Saints Aren't Angels

On Easter Sunday 1934 at Vatican City Pope Pius XI proclaimed to the world that a Piedmontese farm boy, John Melchior Bosco of Turin, Italy, was a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, a man worthy of emulation. International acclaim followed for this religious icon. He was the first and only religious designated Father and Teacher of Youth.

But ninety years earlier his story was totally different. The brash young cleric, beginning his priestly career in the fall of 1844, fought, tricked and argued his way through Turins slum area of Valdocco in a compulsive search for teenage boys whom he could befriend to teach and train to be proper citizens.

Saints Arent Angels is the dramatic biography of Don Boscos first twenty two months as assistant chaplain reluctantly hired by Marchioness Giulietta Colbert Tancredi di Barolo for her two institutes housing and protecting orphan and destitute girls and women considered undesirable by Turin society at the time. He was conflicted between supporting the Marchioness and training her girls and his personal goal to gather and train hundreds and thousands of boys. He fought the noble lady until she fired him. He fought King Charles Alberts Vicar of Turin, Count Michelle Benso di Cavour, until the two, nearly broken in health, waited to see who would be the first to fall. He displayed a terrible sense of diplomacy, an equally serious lack of commercial skill, and a penchant for unwarranted enthusiasm. His assigned mentor questioned his mental health and a united coalition of Turin Pastors began a scheme to have him committed to the citys insane asylum.

There never was one like him, an acrobat, singer, cobbler, tailor, farm boy, waiter, magician; a man physically afraid of no one and yet his heart was broken a dozen times. A lifelong dreamer, he had no business sense, no social skills and needed the help of others. But he laughed, tumbled and performed his way through until he was so worn that he lay dying on a bed in a hospital from which he had been fired as a chaplain. Heres what American Catholic said of him:

John Bosco educated the whole personbody and soul united. He believed that Christs love and our faith in that love should pervade everything we dowork, study, and play. For John Bosco, being a Christian was a full-time effort, not a once-a-week, Mass-on-Sunday experience. It is searching and finding God and Jesus in everything we do, letting their love lead us. Yet, John realized the importance of job-training and the self-worth and pride that comes with talent and ability so he trained his students in the trade crafts, too.

His future lay dying with him in August 1846 in the hospital where he had been relieved of his assignment as chaplain by the Marchioness because he would not accede to her demands. His aspirations to train Turins scamps were expiring with him.