Salesian Scholars Seminar

The Salesian Scholars Seminar 2014 is underway in Stella Niagara, New York. Normally Wendy Wright and Joe Chorpenning jointly chair the sessions, but just the day before we were to gather Joe Chorpenning was summoned to the hospital where his sister was undergoing treatments. Yesterday morning she died. So Wendy has been the chair for the discussions.

The theme this year has been Love in Salesian spirituality. The idea comes from the fact that we are approaching the fourth centenary of the publishing of the Treatise on the Love of God by Saint Francis de Sales (1616-2016). However, since most of my time has been spent on preparing Salesians for the bicentenary of the birth of Saint John Bosco (1815-2015), I wrote my article on Don Bosco and the Salesian spirit. That will be discussed tomorrow. I'll see how it goes over with this group.

As usual, the seminar so far is very informative, intense, and enjoyable. 

Arriving for the Salesian Scholars Seminar

One of the joys of my association with other Salesian Scholars (that is, with those who study the writings and sprit of St Francis de Sales and the whole tradition that is born with him) has been to introduce this branch of scholarship and this circle of scholars to other members of the Salesian Family (of Don Bosco). A few years ago I was able to introduce Eunan Mcdonnell to the group, and this year he will be giving the keynote.

Fr John Graden OSFS with Fr Eunan Mcdonnell SDB

This year I have succeeded in interesting Paolo Mojoli of the Venetian province, and he has received funding from the Università di Padova to participate in our scholars seminar. How cool is that.

Don Paolo on the banks of the Niagara River

As in other years, I've come early because I will meet with other members of the board of DeSales Resources and Ministries tomorrow. However this afternoon I was able to show Paolo around the area with a hike down to the Niagara River. He seems to be enjoying everything, and his English seems to be good enough to be able to participate. In any case, it is a breakthrough to have a young scholar, and a European, participate with us -- added bonus for me is that he is a son of Don Bosco. 

Preparing for the Scholars Symposium

Stella Niagara, site of the Salesian Scholars Symposium

Five weeks from now the Scholar's Symposium takes place in Stella Niagara. This year's theme is "love in the Treatise on the Love of God."

For me, I've not yet put together something for the Niagara conference, but I must do so quickly just to be able to be at the table really. Over the past three years I've been involved in the preparation for the 200th anniversary of St John Bosco's birth (16 August 2015), and during this year I have facilitated 9 week-long retreats among different Salesian groups. That entailed preparing 20 conferences on Salesian themes, half of which were presented with powerpoint. There has not been much on Francis de Sales, but much on Don Bosco's style of Salesian pastoral outreach and/or spirituality. Now it is a matter of converting these into articles from hour-long live presentations. Luckily I speak in footnotes, so I think I'll come up with something.

Some thoughts that international friends provoked in me on Independence Day

Today I am not in Rome, but in beautiful Bellflower California. An afternoon sea breeze is wiping the air clean. And it is Independence Day.

A friend of mine from Africa sent me good wishes, and added that he hoped that in America today that God would not be sidelined. He must be reading about our culture wars.

My reflection is that the founding fathers of the Republic were all Deists. They had God-language, but they sidelined God in all actuality (Thomas Jefferson was notoriously anti-Christian, and John Adams became increasingly anti-clerical after his presidency). They were men of the Enlightenment and read the French Philosophers. On the positive side, they founded a country where no religious test could be enacted to prohibit citizens from voting or taking office. Thomas Jefferson wanted a wall of separation between Church and State, but that is not actually what the Constitution ever said. Still, most Americans today favor that wall of separation.

According to recent studies (Baylor University 2007), religious practice in the USA is greater at the start of the 21st century than it has ever been in our history. Most people perceive that Americans were more religious in earlier times, but the opposite seems to be the case. What bothers me is that many people look to the government for religious leadership, and then they denounce the civic leaders when they don't see religious practice as they would like. But we live in a pluralistic country, and after 238 years, American democracy is still in the experimental phase. It takes a long time to learn how to be truly free (and for Christians, to be truly faith-filled and faithful) in a pluralistic society. We do well not to give up now.

