By Fr. Václav Klement, SDB
The youngest community in Australia is located near the Melbourne city center at Clifton Hill – Collingwood. Since 2005 this formation house is open towards the EAO region – especially to the home province of Australia – Pacific and three other provinces of ITM, KOR and THA.
At present there are 11 confreres, four formators (AUL) and seven are students both of postgraduate studies and initial formation stages. For the home province Don Bosco House is also a venue for the Postnovitiate and Prenovitiate. At the moment there are two aspirants of Vietnamese origin. Salesian community is entrusted with one parish - two churches at Clifton Hill and Collingwood, each with own Parish primary school. The community is based at Clifton Hill - at walking distance from the Catholic Theological College.
Opportunities offered by Don Bosco House
Together with the DB Center of Studies and two formation communities in Manila – Paranaque (FIN): Sandor community for Salesian Brothers and Seminaryo ng Don Bosco for candidates to priesthood and with the inter-provincial novitiate in Cebu (FIS), this is the fourth inter-provincial formation house in the EAO region.
The history of Don Bosco House goes back to 2002, after the decision to move the formation program from Salesian College Chadstone – Oakleigh to this place close to the City center.
Since 2006 this formation house is open also to the East Asia – Oceania region provinces and Don Bosco House infrastructures and formation programs are growing significantly in quality over past ten years. This venue offers also various opportunities:
- Theological and other professional studies related to the Salesian mission, with a possibility of various postgraduate studies at the Australia Catholic University, Catholic Theological College or other educational institutions in Melbourne (close distance)
- As interprovincial formation house especially for the candidates for the priesthood from EAO provinces has total capacity of 14 rooms available for the students at Clifton Hill and since next year also another 6 rooms at Collingwood presbytery (2 km distance).
- Curatorium agreement was signed by the respective provincials of AUL, ITM, KOR and THA (Mar 2015, EAO Hong Kong) and possible mutual agreements with specific provinces are being studied (number of students, formators presence, conditions).
- Some scholarships are available for the Salesians in initial formation: English + CTC students).
- The Heart of Life (http://heartoflife.abundance.org.au) Center for spiritual direction formation
Contribution of Bosco House to the Australia-Pacific province
As the youngest Australian community, Don Bosco House is offering a significant contribution to the vocation culture of AUL province, being also connected to the ASYM (Australian Salesian Youth Mentors) and Cagliero Project (Missionary volunteers). Joyful presence and life witness of young oversea Salesians challenges young Australians to follow Don Bosco and is becoming also a link with frontline mission experiences like Cambodia.
Family multicultural formation environment with close accompaniment
There are some striking characteristics of this formation house – family spirit expressed in many ways among 11 confreres and 2 aspirants from 7 different cultural backgrounds: Australia, China, India, Korea, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam:
- In order to facilitate serious theological studies, each of the non-English speaking provinces is requested one year of intense English studies at the Australia Catholic University.
- According the AUL provincial tradition the community is maintained by its members, including cleaning and cooking (roster of responsibilities).
- The weekend apostolate of the young Salesians is exercised in the six Melbourne based SDB communities, including the Parish of Our Lady of the Southern Cross (Clifton Hill – Collingwood) and involvement in the provincial activities of the Youth Ministry (vocations, ASYM, Cagliero).
Apart of the good quality formation and study experience we expect that the Don Bosco House in Melbourne Clifton Hill will provide many long lasting friendships and links between the EAO provinces and produce a lot of synergy in the region.
Welcome to Don Bosco House!
