul II, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and Pope Francis have lived or passed through this house. Among the directors of the house, Monsignor Giuseppe Cognata served (during his rectorship, in 1930, the statue of the Sacred Heart was placed on the bell tower).
            Thanks to the Sacred Heart, the Salesian charism has spread to various neighbourhoods of Rome. In fact, all the other Salesian presences in Rome have been an offshoot of this house: Testaccio, Pio XI, Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco, Don Bosco Cinecittà, Gerini, the Pontifical Salesian University.

Crossroads of Hospitality
            From the beginning, there have been two determining characteristics of the Sacred Heart House:
            1) Catholicity, in that opening a house in Rome has always meant for the founders of religious orders a closeness to the Pope and a broadening of horizons at a universal level. In the first conference to the Salesian Cooperators at the monastery of Tor De’ Specchi in Rome in 1874, Don Bosco stated that the Salesians would spread throughout the world and that helping their works meant living the most authentic Catholic spirit;
            2) attention towards poor young people: the location near the station, a crossroads of arrivals and departures, a place where the poorest have always gathered, is inscribed in the history of the Sacred Heart.
            In the beginning, the House took in poor children to teach them a trade, and later, the oratory gathered the children of the neighbourhood. After the war, the shoeshine boys (boys who shined shoes for people leaving the station) were gathered and cared for first in this house and then moved to Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco. During the mid-1980s, with the first immigration to Italy, young immigrants were hosted in collaboration with the nascent Caritas. In the 1990s, a Day Centre gathered children as an alternative to prison and taught them the basics of reading and writing and a trade. Since 2009, an integration project between young refugees and young Italians has seen many initiatives of welcome and evangelisation flourish. The Sacred Heart House has also been the headquarters of the National Centre of Salesian Works of Italy for about 30 years.

The New Beginning
            Today, the original vocation of the Sacred Heart House sees a new beginning. Tradition and innovation continue to characterise the past, present, and future of this significant work.
            First of all, the presence of the Rector Major with his council and of the confreres who take care of the global dimension indicates the continuum of Catholicity. It is a vocation to welcome many Salesians who come from all over the world and find in the Sacred Heart House a place to feel at home, experience fraternity and meet with Don Bosco’s successor. At the same time, it is the place from which the Rector Major animates and governs the Congregation, tracing the lines to be faithful to Don Bosco in the present.
            Secondly, there is the presence of a significant Salesian place where Don Bosco wrote the letter from Rome and understood the dream of the nine years. Inside the house there will be the Don Bosco House Museum of Rome, which, distributed on three floors, will tell the story of the Saint’s presence in the eternal city. The centrality of education as a “thing of the heart” in his Preventive System, the relationship with the Popes who loved Don Bosco and whom he first loved and served, the Sacred Heart as a place of expansion of the charism throughout the world, the difficult path of approval of the Constitutions, the understanding of the dream of the nine years and his last educational breath in writing the letter from Rome are the thematic elements that, in an immersive multimedia form, will be revealed to those who visit the Museum.
            Thirdly, the devotion to the Sacred Heart represents the centre of the charism. Don Bosco, even before receiving the invitation to build the Church of the Sacred Heart, had oriented young people towards this devotion. In The Companion of Youth there are prayers and practices of piety addressed to the Heart of Christ. However, with the acceptance of the proposal of Leo XIII he becomes a true apostle of the Sacred Heart. He spares no effort to seek money for the Church. The attention to the smallest details infuses his thought and devotion to the Sacred Heart into the architectural and artistic choices of the Basilica. To support the construction of the Church and the house, he founded the Pious Work of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the last of the five foundations created by Don Bosco throughout his life together with the Salesians, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the Salesian Cooperators, the Association of Devotees of Mary Help of Christians. It was erected for the perpetual celebration of six daily masses in the Church of the Sacred Heart in Rome. All the members, living and deceased, participate through the prayer offered and the good works performed by the Salesians and young people in all their houses.
            The vision of the Church that derives from the foundation of the Pious Work is that of a “living body” composed of the living and the dead in communion with each other through the Sacrifice of Jesus, renewed daily in the Eucharistic celebration in service of the poorest young people. The desire of the Heart of Jesus is that all may be one (ut unum sint) as He and the Father. The Pious Work connects, through prayer and offerings, the benefactors, living and deceased, the Salesians of the whole world and the young people who live at the Sacred Heart. Only through communion, which has its source in the Eucharist, can benefactors, Salesians and young people contribute to building the Church, to making it shine in its missionary face. The Pious Work also has the task of promoting, spreading, deepening devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the world and renewing it according to the times and the feeling of the Church.

