families' children” was opened at La Spezia,695 The Sacred Heart Hospice in Rome was opened for “children of the lower classes”.696

Don Bosco repeated this kind of language, often stereotyped, when he talked about the initiatives he wanted the Cooperators to be involved in:

“The main goal of the Association is the active exercise of charity toward one's neighbor

and especially toward youth at risk.697

Over the following decades, in fact and more so by describing situations and proposing solutions for

them, Don Bosco's interest in “poor and abandoned youth” widened its horizons and became more intense. This gave the original and apparently conventional term, “poor and abandoned youth”, other shades of meaning according to the various circumstances and institutions concerned.

At any rate, Don Bosco always connected the various situations and steps to be taken for them with the beginnings of the Festive Oratory: “Although my purpose had been that of gathering only children most at risk and preferably those coming out of jail, in order to build up a basis for discipline and moral behaviour, I also invited some other well behaved and educated youngsters”.698

The Rules for day students ended up sanctioning an already well-established practice, which made such an undertaking less selective and more open: “We aim primarily at young workers... However, the academic students who might want to join in on weekends or in vacation time are not

excluded”.699Later on, new situations arose: Protestant proselytising, dangers associated with religious indifference, anticlerical secularism in the school and the Press.700

Logically, the picture one had of “poor and abandoned youth and youth at risk” picked up an entirely new meaning: more than being at the level of economic and legally-determined poverty, the danger was seen essentially from a religious and moral perspective which over-rode all other differences. As a matter of fact, before any kind of ‘redemption’ however legitimate, be it cultural or professional, the preservation of the faith and its stability for everyone appeared more urgen.

With regard to the danger of heresy, we do have a clear summary in a short, historical note dated March 12, 1879, and presented to Cardinal Nina, Secretary of State, in the Vatican. Don Bosco first of all recalled his anti-Protestant efforts from 1848 on, in the aftermath of the Statute and its consequent liberalisation of the Law. This he took up through the press, by spreading good books, teaching catechism classes, preaching, setting up the Festive Oratories and charitable hospices. Then Don Bosco restated the specific objective of the Salesian vocation, which aimed at “liberating the most needy class of people, namely, poor youth, from Protestant snares”.

He also pointed out a broad gamut of undertakings such as: The Oratory of St. Aloysius in Turin; the Hospice of St. Paul at La Spezia; the Church and Grammar schools in Vallecrosia, Ventimiglia; the Hospice of St. Leo in Marseilles; the agricultural school at St. Cyr and Navarre, Toulon; the Hospice of St. Peter in Nice (France); the Hospice of St. Vincent's at Sampierdarena; the Oratory of the Holy Cross

695Circular on the work opening in La Spezia, 11 Oct. 1880, E III 627.

696Letter to Leo XIII March 1878, E III 317.

697Associazione di buone opere. Turin, Oratory of St Francis de Sales Print Shop 18775, p. 6 OE. XXV 486; Cooperatori

salesiani ossia un modo pratico per giovare al buon costume ed alla civile società. Turin, Salesian Print Shop 1876,

p.6, OE XXVIII 260; last edition in San Pier d'Arena, Print and Bookshop of St Vincent de Paul 1977, p.30, OE XXVIII

368.

698MO (1991) 123 = BS 3 (1879) no. 3, March, p.6.

699Regolamento dell'Oratorio di S. Francesco di Sales per gli esterni. Turin Salesian Print Shop 1877, first part, Scopo di

quest'opera, p.3, OE XIX 33.

700Don Bosco wrote many times about it to bishop friends and the Pope himself: letter to Pius IX, 9 Nov. 1859, Em I 386-

387; 13 April 1860. Em I 400-401; 10 March 1861, Em I 441-442; 27 Dec. 1861. Em I 471-473.