Don Bosco Returns to Turin's Boys Prison

Don Bosco Returns to Turin’s Boys Prison 

Photo ©: La Voce e il Tempo

(ANS – Turin – February 3, 2023) – A historical event, a work of mercy, a powerfully evocative gesture, an act of love in the full style of Don Bosco: the visit made on the morning of Wednesday, February 1, by Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime to the Ferrante Aporti Juvenile Penitentiary Institute (IPM) in Turin, has so many connotations; it was once the Generala penitentiary so many times visited by Don Bosco, the place that inspired him to create oratories as an antidote to juvenile delinquency (and  presenting one of the more dramatic sequences in the 1935 movie on the Saint).

“When are you coming back?” One of the 34 boys detained at Ferrante Aporti has teary eyes as he greets the 10th successor of Don Bosco, who wanted to conclude the celebrations of the Saint of young people precisely at the IPM. And there is no more meaningful place than the Ferrante to understand the charism of Don Bosco, who said, “It is enough for me that you are young for me to love you very much,” as the Rector Major recalled while greeting the boys one by one and inquiring about their history and origin: “I am Romanian,” “I am Egyptian,” “I am from Tangier.”

“I have been to your beautiful countries to visit our communities and our young people. I know a few words of your languages: I am Spanish, I was born in Galicia, son of a fisherman. I studied theology and philosophy, but I know much more about fishing than my dad taught me.” This is how the Rector Major introduced himself to the boys gathered in the recreation hall, after some “bans” and a skit about Don Bosco led by the Salesian novices of Colle Don Bosco, who every Friday, accompanied by their teacher, Fr. Enrico Ponte, animate “the playground behind bars.”

“That’s why I chose to become a Salesian, 43 years ago,” the Rector Major continued, “I wanted to be a doctor, but then I understood that Don Bosco called me to care for the souls of the youngest, because there are no good and bad boys and girls, but young people who have had less, and, as our saint said, ‘In every young person, even the most wretched, there is a point accessible to good, and the first duty of the educator is to seek this point, this sensitive cord of the heart and to profit from it.’ That is why we Salesians love young people. We can all make mistakes, but if you believe in yourselves, trust your educators, you will come out better. My dream is to meet you all in Valdocco with the young people I greeted yesterday on the feast of our Saint.”

Fr. Fernandez’s visit is historic because never after Don Bosco had one of his successors entered the Ferrante. The encounter with the boys detained first at the Carceri Senatorie Prisons of Turin in 1841, then at the Generala in 1855 (that was the name of the IPM, then a reformatory for minors) was the spark that drove the Turin saint to devise “preventive” solutions to the disarray in which thousands of adolescents in the Turin peripheries found themselves in. It was during repeated visits to the Generala, invited by his spiritual father, Fr. Joseph Cafasso, that the Preventive System was born, a pillar of the educational system that would make Don Bosco the “Saint of the Oratories.”

Don Bosco sensed that if there was a solid family, a welcoming community, and a school with meaningful, caring adults, there would be no prisons. And it was from those afternoons spent with the “naughty, and dangerous youngsters” that the saint invented the oratory. Indeed, as the Rector Major recalled, Don Bosco even asked permission to take the boys with him on an outing: “The director of the Generala agreed, but on one condition: if only one young man did not return, Don Bosco would end up in jail. Yet, everyone returned to his cell.” Words that struck a chord with the boys, who listened to Fr. Fernandez without uttering a word, something not usual here, educators and officers commented at the end of the meeting.

The presence of Don Bosco’s charism at the Ferrante has never failed or faded: a plaque in the oldest wing of the Institute commemorates his visits to the Generala, and it is a tradition for chaplains to be Salesians. Among the “historic” chaplains is the beloved Fr. Domenico Ricca, who retired last year after more than 40 years of service. His baton has been taken over by his confrere Fr. Silvano Oni, who organized the visit of the Rector Major with the collaboration of Deputy Director Gabriella Picco, trainers, teachers, and educators.

“In these days we will send a letter to Pope Francis,” Fr. Silvano announced, “with photos of the Nativity scene we set up at Christmas with the boys, most of whom are non-Christians: that is why it is a nativity in which the characters have no faces. Toward the hut, a boat at sea is approaching with many young migrants like some of our boys who have left their land and here are alone and prey to lawlessness. Their life preserver, for now, is us. And the request to the Rector Major to return among them is a sign that Don Bosco still speaks to the hearts of today’s most fragile boys.”