Having said this, I must admit that I'm not thinking of the great edicts of the political entities nor of the high sentiments of the statesmen today. Instead, I'm listening to the voices of children screaming in delight as the residents on our street host a block party among the neighbors. Becoming good neighbors is a great way to learn pluralism and democracy I suppose.

Theologians and mystics perhaps

One of my former students, Elissa Cutter, is moving forward on her doctoral dissertation. Hers is an unteresting thesis: Mother Angelique Arnauld as a mystic and a theologian.

Teresa of Jesus is recognized as such, but Angelique is neglected or ostracized, and I think that is mainly due to the actions of her brothers Antoine and Henri who tended to politicize and polemicize. That turned the reflections of Cornelius Jansen into a feared ISM. How much did that have to do with Mere Angelique, who was a reforming Abbess and leader of a flourishing monastery at Port Royal? It will be refreshing to have a good look at Angelique in her own right.

Elissa comments that Mother Angelique can be a good model for women theologians today, and comments that if she is indeed a theologian and a mystic, this is not the norm for theologians, women or men, today.

Of course, one of the reasons why most theologians today are not mystics goes back to the conferences of ISSY, and the fear that the Sun King and his episcopal agents had for anything mystical. That had a very heavy effect on Catholic life and practice, devotion, and theology as well. For several centuries there was little theologizing happening in the West: only the safe reporting of doctrine through manuals. It is only in the last decades that theology has had a rebirth. With that there has been a new respect for contemplative prayer and mysticism. Hopefully we'll get these things together again, and link them with pastoral guidance too, as was so typical of the early centuries.

It would be a wonderful move toward true renewal.

Salesians no longer an 'Italian Order'

With the election of Angel Fernández Artime, many friends are telling me that the torch has been passed from the Italian leadership to the Spaniards in the Salesian Society.

Well, the last Italian rector major was Father Egidio Viganò, who became Rector Major in 1977 and died in 1995. However, Egidio Viganò, a native of Sondrio, had in fact gone to Chile at age 15 to enter the novitiate. He completed all his studies in Chile and remained a member of the Chilean province until the age of 51 when he was elected to the General Council as the Councilor for Formation.

Egidio Vigano (1920-1995)

I met him in 1975 when I began theology in Torino. As the formation councilor, he came to open the academic year for us theology students with a mass and all-school conference. It was my first week in Italy I had a very difficult time understanding him. Later I discovered the reason: he spoke Italian with a pronounced Chilean accent.

Egidio Viganò had been a peritus at Vatican II, brought there by the Archbishop of Santiago, Raul Cardinal Silva Henriquez -- a Salesian and a strongly pastoral presence in Chile. While at the Council, Fr Viganò served as one of the theologians for the entire Chilean episcopal conference, and became known by many of the bishops of Latin America. As rector major, he brought a theological reading to our charism and vocation during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, with whom he collaborated on many important projects.

Juan Vecchi (1931-2002)

Following Fr Viganò, the next Rector Major was Juan Edmundo Vecchi, the son of Italian immigrants in Viedma, Argentina. He was certainly very Latin American in his thinking and in his pastoral approach. He served as the first councilor for Youth Ministry when the general council was revamped in 1971 (at the time, he was 40 years old), and held that position until 1990 when he was elected vicar of the Rector Major. He promoted volunteerism and stressed the importance of the Salesian Family at work in the territory. Juan Vecchi was elected Rector Major in 1996, notably because the general chapter delegates at the time were looking for a fatherly figure to take the role of the superior, and Fr Vecchi fit that description admirably. He toured the Salesian world and vigorously promoted Salesian spirituality as a way of living "Jesus Yesterday, Today and Forever", for the start of the new Millennium. However, the beloved Fr Vecchi became gravely ill in the year 2000, and died without completing his term on 23 January 2002. His successor was Fr Pascual Chávez, born in 1947 in the northern Mexican town of Saltillo, and a member of the Mexican province of Guadalajara. He completed his term yesterday, when Father Angel Fernández was elected the tenth successor of Don Bosco.

