Don Bosco reflects these same religious and moral foundations in his preventive system. They can be identified in the value he placed on religious instruction and the practice of religion: the concern he showed for order, discipline and morality, a responsibility he enshrined in the post of the Prefect of Studies and supported by the concept of assistance and the constant reference to an inner formation to be nurtured by the Congregation through spiritual direction and Sacramental praxis.

To everythingwe have mentioned above we should also add that Don Bosco had a keen interest in literature which gave him, as he himself says, an insatiable thirst for classical authors, both Latin and Italian. He almost became infatuated with them.480

Several years later, Don Bosco makes reference to this period by referring to two of his teachers, two priests, as models to be imitated. The first one he singles out with some emphasis is Father Peter Banaudi, whom he describes as a model teacher, one who had successfully made himself feared and loved by all his pupils, without ever using punishments. He loved his pupils as though they were his children and they in turn loved him as a tender father. 481 Don Bosco also considered himself as blessed to have chosen, as his regular confessor a theologian, Father Maloria. This thirty-year-old priest welcomed him with great kindness. He remained Don Bosco’s confessor during the entire course of his theological studies. 482

3. Seminary life in Chieri

The studies in philosophy and theology at the seminary in Chieri (1835-1841) do not seem to have had a great impact on Don Bosco's culture and mentality, since by temperament he was not inclined to indulge in theoretical speculations. At any rate, these studies anchored him to the basic dogmatic and moral theology of those times. They were not as significant as the Neo-Thomism that followed. After having spoken positively about the discovery of the The Imitation of Christ, the following is what Don Bosco wrote, without much enthusiasm, about the study of theology at Chieri:

We only study speculative dogmatic theology in our Seminary. As for moral theology, we

only consider issues of controversy. 483

It seems that Don Bosco was not influenced in any permanent way by the Probabiliorists teachings, from anti-infallibility theses, the widespread rigorist approach to pastoral ministry, Gallican- sympathising ideas which characterised the theology taught in the seminaries in the Turin Diocese during the first decade of the 19th Century. However the disciplinary and spiritual set-up of the seminary seems, with some reservations, to have had a remarkably positive influence on Don Bosco. 484

This seminary regime provided a firm basis for his basic spiritual and moral principles, and provided him with a clear framework to support the structure of his teaching on duty, love and joy. He was later to stress exactness in the performance of one's duties, such as the following: morning prayers, with Mass and meditation, the rosary, reading during the meals (Don Bosco quoted specifically Bercastel’s Church history), and Confession, every fortnight, Holy Communion on feast days, the study of philosophical and theological treatises, while offering options in other disciplines but with a clear

480 Ibid., 82-84.

481 Ibid., 71-72.

482 Ibid., 64-65, 84.

483 MO (1991), 116.

484 As for the teaching in the theological faculty and in Turin’s seminaries in the first decades of the 19th Century, it has

been written: “As far as moral theology was concerned, Probabiliorism was taught; for ecclesiology (out of spite for the

official neutrality) there were anti-infallibility texts and criticism of primacy. In pastoral practice there was rigorism;

amongst the clergy, especially learned ones from whom Bishops were mostly selected, Francophile thinking was

common”, that is, jurisdictional material. G. Tuninetti, L. Gastaldi 1815-1883, vol 1 Teologo, pubblicista, rosminiano,

vescovo di Saluzzo: 1815-1871, (Turin: Edizioni Piemme 1983), 33.