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Who are we?

Who are we?

      • Official title: Society of Saint Francis de Sales
      • Alternative title: Salesians of Don Bosco
      • Date founded: 18 December 1859
      • Founder: Saint John Bosco
      • Salesians: 14,486 (14,056 without novices and bishops)
      • Nations: 133
      • Regions: 7
      • Provinces: 90
      • Groups in the Salesian Family: 32

We, the Salesians of Don Bosco, officially known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales, are recognised in the Church as a clerical religious institute of pontifical right, dedicated to apostolic works. We are a male religious congregation dedicated to apostolic and missionary activity and to the many works that Christian charity has given rise to, but above all at the service of young people, especially the poorest and most abandoned.

Open to the cultural values ​​of the countries in which we work, we try to understand them and welcome their values, to embody the  message of the gospel.

The needs of young people and popular groups, the desire to act with and in the Church’s name move and guide our pastoral action for the advent of a more just and more fraternal world in Christ.

Founded by St. John Bosco, a nineteenth-century Italian educator, we are present in 133 countries.

This official website of our international community seeks to let you know what we do, how we do it and why we believe that what we do is worth our life and our death.

By walking with young people  you take part in this adventure!

Identity

OUR IDENTITY

WE, THE SALESIANS OF DON BOSCO:

  • Live in communities that are actively engaged in the world of young people.
  • Are members of the Church and work in harmony with its teachings.
  • Prayer and obedience to the Spirit of God are the foundation of our service.
  • Strive to make Don Bosco’s dream a reality and to spread his style and charism.
  • Live our consecration to God through the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
  • The choice of the young translates into strengthening our credibility as “signs and bearers of God’s love” for each of them.
  • Our preferential option is to work among the poor and abandoned youth of society.
  • Being “signs and bearers of God’s love to young people” is our road to holiness – the path that each of us has chosen to take alongside the young.
  • Have been recognised in the Catholic Church as a clerical religious institute of pontifical right, dedicated to apostolic works since 1 March 1869.
  • Don Bosco, inspired by the goodness and zeal of Saint Francis de Sales, gave us the name ‘Salesians’.
  • Are recognised as a legal entity with civil effect by the Italian State as “Direzione Generale delle Opere di Don Bosco”,
  • The headquarters are at the Sede Centrale Salesiana Via Marsala 42, 00185 Rome

(C. 2, 4)

Mission

  Education and evangelisation are at the centre of our mission. The pastoral-educative service that we wish to carry out is directed to the integral development of the person.

The first and principal beneficiaries of our mission are the young, especially the poorest of them, young workers and those preparing themselves for work, and apostolic vocations; in view of these we work amongst the common folk with special attention to lay evangelizers, family, social communication, and those not yet evangelised.

The activities and works by means of which we Salesians carry out our mission, depend on the needs and situations of the people whom we serve. We carry out activities and works in which it is possible to promote the human and Christian education of the young, such as:

1. The Oratory and Youth Centre

An environment of broad acceptance, open to a wide range of young people, above all those most alienated. This is achieved through a diversity of educational and evangelising activities characterized by their focus on the young and strong personal relationships between educator and youngster, capable of becoming a missionary presence in the world of the young and of civil society.

2. The school and Professional (technical) formation

Centres for formal education, inspired by Gospel values according to the spirit and pedagogical style of the Saleisans, in order to promote popular education attentive to the most needy, to their professional and technical formation and to accompanying their gradual insertion into the world of work.

3. Boarding and hostel arrangements

A service for accepting young people without family or who are temporarily estranged from family. Here they find personal relationships, opportunity for commitment and responsibility for young people in daily life, and the life of the group with its various formative educative and Christian opportunities.

4. A presence to the Tertiary sector

Through institutes of higher education inspired by Christian values and with a Catholic and Salesian style; hostels and university residences, other services of pastoral animation at this level.

5. The parish.

Characterised by a special attention to young people, above all to the poorest of them, the popular environment where it is to be found, by the presence of a Salesian religious community at its animating heart, and by activity of evangelization and education to faith strictly integrated with the human development of the person and the group.

6. Social services and works for youth-at-risk

A family atmosphere of acceptance and education, animated by a community with ‘preventive’ criteria according to the educative style of Don Bosco. This is inspired by the Gospel and has the aim to evangelise, open to the transformation of realities which are socially exclusive and to the building of a culture of solidarity, in collaboration with other social institutions.

7. Social communication

Through education to an understanding and proper use and utilisation of the media, the development of the communicative potential of persons through the new languages of music, theatre, art etc….. Formation to a critical, aesthetic and moral sense, promotion of information and editorial centres in press, radio, television, internet etc. Finally, the service of the Salesian educational and pastoral project.

8. Other new forms of Salesian presence to the young
  • The Salesian Youth Movement: communion and connection between all youth groups and associations which acknowledge Salesian spirituality and pedagogy, and which take up an educative and evangelising task and commit themselves to share and coordinate amongst themselves.
  • The Salesian Voluntariate: a voluntary activity commited to the human and Salesian development of the young, above all the poorest of them, and active amongst the common folk, according to the style of Don Bosco’s Preventive System and the values of Salesian Youth Spirituality. They carry out their activity in view of the transformation of society and the removal of causes of injustice, and they favour a community experience and the vocational development of the volunteer.
  • Services for vocational orientation: meetings and centres for vocational orientation, communities where this can occur, etc…
  • Specialized services for Christian formation: special education centres, houses of retreat and spirituality, centres for pastoral and catechetical formation etc.

Would you like to see the statistics?

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