So we really have not had an Italian rector major for a generation.

The new massive majority is in India, and more Salesians world-wide speak English than either Italian or Spanish. I suppose this is a reality that is missed on us in the California province as we are so far from other centers. The truth of the matter is, however, that the Salesian world has changed considerably since I first took my vows in 1968. That was the year when we celebrated the centenary of the dedication of the basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Torino.

Bigger changes are on the horizon during this bi-centenary of the birth of St John Bosco. The new general council, being elected this week, will represent is a totally new mix that will reflect the changed Salesian Society. This augurs well for a relaunch of Don Bosco's charism in 2015.

La Consolata

Here is a photo of Al Vu and me at the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation (La Consolata) in Torino, taken on Monday morning. I was too busy talking to realize that the photo had been taken. We arrived there for a concelebrated mass with Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia, the Archbishop of Torino.

Interesting! Cesare Nosiglia was educated by the Salesian Sisters during his primary and middle school years. No wonder he was so excited to have Don Bosco's relics tour the archdiocese, and no wonder he took the initiative to ask that the Holy Shroud be exposed in 2015 expressly for the bicentenary of the birth of Don Bosco.

Coat of Arms of Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia

The GC27 delegates traveled to Rome on Monday evening, and by now they are in deep into the Chapter.

On becoming a city mouse

What was that story? City Mouse and Country Mouse? It was a story in our readers when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I do not remember how the story worked out, but I suppose in the tradition of isolationism that was rampant in our school textbooks in that post-WW2 era, the Country Mouse was the hero in the end. However, I remember the illustrations more than the details of the story which, it seems, goes back to Aesop's Fables of the Country Mouse and the Town Mouse. I cannot blame the missionary generation textbooks writers is they inserted that for the boomer children of the GI-generation heroes who were doing everything to push America and the world into a new prosperity. Like I say, only the illustrations stand out in my memory. 

With that I suppose that after my early years in suburban, not-too-special, incredibly American-Pie-Normal Bellflower, where life was a cross between Leave-it-to-Beaver suburbia and Mayberry back-woods (they shot the film Grease in Bellflower because the producers thought it had preserved all the charm of the 1930s) -- after all that, and schooling in rural Watsonville California and Sussex County NJ, I've spent my adult years mainly in cities: Edmonton (northern most capital city in North America), Torino (launching pad for the Italian Risorgimento and first capital of the Kingdom of Italy), San Francisco, Berkeley and now Roma. I've actually found that this has allowed me to live a more simple lifestyle for everything is in walking distance, and the things that are not are places I can reach by public transit. During 2013 I drove maybe 8 times all together, but I am not uncomfortable in big crowds and I have learned to pace myself when I have to move about in public circumstances.

So have I become the City Mouse? I hope that I have not become arrogant and impractical as the City Mouse did, but I have always feared that I have always been inclined to prideful stupidity (certainly, that is what my novice director used to tell me week after week: "It's your pride, Ernie, its your pride"… he thought I was named Ernie, that's another story). If nothing else, being a city mouse has forced me to walk more, spend less, and live in small spaces, count my pennies (or centesimi) to make ends meet -- something that would be impossible today in the rural or suburban areas of a post-modern world. 

Is this a benefit? 

Proud of émigrés, and their descendants too

All's well in the mother-land. With the election of Italian-American Bill De Blasio as mayor of NYC, the people here are ecstatic. De Blasio is the first Democrat to win the mayor's seat in New York in 20 years. His folksy yet forceful style has intrigued Italians, and his inter-racial family has, to a large extent, delighted people in Italy where an increase of immigration (both economic and political refugees) from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and poorer areas of Europe, is making Italians confront racial issues for the first time in 152 years.