The central station for evangelising
            Finally, attention to poor young people is manifested in the missionary will to reach the young people of all Rome through the Youth Centre open on Via Marsala, right at the exit of Termini station where about 300,000 people pass every day. A place that is home for the many Italian and foreign young people, who visit or live in Rome and are thirsty, sometimes unconsciously, for God. Moreover, various poor people, marked by the fatigue of life, have always crowded around Termini station. It is another open door on Via Marsala, in addition to that of the Youth Centre and the Basilica, that expresses the desire to respond to the needs of these people with the Heart of Christ. In fact, the glory of His face shines in them.
            Don Bosco’s prophecy about the Sacred Heart House of April 5, 1880, accompanies and guides the realisation of what has been told:

But Don Bosco looked further into the future. Our own Bishop John Marenco recalled a mysterious remark he made which we should not let time obliterate. On the very day he accepted that burdensome assignment, Don Bosco asked him:
– Do you know why we accepted that house in Rome?
– No, he answered.
– Listen, then. We agreed because one day, when there will be another Pope and he shall be the right one, we shall set up our headquarters there to evangelise the Roman countryside. It will be no less important a task than that of evangelising Patagonia. Then will the Salesians be acknowledged and their glory shine forth! (BM XIV, 474)


don Francesco Marcoccio

In 1925, in anticipation of the Holy Year, Father Carlo Crespi promoted an international missionary exhibition. Recalled by the Collegio Manfredini of Este, he was given the task of documenting the missionary endeavours in Ecuador, collecting scientific, ethnographic, and audio visual materials. Through travels and screenings, his work connected Rome and Turin, highlighting the Salesian commitment and strengthening ties between ecclesiastical and civil institutions. His courage and vision transformed the missionary challenge into an exhibition success, leaving an indelible mark on the history of Propaganda Fide and the Salesian missionary work.

