ROME: 15 November 2012 --
The
most substantial section in Peter Braido's 2nd (1992) edition
of Don Bosco Educatore
is now available in English. You can download
the pdf version from here. Alternatively
go to SDL to the English collection and search under the
title: Don Bosco, Educator,
Policies and Norms (1863-1878).
This
third part (the two earlier parts are already available in
translation;
best search under 'creator'-Braido in that collection if you
want all
three) is the weightiest, both in the number of pages, close
on 90, and
for the depth of analysis contained both in Braido's (or
Motto's)
comments, and then in the footnotes and critical apparatus. As
with the
earlier translations, an effort has been made to provide
English
'hooks' wherever it has been seen necessary to quote
original titles
or phrases in Italian or French.
But apart
from the solid work done on the collection of texts that
together make
up Don Bosco's original handful of pages on the Preventive
System (or
original corrections on versions others had written up for him
at his
request), perhaps one of the most interesting sections in this
Part 3
is the brief discussion with Francis Bodrato.
The
Bodrato event has largely slipped under
the radar, since it took place
one evening at Mornese when the main focus (for historians at
least)
has been on the first encounter Between Don Bosco and Mary
Mazzarello
that led to the eventual founding of the Salesian Sisters.
Many of
course would realise that Don Bosco had a brief discussion
with a
certain primary school teacher who lived in Mornese - his name
was
Francis Bodrato. What people may not realise is the following
sequence
of events:
- Bodrato had two children; his wife died and left him a
widower, but
as well as general teaching, running a small cafe, he also
helped out
with Maria Mazzarello's catechism classes.
- He was very impressed by Don Bosco's 'rag-tag' group of well
behaved
boys when they came to Mornese; it was actually one of the
famous
Autumn Walks... maybe the furthest away from Turin DB had
attempted.
Bodrato accepted Don Bosco's half-joking suggestion that he
come up to
Valdocco and really see what the boys were like on home turf!
- Having seen Valdocco, he immediately deposited his two boys
into Don
Bosco's care and stayed on himself - donning the clerical
habit. (This
all happened between 8th and 29th October 1864; by November
1865 he was
a perpetually professed Salesian!).
- Don Bosco got him to upgrade his teaching qualifications to
upper
instead of just lower primary, then sent him to the newly
opened Lanzo
Torinese boarding school as Prefect of the house and school.
He worked
wonders in that role.
- Not too many years later Bodrato was ordained (1869), and
continued
in his Prefect role at Alassio and Borgo S. Martino. Don Bosco
called
him back to Valdocco and made him Economer General, but a year
later
needed someone to lead the second missionary expedition to
Argentina -
he appointed Francis Bodrato!
- Bodrato was parish priest in Buenos Aires for a year or two
then was
appointed Provincial of the first 'America' Province. He died
two or
three years later (1880).
Not a bad vocation story this one! But Braido's interest is
more in the
fact that despite the conversation between Don Bosco and
Bodrato being
almost entirely ignored at the time and only written up many
years
later, after 1880 and probably by John Bonetti, the 8th
October 1864
conversation (that much seems certain) might be seen as a
prelude to
the text on the Preventive System more than a decade later.