But that is only part of it. De Blasio is an Italian-American, and he seems to speak with conviction and style. His gestures speak even louder (Italian papers carried photos of him doing his own shopping, and carrying laundry to the laundry mat -- things that the Italian political class would never be caught doing). His election it seems to make up for the Espionage Scandal of last week (what they called the 007 Phone surveillance) and the abduction of two Italians by the Indian government, and the total disarray of the Italian House of Deputies, and the 11% increase in joblessness in central and southern Italy. So everyone was toasting NYC today. As one colleague told me: "Things are so bad here that when an emigrant or the son of Italians abroad does well, we re-adopt him as our own, and have the courage to go forward with a sense of relief that we'll get out of the present difficult time."

Makes me smile, actually.

Bug headaches

We have had very warm weather here in Rome, while parts of Italy are already battling snow storms. It has been so warm here, in fact, that the mosquitoes have taken on a new life and are becoming so strong that they resist the repellents. Between Sunday and Monday, I sprayed my room 4 times, and at night I had to light one of those anti-mosquito coils by my bed. The reason was that I was getting bit so many times during the night by silent mosquitoes, and awakened by the noisy one. Last night it was much better, but I woke up with a headache this morning, probably from breathing in the scent of the bug killers.

Last night it began to rain very hard at about 23.00, and continued until after 7.00 this morning. This afternoon there was a blue sky with cumulous clouds overhead and thunderheads in the distance. Hopefully this rain can bring in some cooler temperatures, and least to put the biting bugs to rest.

Notes delivered today

Classes going well. I've given my students on Francis de Sales two versions of the class notes: one in Italian and one in English. The English version is considerably less than the book: only 16 units. I need to improve the Italian version, but I had to rush to get this to the students, since I arrived only 2 days before classes began. As it is, with the printing etc, they only got the notes today. 

My other two courses got the notes a week ago, but the material is much less in those courses than in Francis de Sales.

Meanwhile, I've decided to design a different FdS course for Berkeley, beginning next year. It will allow me to explore his writings more thoroughly, I hope. My book can be a study to read, but won't be the course outline as it has been up until now.

Dangerous pines

For two weeks now we have been told to stay away from the side road beside the provincial headquarters in the UPS. A number of the tall pines there have shown signs of decay and are in risk of falling. Before the bad weather comes, therefore, the grounds committee here arranged that a number of those pines should be cut down.

Other trees at the entrance of the university itself have been thinned of low-hanging branches, so as not to create more hazards for pedestrians. Some people are concerned that the branches can fall on parked cars. Yes, I'm sure that they can, and the lawsuits would come from the car owners. However, it is more risking for the pedestrians, because when caught in a sudden downpour (as happens during Rome's autumn), people take refuge under trees. Four years ago a couple of teenagers were killed by falling branches in downtown Rome during a sudden storm. The danger is real.

Today is the memorial of Pope John Paul II -- blessed for now, but soon to be canonized. The 22nd of October is the day on which he was installed as Bishop of Rome (1979), after his election on 16 October. Thus, in Rome and in Poland his feast is kept on this day. We remembered him in all the masses on campus today.

As for my own academic load at the UPS, I am teaching three courses this semester. These are all courses in the theology faculty and are entitled Foundations in Don Bosco's Spirituality (3 units); The social, political, cultural and religious context of Don Bosco's environment in Nineteenth Century Italy (2 units); St Francis de Sales: Life and Spirituality (3 units). I've been working on the class notes for my students, such as I can prepare in Italian and English. I have almost completed an Italian version of my book on Francis de Sales, which is now in its second printing at Stella Niagara. That's been exciting.

Catholic bookshops

Earlier today I got in a conversation about Catholic bookshops and religious good stores. This is an interesting topic, I feel, and one of concern since many such shops are struggling to survive at a time when most people can buy what they are looking for online.

Now, I have to say that I am fortunate enough that there is a fantastic bookstore right on the campus of the Salesian Pontifical University where I teach in Rome. That shop is part of a family-run chain that goes back to the days of Leo XIII. But the Leoniana is struggling too, even though the store is usually filled with clients: students, professors, neighbors, leaders from nearby parishes. I go there principally for the books, but there are also religious goods there, and stationery. What has been said about "location, location, location" is certainly at work here, and also quite vital since our campus is quite far from the city center.

