This was the question posed to the 38 speakers at the international conference on the topic: "Perception of Don Bosco outside Salesian Circles 1879-1965" (Turin, 28 October - 1 November 2015). The conference was organized by the Association of Salesian Historians at the end of the Bicentenary.
The answer was complex. Each era interprets the facts of history from its own perspective, responding to their own questions. And so it was for Don Bosco, who was interpreted according to the situations of individual countries.
For example in the face of the "social question" which troubled half of Europe at the turn of the century, the Catholic world was seen as the pioneer of Christian social action. In India, the popular "secular" theology of Don Bosco was welcomed in some educational environments by tribes in the Northeast but also in the South. In the Catholic Philippines there are schools, clubs and clinics dedicated to Don Bosco. In Buddhist Thailand some schools have promoted his educational method.
In secular France, which had laws hostile to the Church and religious congregations, Don Bosco was celebrated and admired by popular feeling, which acknowledged him as a new St Vincent de Paul, a new St Francis de Sales, a new Cure’ of Ars.
In Brazil, when they were discussing where to locate the federal capital, and there were different political views, the site chosen was the one dreamed of by Don Bosco 70 years previously. The Salesians in Slovenia struggled greatly to make it clear that the highly valued work of Don Bosco was not primarily rehabilitative, but preventive.
Until the middle of the last century the icon of Don Bosco was welcomed everywhere in the popular imagination. He was seen as a much loved and very lovable saint. His image appeared very close to the people, to families and local communities and he was part of the cultural, religious, social, educational and missionary geography of the first half of the twentieth century. His image was modified in the historiography of the succeeding decades, but he was always seen as an affable educator with a human face, an Italian saint with an international standing.