            When Pius XI, in view of the Holy Year of 1925, wanted to plan a documented Vatican International Missionary Exhibition in Rome, the Salesians embraced the initiative with a Missionary Exhibition, to be held in Turin in 1926, also in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Salesian Missions. For this purpose, the Superiors immediately thought of Fr. Carlo Crespi and called him from the Collegio Manfredini of Este, where he had been assigned to teach Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Music.
            In Turin, Fr. Carlo conferred with the Rector Major, Fr. Filippo Rinaldi, with the superior responsible for the missions, Fr. Pietro Ricaldone, and, in particular, with Msgr. Domenico Comin, Apostolic Vicar of Méndez and Gualaquiza (Ecuador), who was to support his work. At that moment, travels, explorations, research, studies, and everything else that would arise from Carlo Crespi’s work, received the approval and official start from the Superiors. Although the planned Exhibition was four years away, they asked Fr. Carlo to take care of it directly, so that he could carry out a complete scientifically serious and credible work.
This involved:
            1. Creating a climate of interest in favour of the Salesians operating in the Ecuadorian mission of Méndez, enhancing their endeavours through written and oral documentation, and providing an appropriate collection of funds.
            2. Collecting material for the preparation of the International Missionary Exhibition in Rome and, subsequently transferring it to Turin, to solemnly commemorate the first fifty years of the Salesian missions.
            3. Conducting a scientific study of the aforementioned territory in order to channel the results, not only into the exhibitions in Rome and Turin, but especially into a permanent Museum and a precise “historical-geo-ethnographic” work.
            From 1921 onwards, the Superiors commissioned Fr. Carlo to conduct propaganda activities in various Italian cities in favour of the missions. To raise public awareness in this regard, Fr. Carlo organised the projection of documentaries on Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the Indians of Mato Grosso. He combined the films shot by the missionaries with musical comments personally performed on the piano.
            The propaganda with conferences yielded about 15 thousand Lire [re-evaluated this corresponds to € 14,684] later spent for travel, transport, and for the following materials: a camera, a movie camera, a typewriter, some compasses, theodolites, levels, rain gauges, a box of medicines, agricultural tools and field tents.
            Several industrialists from the Milan area offered several quintals of fabrics for the value of 80 thousand Lire [€ 78,318], fabrics that were later distributed among the Indians.
            On March 22, 1923, Fr. Crespi embarked, therefore, on the steamship “Venezuela,” bound for Guayaquil, the most important river and maritime port of Ecuador. In fact, it was the commercial and economic capital of the country, nicknamed for its beauty: “The Pearl of the Pacific.”
            In a later writing, with great emotion he would recall his departure for the Missions: “I remember my departure from Genoa on March 22 of the year 1923 […]. When, once the decks that still held us bound to our native land had been removed, the ship began to move, my soul was pervaded by a joy so overwhelming, so superhuman, so ineffable, that I had never experienced it at any moment of my life, not even on the day of my First Communion, not even on the day of my first Mass. In that instant I began to understand who a missionary was and what God reserved for him […]. Pray fervently, so that God may preserve our holy vocation and make us worthy of our holy mission; so that none of the souls may perish, which in His eternal decrees God wanted to be saved through us, so that He may make us bold champions of the faith, even unto death, even unto martyrdom” (Carlo Crespi, New detachment. The hymn of gratitude, in Bollettino Salesiano, L, n.12, December 1926).
            Fr. Carlo fulfilled the task he received by putting into practice his university knowledge, in particular through the sampling of minerals, flora, and fauna from Ecuador. Soon, however, he went beyond the mission entrusted to him, becoming enthusiastic about topics of an ethnographic and archaeological nature that, later, would occupy much of his intense life.
            From the first itineraries, Carlo Crespi did not limit himself to admiring, rather he collected, classified, noted, photographed, filmed, and documented anything that attracted his attention as a scholar. With enthusiasm, he ventured into the Ecuadorian East for films, documentaries, and to collect valuable botanical, zoological, ethnic, and archaeological collections.
            This is that magnetic world that already vibrated in his heart even before arriving there, of which he reports as follows inside his notebooks: “In these days a new, insistent voice sounds in my soul, a sacred nostalgia for the mission countries; sometimes also for the desire to know scientific things in particular. Oh Lord! I am willing to do anything, to abandon family, relatives, fellow students; all to save some soul, if this is your desire, your will” (place and date unknown). – Personal notes and reflections of the Servant of God on themes of a spiritual nature taken from 4 notebooks).
            A first itinerary, lasting three months, began in Cuenca, touched Gualaceo, Indanza, and ended at the Santiago River. Then he reached the valley of the San Francisco River, the Patococha Lagoon, Tres Palmas, Culebrillas, Potrerillos (the highest locality, at 3,800 m a.s.l.), Rio Ishpingo, the hill of Puerco Grande, Tinajillas, Zapote, Loma de Puerco Chico, Plan de Milagro, and Pianoro. In each of these places, he collected samples to dry and integrate into the various collections. Field notebooks and numerous photographs document everything with precision.
            Carlo Crespi organised a second journey through the valleys of Yanganza, Limón, Peña Blanca, Tzaranbiza, as well as along the Indanza path. As is easy to suppose, travel at the time was difficult: there were only mule tracks, as well as precipices, inhospitable climatic conditions, dangerous beasts, lethal snakes, and tropical diseases.
            In addition to this there was the danger of attacks by the indomitable inhabitants of the East that Fr. Carlo, however, managed to approach, laying the foundations for the feature film “Los invencibles Shuaras del Alto Amazonas,” which he would shoot in 1926 and screen on February 26, 1927, in Guayaquil. Overcoming all these pitfalls, he managed to gather six hundred varieties of beetles, sixty embalmed birds with wonderful plumage, mosses, lichens, ferns. He studied about two hundred local species and, using the sub-classification of the places visited by naturalists on Allionii, he came across 21 varieties of ferns, belonging to the tropical zone below 800 m a.s.l.; 72 to the subtropical one that goes from 800 to 1,500 m a.s.l.; 102 to the Subandean one, between 1,500 and 3,400 m a.s.l., and 19 to the Andean one, higher than 3,600 m a.s.l. (A very interesting comment was made by Prof. Roberto Bosco, a prestigious botanist and member of the Italian Botanical Society who, fourteen years later, in 1938, decided to study and systematically order “the showy collection of ferns” prepared in a few months by “Prof. Carlo Crespi, botanizing in Ecuador).
            The most noteworthy species, studied by Roberto Bosco, were named “Crespiane.”
            To summarise: already in October 1923, to prepare the Vatican Exhibition, Fr. Carlo had organised the first missionary excursions throughout the Vicariate, up to Méndez, Gualaquiza, and Indanza, collecting ethnographic materials and lots of photographic documentation. The expenses were covered through the fabrics and funds collected in Italy. With the material collected, which he would later transfer to Italy, he organised a trade fair Exhibition, between the months of June and July 1924, in the city of Guayaquil. The work aroused enthusiastic judgments, recognitions, and aid. He would report on this Exhibition, ten years later, in a letter of December 31, 1935, to the Superiors of Turin, to inform them about the funds collected from November 1922 to November 1935.
            Father Crespi spent the first semester of 1925 in the forests of the Sucùa-Macas area, studying the Shuar language and collecting further material for the missionary Exhibition of Turin. In August of the same year, he began a negotiation with the Government to obtain a significant funding, which concluded on September 12 with a contract for 110,000 Sucres (equal to 500,000 Lire of the time and which today would be € 489,493.46), which would allow the Pan-Méndez mule track to be completed). Furthermore, he also obtained permission to withdraw from customs 200 quintals of iron and material confiscated from some traders.
            In 1926, having returned to Italy, Fr. Carlo brought cages with live animals from the eastern area of Ecuador (a difficult collection of birds and rare animals) and boxes with ethnographic material, for the Missionary Exhibition of Turin, which he personally organised, also giving the official closing speech on October 10.
            In the same year, he was busy organising the Exhibition and then giving several conferences and participating in the American Congress of Rome with two scientific conferences. This enthusiasm and his competence and scientific research responded perfectly to the directives of the Superiors, and, therefore, through the International Missionary Exhibition of 1925 in Rome and that of 1926 in Turin, Ecuador became more widely known. Furthermore, at the ecclesial level, he contacted the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, the Holy Childhood, and the Association for the Indigenous Clergy. At the civil level, he established relationships with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Government.
            From these contacts and from the interviews with the Superiors of the Salesian Congregation, some results were obtained. In the first place, the Superiors gave him the gift of granting him 4 priests, 4 seminarians, 9 coadjutor brothers, and 4 sisters for the Vicariate. Furthermore, he obtained a series of economic funds from the Vatican Organisations and collaboration with sanitary material for the hospitals, for the value of about 100,000 Lire (€ 97,898.69). As a gift from the Major Superiors for the help given for the Missionary Exhibition, they took charge of the construction of the Church of Macas, with two instalments of 50,000 lire (€ 48,949.35), sent directly to Msgr. Domenico Comin.
            Having exhausted the task of collector, supplier, and animator of the great international exhibitions, in 1927 Fr. Crespi returned to Ecuador, which became his second homeland. He settled in the Vicariate, under the jurisdiction of the bishop, Msgr. Comin, always dedicated, in a spirit of obedience, to propaganda excursions, to ensure subsidies and special funds, necessary for the works of the missions, such as the Pan Méndez road, the Guayaquil Hospital, the Guayaquil school in Macas, the Quito Hospital in Méndez, the Agricultural School of Cuenca, the city where, since 1927, he began to develop his priestly and Salesian apostolate.
            For some years, he then continued to deal with science, but always with the spirit of the apostle.