At least once a month I travel to the old center of the city to shops run by the Daughters of St Paul or the Salesians to look for and pick up books (catechetics, spirituality, pastoral care); at other times I travel to Borgo Pio to shop at Soprani or Comandini for religious goods (usually when I am looking for gifts). I need to take at least two buses to reach these places, and so I am intentional about these trips.

As others have mentioned, there were more Catholic bookstores and religious goods shops in the past. When I grew up in the 1960s, there were two within the radius of 3 miles of where we lived in southern California, and our parish had a "religious goods and Catholic book shop" open on Sundays in the parish hall from 7:30 AM to 1:30 PM. I suspect the two local shops made that possible for our parish. Nowadays there is a gentleman who sets up a stall and sells religious goods and catechetical books (all in Spanish) just in the passage way between the church and the hall in that same home-town parish where I grew up. Whenever I am in town I notice that that stall is surrounded by people coming out of mass. This seems to me to be more of a service and an apostolate than a business, but it also shows me that parishioners make use of this service. 

A full day

Raining in Rome -- thunder storms and downpours, which are odd this time of year.

The first semester for the 2013-2014 academic year began today with 3 hours for the new students (9:00 to 12:00). In the afternoon I was the second reader for a thesis at an exam for the license in theology, and later at a 70 minute meeting of all the professors (350 of us) of the university. A full day. Tomorrow, the classes start. 

Book release

My book, Saint Francis de Sales: Life and Spirit, has been released today. Many thanks go to Joanne Kinney and Fr John Graden at DeSales Resources and Ministries for bringing the book through the editing and publishing phases, as well as to Sr Mary Grace McCormack and the Visitation Sisters in St Louis for all they did to host me during the re-editing phase, and for Sr Mary Grace's arduous work in proofing this volume.

The book can be purchased from DeSales Ministries and Resources in Stella Niagara, New York. They have a bookshop on their website.

Salesian initiative day 2

Today we began to formulate a formal statement for what we hope to come from the Salesian initiative. Here is the working draft of the proposal:

North American Salesian Network

The North American Salesian Network is an intentional network of collaboration by Salesian organizations:  

The initial aim of the network is the sharing of talent, resource materials and programs to enhance the training of our members and the accomplishment of our respective missions, ultimately spreading the Gospel in the Salesian tradition. The initial commitment of organizational membership includes participation in an annual gathering, contributions to a collaborative website and sharing of information through social media or an e-newsletter.

The founding group has put together his Vision Statement:

We envision a collaborative effort among our Salesian associations and institutes to empower us in refreshing our North American culture with the spirit of St. Francis de Sales and our Founders.  

We hope to facilitate the sharing of Salesian resources, educational services, technological expertise, vocational efforts and other key ministries that will enable us to touch hearts and "live jesus" across a wider expanse of people.  

Together we enter into the mystery of Christ and help to bring all people to Christ with the strong gentleness and zeal of St. Francis de Sales. 

Salesian Initiative

For the second year, a group of us are gathering at St Paul Retreat House in Detroit to discuss ways of sharing and spreading Salesian spirit in the United States. Those who have come include the Oblates of St Francis de Sales, the Oblate Sisters, the Visitation Sisters (2nd Federation), the Daughters of St Francis de Sales, the Missionaries of St Francis de Sales, the Salesian Network, the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

A very interesting group from my educational point of view is a group that has existed since 1988 called the "Salesian Network." This grows out of the experience of the Visitation Sisters in the USA, where they have 5 schools. The "Salesian Network" that facilitates the formation of "minds and hearts through gospel-based teachings" in their schools. I do believe that we Salesians of the San Francisco province would benefit by making contact with this network.

