Hajja Salesjana October - December 2018

1 1 belief particularly in this last category of good boys brings forth something new within the cultural ecclesial context of the 1800s. Don Bosco adopts the Universal Holiness concept promoted by St Francis de Sales and widens it by claiming that this universal calling included children and youth. This vision is evident in Don Bosco’s three biographies of Dominic Savio, Michael Magone and Francis Besucco. With these three good pre-adolescents, Don Bosco acquired remarkable spiritual results. [Cf. Aldo Giraudo., introduction to Vite di Giovani by Giovanni Bosco (Roma: LAS, 2012). These writings bear witness to the importance of the supportive community and spiritual guide within the process of spiritual growth of the child and also prove to the Church that child sainthood is possible. One could advocate that Don Bosco’s rich experience with youth and his writings must have played some considerable role in the Catholic Church’s eventual change in mentality experienced later on. Practically two decades after Don Bosco’s death, a significant change occurred in the way the Church perceived the child. This largely came about through the d o c u m e n t Q u a m S i n g u l a r i , approved by Pope Pius X in 1910 which p e r m i t t e d c h i l d r e n to receive Communion at the age of seven. Pope Pius X himself claimed and perhaps to some extent echoed what Don Bosco had said some decades earlier: “There will be saints amongst children.” [Borriello, “Anche i Bambini Possono Essere Santi,” 443-468.]Undoubtedly, the test of time has indeed proved Pope Pius X and Don Bosco right. Towards the end of the 1900s the Church witnessed the opening of so many causes of canonization of children and adolescents. Among these adolescents, in 1954, the Church proclaimed fifteen-year-old Dominic Savio as Saint. Later on in 1988, Pope St John Paul II proclaimed Laura Vicuña as Blessed. This change towards a positive way of perceiving the child’s capability for spirituality has continued to evolve up to today.