Carlo Riganti
President of the Carlo Crespi Association

Image: March 24, 1923 – Fr. Carlo Crespi Departing for Ecuador on the Steamship Venezuela

The Salesian Vice-Province of Mary Help of Christians of the Byzantine Rite (UKR) has reshaped its educational-pastoral mission since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022. Amidst air raid sirens, makeshift shelters, and schools in basements, the Salesians have become a tangible presence: they host displaced people, distribute aid, provide spiritual accompaniment to soldiers and civilians, transformed a house into a reception centre, and run the “Mariapolis” modular campus, where they serve a thousand meals daily and organize oratory and sports activities, even founding the first Ukrainian Amputee Football team. The personal testimony of a confrere reveals the wounds, hopes, and prayers of those who have lost everything but continue to believe that, after this long national Way of the Cross, the Easter of peace will dawn for Ukraine.

The Pastoral Work of the Vice-Province of Mary Help of Christians of the Byzantine Rite (UKR) During the War
Our pastoral work had to change when the war began. Our educational-pastoral activities had to adapt to a completely different reality, often marked by the incessant sound of sirens announcing the danger of missile attacks and bombings. Every time the alarm sounds, we are forced to interrupt activities and go down with the young people into underground shelters or bunkers. In some schools, lessons are held directly in the basements to ensure greater safety for the students.

From the very beginning, we immediately set about helping and assisting the suffering population. We opened our houses to welcome displaced people, organized the collection and distribution of humanitarian aid: with our boys and young people, we prepare thousands of packages with food, clothing, and everything necessary to send to needy people in territories near the fighting or in the combat zones themselves. Furthermore, some of our Salesian confreres serve as chaplains in the combat zones. There, they provide spiritual support to young soldiers, but also bring humanitarian aid to people who have remained in villages under constant bombardment, helping some of them move to a safer place. One deacon confrere who was in the trenches suffered damage to his health and lost his ankle. When, some years ago, I read an article in the Italian Salesian Bulletin about Salesians in the trenches during the First or Second World War, I never thought this would happen in this modern era in my own country. I was once struck by the words of a very young Ukrainian soldier who, quoting a historian and eminent officer, defender, and fighter for our people’s independence, said: “We fight defending our independence not because we hate those before us, but because we love those behind us.”

During this period, we also transformed one of our Salesian Houses into a reception centre for displaced people.

To support the physical, mental, psychological, and social rehabilitation of young people who lost limbs in the war, we created an Amputee Football team, the first team of its kind in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the invasion in 2022, we made available to the Lviv City Council a plot of our land, intended for the construction of a Salesian school, to build a modular campus for internally displaced persons: “Mariapolis,” where we Salesians operate in collaboration with the Centre of the City Council’s Social Department. We provide welfare support and spiritual accompaniment, making the environment more welcoming. Supported by aid from our Congregation, various organizations including VIS and Don Bosco Missions, various mission offices and other charitable foundations, and even state agencies from other countries, we were able to set up the campus kitchen with its respective staff, allowing us to offer lunch every day for about 1,000 people. Furthermore, thanks to their help, we can organize various Salesian-style activities for the 240 children and young people present on the campus.

A Small Experience and a Humble Personal Testimony
I would like to share my small experience and testimony here… I truly thank the Lord who, through my Provincial, called me to this particular service. For three years, I have been working in the campus that hosts about 1,000 internally displaced persons. From the beginning, I have been alongside people who lost everything in an instant, except their dignity. Their homes are destroyed and looted; the savings and possessions painstakingly accumulated over years of life have vanished. Many have lost much more, and more precious things: their loved ones, killed before their eyes by missiles or mines. Some of the people on campus had to live for months in the basements of collapsed buildings, feeding on whatever little they could find, even if expired. They drank water from radiators and boiled potato peels to feed themselves. Then, at the first opportunity, they fled or were evacuated without knowing where to go, with no certainty about what awaited them. Moreover, some saw their cities, like Mariupol, razed to the ground. In fact, in honour of this beautiful city of Mary, we Salesians named the campus for the displaced “Mariapolis,” entrusting this place and its inhabitants to the Virgin Mary. And She, like a mother, stands by everyone in these times of trial. In the campus, I set up a chapel dedicated to Her, where there is an icon painted by a lady from the campus, originally from the tormented city of Kharkiv. The chapel has become a place of encounter with God and with oneself for all residents, regardless of their Christian faith denomination.

