austraLasia
1497
Open Source Don
Bosco Part 1
(cf #1492 for details of 'toward
#1500'. Nearly there. This is an AUL entry)
ROME: 21st
March 2006 -- That's correct, 'open source' Don Bosco. In what
sense, you ask? This is the first of two items that will use the 'open
source' idea to say something about Don Bosco. The second will be a
genuine reflection on how some of the features of the 'open source' philosophy
were very evident in Don Bosco's approach, without claiming, obviously, that he
could have known anything about the term, which has less than twenty years of
existence.
What triggered Part I of Open Source Don Bosco
was the idea being noised abroad that Pope Benedict XVI, who mentions 'John
Bosco' in his concluding section to Deus Caritas Est (in reference to him
amongst others as a model of charity), is the first Pope
to mention him in an Encyclical. The second trigger was the chance
discovery by a confrere in our region (so really, he could claim this as his
'#1500 entry' if he wishes!) of a single reference to Don Bosco in an Encyclical
by Pius XI. It only needed one to look a little
further.
Now, a definition of 'open source' is that one
can go to the source code, see it and use it. In this case the 'source
code' is the Papal Encyclicals. Using a very simple method, open to
anybody, one can go to http://www.vatican.va/, open up the papal
archives in one's Open Source Firefox browser, put the word 'Bosco' in the 'Find
in this page' box under 'edit' and rapidly, and I mean rapidly, open each
encyclical from Leo XIII onwards. If 'Bosco' isn't there, he stays
red. If he is there, he turns green! Nothing to do with envy,
however. The entire exercise takes around 30 minutes and covers 208 encyclicals,
of which Leo XIII wrote nearly 90 with nary a mention! Here are the
results:
1929: Pius XI in Mens Nostra, #10 speaking
of the importance of the 'Spiritual Exercises' for the priest. Pius XI
makes reference to the marvellous example of Joseph Cafasso who passed on this
example and practice to 'Blessed John Bosco whose name is beyond all
praise'.
1935: Pius XI in Ad Catholici Sacerdoti,
#77 speaking, obviously from the title of the encyclical, on the importance and
value of the priesthood. He speaks of 'splendid names on the rolls both of
secular and regular clergy' and the names include 'Don Bosco....We Ourselves had
the consolation of canonizing'.
1937: Pius XI in Divini
Redemptoris, #63 this time speaking of the poor priest. 'A priest who is
really poor and disinterested in the Gospel....a Don Bosco...' (listed along
with a Cure d'Ars etc).
1954: Pius XII in Sacra
Virginitas, #20, noting that if certain people had a wife to look after they
couldn't possibly have accomplished all they did 'a zealous educator of youth
like St. John Bosco' being amongst such names!
So there
you go, not only is Benedict XVI's the fifth mention of our Founder in a papal
encyclical, but the full gamut of five mentions offers a fairly complete range
of reference from Blessed to Saint, from 'a Don Bosco' to 'John Bosco whose name
is beyond all praise'.
And praise the Lord too for open
sources and simple software!
______________________
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