Don Bosco Takes New York

Don Bosco
Takes New York
After tropical storm Nicole tried to drown out the youth rally centered on the relic of Don Bosco at the Marian Shrine on Thursday, Sept. 30, she (or some wet, howling sister of hers) made a similar attempt on Friday, when Don Bosco paid his respects to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. (The rain did finally abate in late morning, although the skies remained a gloomy slate gray.)

Weather notwithstanding, uncounted thousands of Don Bosco’s friends, and thousands of visitors to St. Patrick’s who stumbled upon him by chance, paid their respects to Don Bosco. From the moment when the reliquary was rolled into the cathedral until the cathedral was closed for the evening, there was never a moment when there was no one coming to or standing at the glass and metal casket, except during Mass. Sometimes the line stretched the length of the cathedral’s long center aisle.

Your faithful blogger with camera and sopping poncho,

in front of St. Patrick's

The truck bearing the relic was due at St. Patrick’s at 9:00 a.m. Even with a police escort (and use of the parkways) all the way from Haverstraw, it arrived 50 minutes late. Don Bosco may have brought rain to Montemagno during a drought (BM 7:433-435), as noted by Catholic New York’s reporting, but on this day the rain was a hindrance, all the more when combined with the morning rush hour. That wasn’t a major issue, however, because the rite of reception was scheduled for 10:00.

While we waited, reporters from the Brooklyn Diocese—one from the Tablet and one from Channels (TV)—took in the scene and interviewed various members of the Salesian Family. Other media were present during the day and at the evening Mass. Of course, Rudy Gomez was a busy videographer for the SDBs once he arrived with Fr. Lou Molinelli from Haverstraw.

Under the supervision of New York’s Finest, the truck pulled up right in front of the cathedral’s main entrance on Fifth Avenue.

Drivers Mauro and Tino saw immediately—without even getting out of the truck—that the lower ramp provided by the cathedral for mounting the first set of steps was too narrow for the carriage supporting the reliquary. But, to be certain, they pulled out a tape and did the measurements. Then, directed by the Finest, they pulled the truck right up onto the sidewalk while Plan B was devised.


Plan B entailed backing the truck up to the bottom of the steps and then using the two slender ramps ordinarily used to winch the carriage in and out of the truck to span the gap from the truck to the first landing. Fortunately, the cathedral’s upper ramp was wide enough to accommodate the carriage. Bishop Emilio Allué, SDB (a retired auxiliary bishop from Boston), Msgr. Robert Ritchie (rector of the cathedral), and the other ministers were in place, ready for the rite of reception.

But first there was more waiting. The traffic and the weather had delayed not only Don Bosco but also Don Bosco Prep’s choir, coming from New Jersey. They finally arrived at 10:15. At that point, the truck backed across the sidewalk to the cathedral steps, to the consternation of passers-by, and the two drivers and our seminarians muscled the reliquary and carriage up the ramp and into the cathedral around 10:30.

By then Salesian HS’s band

and the Prep’s choir
were in place. Hundreds of the faithful, including the entire student body of Salesian HS, crowded the cathedral’s vestibule and the adjacent pews. Msgr. Ritchie welcomed Don Bosco to St. Patrick’s, the bishop prayed, the band played, the choir sang, and the bishop sprinkled the relic with holy water.

Led by Salesian HS senior James Picone playing the bagpipes (“a great touch,” according to many witnesses), everyone processed up the center aisle, and the relic was centered in front of the sanctuary. The liturgy of reception continued with Scripture readings and a homily.


Once the rite had concluded, people came steadily all day long to venerate Don Bosco’s relic and pray. Unfortunately, no one thought to try to count the visitors (so I was told late in the day); they came from all over the world, of course. But someone on the cathedral staff did tell Fr. Pat Angelucci, coordinator of the day of pilgrimage there, that they estimated 1,000 people an hour had passed by the casket.

I looked at five pages of the visitor’s log in the back of the cathedral, covering roughly three afternoon hours, and noted that tourists and/or pilgrims who had “signed in” had come from 18 states, 6 Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, and 17 countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Those of course were only the ones who registered their visit. At two points during the long day, I spoke with visitors from New Orleans, representing a 19th state, and Montreal, representing a 7th province.