Being with them, loving them, welcoming them, listening to them, consoling them, encouraging them, praying for them and with them, and supporting them in whatever way I can – these are the moments that make up my service, which has now become my life during this period. It is a true school of life, of spirituality, where I learn so much by being close to their suffering. Almost all of them hope that the war will end soon and peace will come, so they can return home. But for many, that dream is now unattainable: their homes no longer exist. So, as best I can, I try to offer them some anchor of hope, helping them to encounter the One who abandons no one, who is close in the sufferings and difficulties of life.

Sometimes they ask me to prepare them for Reconciliation: with God, with themselves, with the harsh reality they are forced to live. Other times, I help them with more concrete needs: medicine, clothes, diapers, hospital visits. I also do administrative work alongside my three lay colleagues. Every day, at 5:00 PM, we pray for peace, and a small group has learned to recite the Rosary, praying it daily.

As a Salesian, I try to be attentive to the needs of the young people. From the beginning, with the help of animators, we created an oratory within the campus. We also have activities, trips, and mountain camps during the summer. Furthermore, one of the commitments I carry forward is overseeing the canteen, to ensure that none of the residents on campus go without a hot meal.

Among the campus inhabitants is little Maksym, who wakes up in the middle of the night, terrified by any loud noise. Maria, a mother who lost everything, including her husband, smiles at her children every day so as not to burden them with her suffering. Then there is Petro, 25 years old, who was at home with his girlfriend when a Russian drone dropped a bomb. The explosion amputated both his legs, while his girlfriend died shortly after. Petro lay dying all night until soldiers found him in the morning and brought him to safety. The ambulance couldn’t get close due to the fighting.
Amidst so much suffering, I continue my apostolate with the Lord’s help and the support of my confreres.

We Byzantine Rite Salesians, together with our 13 Latin Rite confreres present in Ukraine – largely of Polish origin and belonging to the Salesian Province of Krakow (PLS) – deeply share the pain and suffering of the Ukrainian people. As sons of Don Bosco, we continue our educative-pastoral mission with faith and hope, adapting daily to the difficult conditions imposed by the war.

We stand alongside the young, the families, and all those who suffer and need help. We wish to be visible signs of God’s love, so that the life, hope, and joy of the young may never be stifled by violence and pain.

In this common witness, we reaffirm the vitality of our Salesian charism, which knows how to respond even to the most dramatic challenges of history. Our two particularities, that of the Byzantine rite and that of the Latin rite, make visible the indivisible unity of the Salesian Charism as affirmed by the Salesian Constitutions in Art. 100: “The Founder’s charism is the principle of unity of the Congregation and, through its fruitfulness, is the origin of the different ways of living the one Salesian vocation.”

We believe that pain and suffering do not have the last word, and that in faith, every Cross already contains the seed of the Resurrection. After this long Holy Week, the Resurrection will inevitably come for Ukraine: true and just PEACE will arrive.

Some Information
Some chapter confreres asked for information about the war in Ukraine. Allow me to say something in the form of a Snapshot. A clarification: the war in Ukraine cannot be interpreted as an ethnic conflict or a territorial dispute between two peoples with opposing claims or rights over a specific territory. It is not a quarrel between two parties fighting over a piece of land. And therefore, it is not a battle between equals. What is happening in Ukraine is an invasion, a unilateral aggression. Here, it is about one people improperly attacking another. A nation, which fabricated baseless motives, inventing a supposed right, violating international order and laws, decided to attack another State, violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity, its right to decide its own fate and direction of development, occupying and annexing territories. Destroying cities and towns, many razed to the ground, taking the lives of thousands of civilians. Here there is an aggressor and an attacked party: this is precisely the peculiarity and horror of this war.
And it is starting from this premise that the peace we await should also be conceived. A peace that has the flavour of justice and is based on truth, not temporary, not opportunistic, not a peace founded on hidden commercial conveniences, avoiding the creation of precedents for autocratic regimes in the world that might one day decide to invade other countries, occupy or annex part of a neighbouring or distant country, simply because they wish to or because they feel like it, or because they are more powerful.
Another absurdity of this unprovoked and undeclared war is that the aggressor forbids the victim the right to defend itself, tries to intimidate and threaten all those – in this case, other countries – who side with the defenceless and set out to help the unjustly attacked victim defend itself and resist.

Some Sad Statistics
From the beginning of the 2022 invasion until today (08.04.2025), the UN has recorded and confirmed data relating to 12,654 deaths and 29,392 injuries among CIVILIANS in Ukraine.

According to the latest available verified UNICEF news, at least 2,406 CHILDREN have been killed or injured by the escalation of the war in Ukraine since 2022. Child victims include 659 CHILDREN KILLED and 1,747 INJURED – meaning at least 16 children killed or injured every week. Millions of children continue to have their lives disrupted due to ongoing attacks or having to flee and evacuate to other places and countries. The children of Donbas have been already suffering from the war for 11 years.
Alongside the plan for an invasion of Ukraine, Russia also initiated a program of forced deportations of Ukrainian children. Latest data indicate 20,000 children taken from their homes, detained for months, and subjected to forced Russification through intense propaganda before forced adoption.

