Provincial
April 7, 1997
To the Salesian Family:
It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge this first edition of The Salesian Bulletin of the San Francisco Province. Since 1878 the Salesian Bulletin has been the means St. John Bosco used to announce the Salesian mission and, more especially, to proclaim the needs of young people.
The problems affecting the young seem ever greater: breakdown of family structures, increasing violence and juvenile crime, collapse in basic values, lack of education and skills with which to earn a livelihood, intractable hopelessness in the inner cities.
Our times are actually little different from those of St. John Bosco 150 years ago. The saint lived the disruption of the industrial revolution in Turin, Italy. Bands of young people, uncaredfor and often exploited, worked havoc in the city. St. John Bosco went to the streets. He provided gathering places, instruction, training, jobs, and lodging, if necessary. Most of all, he offered the acceptance of a family and fostered in young people faith in God and His blessed Mother.
Fr. Juan Vecchi, Rector Major of the Salesians, has called for a movement of people of good will for young people in need, men and women who believe in the ideals of St. John Bosco.
That is the purpose of this Bulletin-to bring to awareness and to call to involvement a movement of persons of good will for the youth of America, lest the gift of any young person be wasted through neglect.
One hundred years ago the Salesians first set foot in San Francisco in an area where youth problems were rampant. Their ultimate response was the Salesian Boys Club [now the Salesian Boys and Girls Club]. This organization changed young lives and changed the City.
May our Western Salesian Bulletin be an
instrument for changing young lives in the cities and towns of
our great country!
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| (Fr.) William P. Schafer, S.D.B. Provincial |
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