John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesians
31 January -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Pastors, page 483
Born in 1815 to a peasant family, John Bosco spent most of
his life in the Turin area of Italy. He had a particular
call to help young men and pioneered new educational
methods, for example, in rejecting corporal punishment. His
work with homeless youth received the admiration even of
anticlerical politicians and his promotion of vocational
training, including evening classes and industrial schools,
became a pattern for others to follow. To extend the work,
he founded in 1859 a religious community, the Pious Society
of St Francis de Sales, usually known as the Salesians. It
grew rapidly and was well-established in several countries
by the time of his death on this day in 1888.