School kids came from all over the metro area—Annunciation and St. Paul in Manhattan, St. Jerome in the Bronx, among others—and even from Rochester (St. John Bosco Middle School, not affiliated with the Salesians). So did various groups of sisters. Especially prominent at both Haverstraw and St. Patrick’s were the Sisters of Life and the Missionaries of Charity—the latter, Mother Teresa’s sisters, are devoted to our Founder because in Calcutta the SDBs have been their chaplains, I understand, since the beginning of Mother’s work. The Salesian Sisters were present in force at St. Patrick’s. There were many Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, too, at both the Marian Shrine and the cathedral, and at the latter also a numerous delegation of their female counterparts. Salesian sisters and novices, Missionaries of Charity, and other sisters at the evening Mass

Don Bosco’s charism resonates across “party lines.” So-called “traditional Catholics” (followers of Abp. Lefevre) came to both the Shrine and the cathedral to pray to the patron of youth. I guess they’re “cafeteria Salesians,” akin to “cafeteria Catholics,” however, when it comes to Don Bosco’s teachings about the Papacy.

There were also Protestants. These, I’m sure, hadn’t come to the cathedral for Don Bosco; certainly, one Presbyterian couple whom I spoke with hadn’t. But they had come up to the relic out of curiosity about this strange Catholic fascination. They seemed to have an “aha moment” when I explained the idea of pilgrimage to the tombs of the saints, referencing The Canterbury Tales (who hasn’t read parts of them in high school?), and pointed to this as a reverse pilgrimage, the saint coming to the faithful who can’t travel to his tomb. (Fr. Dennis Donovan spoke eloquently of that in his homily in St. Pete, published in E-Service on Oct. 14, p. 3: http://www.salesians.org/e-service/documents/E-ServiceOct142010.doc)

All day, all the men in SDB initial formation—candidates, prenovices, novices, and young professed brothers—were present, greeting people, answering questions, and passing out literature. This made a great impression on people, including the vicar general of the archdiocese, Bishop Dennis Sullivan, who mentioned it to Fr. Pat two weeks later.

Knights of Columbus formed a guard of honor all day (in shifts) by the reliquary. This is a relatively quiet moment toward 2:00 p.m.

The only time the veneration was shut down was during the three midday and the 5:30 p.m. Masses. The cathedral staff presided at these but had asked for Salesians to preach, which Frs. Jim Heuser, Steve Leake, Pat Angelucci, and Tom Dunne did. It was a trick to give a five-minute homily on such a momentous occasion, and Fr. Jim did so very neatly, managing to link the saint of the day, Therese of Lisieux, to Don Bosco. Fr. Steve also linked the two saints. I missed the other two homilies while having lunch and supper in the burger and sandwich restaurant across 51st Street.

During the afternoon Fr. Dominic Tran approached and asked me whether I knew that Don Bosco is portrayed in a stained glass window in the cathedral. Of course I knew about the bas-relief in bronze on the back wall, placed in 1998 when our province celebrated its centennial. But if I’d ever heard about the window, I’d long forgotten it. Fr. Dom pointed it out, hoping that I might be able to photograph it. I could, and did, with some difficulty on account of its elevation. As you stand in the nave facing the sanctuary, it’s in the top rank of windows on the left, third set forward from the back. Each of those top windows is a sort of triptych, none of the images very large, at least when viewed from the floor.

For the 7:00 p.m. Mass honoring St. John Bosco, we had “only” three bishops (in contrast to D.C.’s five): Abp. Dolan, Bp. Emilio, and Bp. Jude Arogundade of Ondo, Nigeria, who is extremely happy to have SDBs in his diocese. I think he just happened to be in NYC, where he’d served as a parish priest before his appointment as bishop, and wanted to celebrate with us.

Bp. Jude also asked to meet Bro. Bruno when I told him we had a brother present who’d worked in Nigeria, and they had a nice meeting after Mass.


I didn’t count the concelebrating priests, but I’d put them at about 40, mostly SDBs. On account of traffic several others arrived after Mass had begun and, observing sound liturgical principles, didn’t vest and duck into the sanctuary.


All the seminarians from St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers were present, arranged on both sides of the sanctuary in cassock and surplice.

The cathedral, which seats 2,200, was nearly full—a few empty seats in the back, but also a good number of people standing on the sides and in the back. So we had about 2,000 in the congregation. The congregation fills the center sections of the nave during the homily at the evening Mass

The Mass was televised live by EWTN.

The Latino choir of Holy Rosary Church in Port Chester provided the music, lively and enthusiastic. I think my favorite visual from the entire celebration came at the very end, as the choir sang, the musicians played, and those in the congregation who were able sang “Su Concerto Han Entonado” (to the melody of “St. John Bosco, O Loving Father”): that visual was Abp. Dolan standing at the altar, waiting for the other ministers to clear the sanctuary and beating time with his crosier.