Fr. Andrii Platosh, sdb

Amid the flood of articles and comments that have accompanied these days, we simply want to express our thanks to Pope Francis for the human and spiritual heritage he leaves us:

1. For Divine Mercy. Thank you for tirelessly reminding us that “God never tires of forgiving” and for the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.

2. For the joy of faith. Thank you for teaching us that faith in Jesus Christ allows us to live “on the wings of hope”: truly Spes non confundit.

3. For devotion to Mary. Thank you for the testimony of filial devotion to the Mother of God, the Most Holy Mary.

4. For disarming simplicity. Thank you for a sober lifestyle that has marked every gesture of his pontificate.

5. For prioritizing the least. Thank you for placing the poor, the homeless, refugees, migrants, and prisoners at the center.

6. For denouncing the “throwaway culture”. Thank you for condemning the exploitation and instrumentalization of people, unscrupulous profit, and rampant consumerism.

7. For the value of the family. Thank you for warning us that pets cannot replace children.

8. For attention to the elderly. Thank you for reminding us that fragile life is not to be discarded: the elderly are not to be euthanized for being useless or unproductive, but are witnesses of peace, love, and blessing.

9. For synodality. Thank you for showing that Christianity is not a “do-it-yourself” project, but communion with God and with brothers and sisters.

10. For ecumenical openness. Thank you for seeking unity among Christians with concrete and courageous gestures.

11. For the fight for peace. Thank you for raising your voice in a world torn apart by a “third world war in pieces.”

12. For the prophetic vision of the present time. Thank you for helping us understand that we are not simply living through an era of change, but the change of an era.

Thank you. May God reward all the good sown on earth.

“But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.” (Luke 24:12)

To behold the Risen Lord, our human eyes do not suffice; we need the light of faith. May this faith, enlightened and strengthened by the joy of the Resurrection we celebrate this Holy Easter 2025, always guide your earthly journey towards our heavenly home.

Christ is risen!

Short biography
He completed his novitiate in the community of Pinerolo, Italy, professed his first vows on September 8, 1993, in Ljubljana Rakovnik, and his perpetual vows six years later. He received his theological training at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome from 1997 to 2000, and was ordained a priest in Ljubljana on June 29, 2001.
As a priest, most of his educational and pastoral work was carried out within the Salesian work of Želimlje. From 2000 to 2003, he served as an educator and then, until 2020, as Director of the boarding school. During those years, he also taught religion at the high school and was responsible for the Salesian formation of the laity.
From 2010 to 2016, he was the Director of the Želimlje community and from 2021 to 2024, the Director of the Salesian Community of Ljubljana Rakovnik. From 2018 to 2024, he served as Vicar of the Inspector and his Delegate for Formation. In 2021, he also took on the coordination of this sector at the European level as the coordinator of RECN.
On December 6, 2023, he was appointed the 15th Inspector of the Province of Saints Cyril and Methodius of Ljubljana.

Can you introduce yourself?
I was born on May 30, 1974, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, into a farming family in a small village called Šentjošt. I am the youngest of 4 children, who all have families today, so I have 11 nieces and nephews and we are all very close. My native country and my family were strongly marked by the Communist terror during and after the Second World War. Some relatives were killed, houses destroyed… In the very difficult situation, my parents had to start building the farmhouse from scratch. They had to use all their hard work and resourcefulness to provide for us children. My parents involved us children in daily work and in this way, I also learned that to achieve something important you have to work hard.

Who first told you the story of Jesus?
My parents always openly expressed their Christian identity, even though being a Christian was not appropriate in those times, and they had quite a few problems because of this. Every evening, after the work was done, we gathered as a family to pray the rosary, the litanies, and other prayers. I liked being an altar boy and for this, I often walked to the church, which was 2 kilometres from my house, to attend Mass. The example of my parents, Christian life in the family and in the parish are therefore the fundamental reasons for feeling God’s call from an early age.

How did you meet Don Bosco?
My parents often went on pilgrimage to Ljubljana Rakovnik where the Salesians were, and so I also met Don Bosco, who fascinated me immediately. I started attending retreats organised by the Salesians and after elementary school at 14, it was very natural for me to go to the minor seminary led by the Salesians in Želimlje. My parents were very happy with my decision and always supported me on my journey. I am truly very grateful to them for all the love, for the peaceful family in which I grew up, and for so many important values that they passed on to me. Don Bosco also fascinated them, and so, in the process of my formation, they also made the promise as Salesian cooperators.

The experience of initial formation
I was in high school at the time when Communism collapsed and Slovenia became independent, and then the Salesians could resume our typical work. For this reason, I was taken by the enthusiasm of so many opportunities for youth work that were opening up. In the years spent in international formation houses in Italy, my horizons were also broadened because I had the opportunity to meet many Salesians from all over the world and live many new experiences. During this period, I worked a lot on my human and spiritual growth, and I also learned to love Don Bosco and his way of being and working with young people very much. I became more and more convinced that this is a path thought of by God for me and that the Salesian charism is a great gift for the young people of our time.