There are many areas in which we can be collaborating, from formation of laity to training of novices, to sharing the Salesian spirit in dioceses and among the unchurched. More ideas will come out tomorrow, no doubt, as our discussions become more direct.

Fatherless

A friend of mine sent me an article that tries to say that we should not worry about the gun culture as much as the fatherless culture in America. In other words, the 20-year-old who shot up Newtown had a father in his life, he might not have become a killer. That sounds like a good ploy for not reforming the broken system that allows anyone and everyone to tote a gun in the USA. Maybe the author is correct.

Don Bosco College Library in 1967

On the other hand, I clearly remember a comment made by Fr Paul Aronica, who was my professor of literature at Don Bosco College, in Newton, New Jersey - way back in my college days at the start of the 1970s. We were studying the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Fr Paul compared the theme of fatherless Huck and fatherless Tom Sawyer to many other fatherless figures in American literature, cinema and television (there was no YouTube in those days). Fr Paul remarked that the United States created a fatherless culture when the merchants and plantation owners gathered in Philadelphia on 4 July 1776 sent a declaration of independence to the King of England. By throwing out the King, they disowned their father, and Unitedstatesians have been disowning their fathers ever since.

Throw out the father and collect guns! these are actually more American than motherhood and apple pie.

Contribution of Arthur Lenti

Chris Woerz has circulated by email to the Salesian Family an article from Chennai that quotes Fr Arthur Lenti abundantly. Chris speaks with pride at seeing our own Fr Lenti quoted by Salesians in another province.

Actually, from my vantage point in Rome, this is not new.  Arthur J. Lenti has become one of the important authors in the Salesian world now. I hear many quoting from his works. In Sicily, after the publication of his great Opus of 7 volumes, some professors have gone back to the Journal of Salesian Studies and have begun to translate some of those vintage articles into Italian. In Spain they describe his writing as scientific, enlightening and inspiring.

In a few days Arthur Lenti will celebrate his 90th birthday. His birthday is actually 31 January, feast of St John Bosco, whose life and work Fr Arthur has made the center of the last 28 years of his work at the ISS. But of course, when Arthur was born in the province of Alessandria, close to Torino, in 1923, Don Bosco was not yet a canonized saint. That canonization would not have come until Arthur was 11 years old. Nor were Salesian Studies his professional interest. Arthur trained at the Biblicum in Rome, and taught Sacred Scripture for many years. He was able, however, to use the biblical scholars techniques in approaching the documents, published and unpublished, around Don Bosco to give us a fresh understanding of the apostle of the young. This certainly accounts for the great wave of enthusiasm throughout the world for his contribution. Chris Woerz is right to be happy! More that that, we are right to want to learn from what Arthur has worked so hard to give us: a clear study of the life and times of St John Bosco so that we can look a the needs of our own times, and then to do what we can on behalf of the young, as Don Bosco would do.

It is good to see this happening. It validates not only the hard work of research and teaching done by Fr Arthur, but the whole purpose of the Institute of Salesian Studies in Berkeley. May the new leaders of the ISS find the resources and backing to move forward.

Traveling again

It is the second day of the new year. I've been with my mother in Bellflower for the holidays, where I could celebrate with family and life-time close friends. It is time now to begin my return trip to Europe, but I will pass five days in Berkeley to prepare for the Spring Term and to see my doctor(s). Well, they are not really "my" doctors, but I'm their patient. Sounds rather pompous to claim that I have a doctor or two really, when the reality is that I have to do what they say, and they don't do what I say.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I can even claim having students, if that is the criterion. They rarely do what I say and I'm always scurrying to help them come through a semester somehow. No, I don't have my own students, but there are many students who have me as a teacher, or perhaps as an instructor. I don't have a cat or dog either.…… but I don't think anybody can have a cat.

Hmmm, very philosophical, but I've just finished a cup of coffee at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), after going through TSA security. I will be boarding a flight for San Francisco soon, and am happy for the new year, for the avoidance of the fiscal cliff, and for all the good friends in my life, with whom I wish I could spend more time. This week in Bellflower has reminded me how important that really is.