It's a photo and not a video, so you can't tell that Abp. Dolan is beating time with his crosier. Too bad EWTN missed that while focused on the departing concelebrants.
Abp. Dolan clearly was having the time of his life, smiling, applauding, and shouting, “Viva Don Bosco!” throughout the celebration. (Actually, he seems to enjoy his job immensely most of the time.) He was thrilled with a gift of a relic of Don Bosco in a small monstrance, presented to him by Fr. Tom at the end of Mass.

Like a kid on Christmas morning! Abp. Dolan shows off the small relic of St. John Bosco that Fr. Provincial has just given him.

There was also a small gift for Sr. Mary Bosco Daly, the archbishop’s retired second grade teacher, presented by Fr. Tom and Sr. Phyllis Neves: a medallion of her patron saint.



The archbishop’s homily resembled his remarks at the Marian Shrine the previous day but weren’t identical. He explained that relics of the saints are important for helping us to pray and come closer to God.

He offered three lessons from the example of St. John Bosco:
(1) Dare to dream; never stop dreaming, hoping, daring. Don Bosco was like both the patriarch Joseph and St. Joseph. Yesterday, he said, “the dream prevailed” for 2,000 young people amid the rain and the mud. Today’s world can be discouraging; Don Bosco tells us to keep dreaming. (2) The Church needs to be wherever people are hurting and struggling, like the young boys of Turin in the 19th century, because Jesus would be there. “Where does the Church need to be today?” he asked. “With the unborn, the immigrants, the sick, elders, atheists, secularists,” he answered.
(3) The center of Don Bosco’s life was Jesus, who is particularly alive and present in three ways: in the arms of his Mother—stay close to Mary; in the Blessed Sacrament and at Mass; in the person of the Holy Father.
The staff of St. Patrick’s—Msgr. Ritchie, Fr. Joe Tyrrell, and everyone else—were wonderfully, wonderfully cooperative in every way (just as the staff of the National Shrine in D.C. had been)—in the planning, in the execution, and of immediate interest to Rudy Gomez and me, giving us free rein to go just about anywhere to take pictures. (I don’t think either of us asked to get upstairs, which we were invited to do in the National Shrine and did.) I got to tease Fr. Joe a bit about that, because back in April, when I was concelebrating at the annual Scout Mass, he “busted on” me for taking some surreptitious photos from my place in the sanctuary. As soon as the concelebrants cleared the center aisle, there was a mad rush to get up to the relic. The line stretch the length of the cathedral--and was just as packed approaching from either transept, as well.

At the solemn Mass in the evening, the ushers were students from Salesian HS and Don Bosco Prep, who made an positive impact on visitors and cathedral staff. And, Fr. Pat noted, the staff at the cathedral does not readily give up their ushering responsibility!

During the long hours of veneration, many SDBs were on hand to answer questions, offer advice, and hear confessions. Here's Fr. Steve Ryan at the altar rail, near the relic, during the post-Mass crush

Around 9:00 p.m. the Vietnamese friends of St. John Bosco, under the leadership of Fr. Dominic, offered a prayer service. That service featured young people dressed in traditional garb doing a touching and quite elegant liturgical dance with candles and incense. The Vietnamese were followed by a mariachi band that Fr. Rich Alejunas brought from Port Chester; they played and led singing until 10:45. Veneration of the relic concluded at 11:00 p.m., well past the cathedral’s usual hours.


Veneration resumed on Saturday morning, briefly, before Bp. Emilio presided over the closing of Don Bosco’s pilgrimage to New York. The SDBs who were present for the closing gathered around Don Bosco’s casket and renewed their religious profession.

The New York celebrations of “Don Bosco Among Us” also included a program at the Italian consulate. On the afternoon of Oct. 1 an educational symposium was held there, sponsored by the consulate in conjunction with Fordham University. Professors from different universities spoke about the educational methods of Don Bosco, Maria Montessori, and other Italian educators. Fr. Lou Molinelli presented a paper on Don Bosco. The entire program, which the consulate plans to publish, culminated in a showing of Leandro Castellani’s 1987 film Don Bosco, which starred Ben Gazzara. Mr. Gazzara himself was present to talk about his experience portraying Don Bosco.

In addition, the Westchester (County) Italian Cultural Center ran a week-long program on Don Bosco and other outstanding Italians, including the “first run” of Fr. Lou’s paper on Sept. 28 and a showing of Goffredo Alessandri’s 1936 Don Bosco with introduction and commentary by Fr. Javier Aracil on Oct. 5.