What is your best experience?
The 20 years spent in the boarding school in Želimlje and then in Rakovnik, living with almost 300 young people every day, were truly very beautiful and greatly marked my life. I had the privilege of following their human, intellectual, and spiritual growth and of touching their joys, hopes, and wounds from close up. The young people taught me how important it is to “waste” time being with them. In this period, I also learned and experienced how precious the lay collaborators are, without whom we cannot carry out our mission.

What are the local youth like and what are the most relevant challenges?
In the Salesian works and around our programmes there are still many generous young people, with open hearts and willing to do good for their peers. I am very proud of their enthusiasm and also happy that many in Don Bosco find the model and strength for their human and spiritual growth.
On the other hand, it is also true that they are strongly marked by the virtual world and all the other challenges of our time. Fortunately, traditional values have not completely disappeared, but it is also true that they are no longer strong enough to guide young people. For this reason, we Salesians try to help young people with concrete proposals of support and by walking with them. At the last provincial chapter, we identified some poverties (challenges) of our context: the weak family, lukewarm spiritual tendency, relativism and the search for identity, passivity, apathy, and the lack of concrete preparation of young people for life.

Where do you find the strength to continue?
First of all, in the confreres. Fortunately, I have very good and generous confreres around me who are of great support to me. The provincial alone cannot do much. I am convinced that the only right way to progress is that we all (Salesians, young people, and lay people) contribute our gifts and strengths for the common good. And secondly, we all and our mission are only a small part in a great design of God. It is He who is the true protagonist and this awareness gives me great inner serenity.

What place does Mary Help of Christians occupy in your life?
Already in my family, I learned that Mary is a great support for daily life. I very willingly and with great confidence go on pilgrimage to the various Marian shrines, where Mary fills me with peace and inner strength for all the challenges of my life. I can testify to many of the graces that have been granted to me or my loved ones through Mary.

Fr. Peter KONČAN,
Slovenia Provincial

We present the new donbosco.info platform, which is a Salesian search engine designed to make it easier to consult documents related to the charism of Don Bosco. Created to support the Salesian Bulletin Online, it overcomes the limitations of traditional archiving systems, which are often unable to intercept all occurrences of words. This solution integrates dedicated hardware and specially developed software, also offering a reading function. The deliberately simple web interface allows you to navigate through thousands of documents in different languages, with the ability to filter results by folder, title, author, or year. Thanks to the OCR scanning of PDF documents, the system identifies the text even when it is not perfect, and adopts strategies to ignore punctuation and special characters. The contents, rich in historical and educational material, aim to spread the Salesian message in a widespread manner. With free uploading for documents, continuous enrichment of the platform is encouraged, improving the search.

As part of the work for the drafting of the Salesian Bulletin Online, it was necessary to create various support tools, including a dedicated search engine.

This search engine was conceived taking into account the limitations currently present in the various Salesian resources available online. Many sites offer archiving systems with search functionality, but often fail to locate all occurrences of words, due to technical limitations or restrictions introduced to avoid overloading the servers.

To overcome these difficulties, instead of building a simple archive of documents with a search function, we have created a real search engine, also equipped with a reading function. This is a complete solution, based on dedicated hardware and specially developed software.

During the design phase, we evaluated two options: software to be installed locally or a server-side application accessible via the web. Since the mission of the Salesian Bulletin Online is to spread the Salesian charism to the greatest number of people, it was decided to opt for the web solution, so as to allow anyone to search for and consult Salesian documents.

The search engine is available at www.donbosco.info. The web interface is deliberately essential and “spartan” to ensure faster loading speeds. The “home page” lists the files and folders present, in order to facilitate consultation. The documents are not only in Italian, but also available in other languages, selectable via the icon at the top left.

Most of the uploaded files are in PDF format derived from scans with OCR (optical character recognition). Since OCR is not always perfect, sometimes not all the words searched for are detected. To overcome this, several strategies have been implemented: ignoring punctuation and accented or special characters, and allowing searches even in the presence of missing or incorrect characters. Further details can be found in the FAQ section, accessible from the footer.

Given the presence of thousands of documents, the search can return a very high number of results. For this reason, it is possible to narrow the scope of the search by folder, title, author, or year: the criteria are cumulative and help to find what you need more quickly. The results are listed based on a relevance score, which currently mainly takes into account the density of keywords within the text and their proximity.

Ideally, it would be preferable to have the documents in vector format instead of scanned, as the search would always be accurate and the files would be lighter, with consequent advantages in terms of speed.

If you have documents in vector format or of better quality than those already present in the search engine, you can upload them via the upload service available on www.donbosco.space. You can also add other documents not present in the search engine. To obtain access credentials (username and password), send a request via e-mail to bsol@sdb.org.

Don Bosco International (DBI) is a non-governmental organisation based in Brussels, representing the Salesians of Don Bosco to the institutions of the European Union, with a focus on the protection of children’s rights, youth development, and education. Founded in 2014, DBI collaborates with various European partners to promote inclusive social and educational policies, paying attention to vulnerable individuals. The organisation promotes youth participation in policy-making, emphasising the importance of informal education. Through networking and advocacy activities, DBI aims to create synergies with European institutions, civil society organisations, and Salesian networks globally. The guiding values are solidarity, the integral formation of young people and intercultural dialogue. DBI organises seminars, conferences, and European projects aimed at ensuring greater youth presence in decision-making processes, fostering an inclusive environment that supports them in their journey of growth, autonomy and spiritual development, through cultural and educational exchanges. The Executive Secretary, Sara Sechi, explains the activities of this institution.

Advocacy as an act of responsibility for and with our youth
            Don Bosco International (DBI) is the organisation that manages the institutional representation of the Salesians of Don Bosco to the European institutions and civil society organisations that revolve around them. DBI’s mission is centred on advocacy, which can be translated as “political influence”, meaning all those actions aimed at influencing a decision-making-legislative process, in our case the European one. The DBI office is based in Brussels and is hosted by the Salesian community of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (FRB Province). Working in the European capital is dynamic and stimulating. Nevertheless, the proximity of the community allows us to keep the Salesian charism alive in our mission, avoiding getting trapped in the so-called “European bubble”, that world of ‘privileged’ relationships and dynamics often distant from our realities.
            DBI’s action follows two directions: on the one hand, bringing the Salesian educational-pastoral mission closer to the institutions through the sharing of good practices, youth requests, projects and related results, creating spaces for dialogue and participation for those who traditionally would not have access to them. On the other hand, they deal with bringing the European dimension within the Congregation through monitoring and information on ongoing processes and new initiatives, facilitating new contacts with institutional representatives, NGOs and confessional organisations that can give rise to new collaborations.
            A question that often arises spontaneously is how DBI manages to concretely create political influence. In advocacy actions, networking with other organisations or entities that share principles, values, and objectives is fundamental. In this regard, DBI ensures an active presence in alliances, formal and informal, of NGOs or confessional actors who work together on issues dear to Don Bosco’s mission: the fight against poverty and social inclusion, the defence of the rights of young people, especially those in vulnerable situations, and integral human development. Whenever a Salesian delegation visits Brussels, we facilitate meetings for them with Members of the European Parliament, Commission officials, diplomatic corps, including the Apostolic Nunciature to the European Union, and other actors of interest. We often manage to meet groups of young people and students from Salesian schools who visit the city, organising a moment of dialogue for them with other youth organisations.
            DBI is a service that the Congregation offers to give visibility to its works and bring the voice of those who would otherwise not be heard to institutional forums. The Salesian Congregation has a potential for advocacy that is not fully expressed. The presence in 137 countries to protect young people at risk of poverty and social exclusion represents an educational and social network that few organisations can count on. However, it is still difficult to strategically present good results at decision-making tables, where policies and investments are outlined, especially at the international level. For this reason, ensuring a constant dialogue with the institutions represents both an opportunity and an act of responsibility. It is an opportunity because in the long term visibility facilitates contacts, new partnerships, funding for projects and the sustainability of the works. It is also a responsibility because, not being able to remain silent in the face of the difficulties faced by our boys and girls in today’s world, political influence is the active testimony of that civic commitment that we often try to generate in young people.
            By guaranteeing rights and dignity for young people, Don Bosco was the first actor of political influence of the Congregation, for example through the signing of the first Italian apprenticeship contract. Advocacy represents an intrinsic element of the Salesian mission. Salesians do not lack experience, nor success stories, nor concrete and innovative alternatives to face current challenges, but often a cohesion that allows for coordinated networking and clear and shared communication. By giving voice to the authentic testimonies of young people, we can transform challenges into opportunities, creating a lasting impact in society that gives hope for the future.

Sara Sechi
Don Bosco International – DBI, Brussels

Sara Sechi, Executive Secretary of DBI, has been in Brussels for two and a half years. She is the daughter of the Erasmus+ generation, which together with other European programmes has guaranteed her life and training experiences that would otherwise have been denied. She is very grateful to Don Bosco and the Salesian Congregation, where she has found meritocracy, growth, and a second family. And we wish her good and fruitful work for the cause of young people.

We have the joy of announcing that Don Stefano Martoglio has been re-elected as Vicar of the Rector Major.
The chapter members elected him today with an absolute majority and from the first ballot.

We wish Don Stefano a fruitful apostolate and assure him of our prayers.

We are pleased to announce that Fr. Fabius Attard is the new Rector Major, the eleventh successor of Don Bosco.

Brief information about the new Rector Major:
Born: 23.03.1959 in Gozo (Malta), diocese of Gozo.
Novitiate: 1979-1980 in Dublin.
Perpetual profession: 11.08.1985 in Malta.
Priestly ordination: 04.07.1987 in Malta.
He has held various pastoral and formative positions within his home province.
He was for 12 years the General Councillor for Youth Ministry, 2008-2020.
Since 2020 he has been the Delegate of the Rector Major for the Ongoing Formation of Salesians and laity in Europe.
Last community of belonging: Rome CNOS.
Languages ​​known: Maltese, English, Italian, French, Spanish.

We wish Fr. Fabio a fruitful apostolate and assure him of our prayers.