It was Don Bosco himself who began the publication of the "Salesian Bulletin" in August 1877. According to the Biographical Memoirs, a few months earlier he had announced: “we have decided to publish a bulletin which will pretty much become the Congregation's official publication and include many things we need to make known to our cooperators. It will come out regularly and will link Salesians and cooperators." (BM, XIII, p. 61). In the first editions it was called the "Catholic Bibliophile or Monthly Salesian Bulletin". From January 1878 it began to appear under the name it still bears today.
Since then, the Salesian Bulletin has been, by Don Bosco's wish, the written vehicle par excellence of his work. Over time, local editions were created that broke through in several languages, accompanying the pace of Salesian expansion and its increasingly universal character: this is the case of editions in France (1879), Spain (1886), England (1892), Germany (1895), Portugal (1902), Belgium (1914), Austria (1926), Holland (1928), the United States (1940), Argentina (1941)...
Initially, the Spanish edition published in Italy was distributed in Peru. In 1941, due to the complications of the Second World War, the Spanish edition began to be published in Argentina and since then, it was this that began to circulate in the Salesian houses in Peru.
With the passage of time, the need for a local Salesian body to record and disseminate properly Peruvian Salesian activity became evident. Some local works had periodical publications, such as Piura's "La campanilla" (1912) or Puno's "La campana de la Granja" (1934). Among them "El Pan del Alma" (1904) stands out, a Sunday weekly published by the Salesians of the Breña work in Lima. Although it served as a place for the dissemination of local and national Salesian news, it did not have the length and tenor of a bulletin. Perhaps the closest precedent was the publication known as "Don Bosco. Monthly magazine of the Salesian Work in Peru and Bolivia" (1921), published in Lima, irregularly, in the 1920s and 1930s. But unfortunately, it didn't last.
This lasted until 1963, the year in which the Santa Rosa da Lima Province entered a new phase of its history. In that year it ceased to be a binational Province (Peru and Bolivia), since on January 17 the Bolivian houses formed their own Province (BOL) placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Copacabana. In addition, the Rector Major of the time, Fr Renato Ziggiotti, appointed Fr Carlos Cordero Rodríguez as the new Provincial of Peru (30 January), assigning this task to a Peruvian Salesian for the first time.
In this context of changes, which culminated in Rome with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Provincial Council chaired by Fr Cordero decided to print a Peruvian edition of the Salesian Bulletin. And on 2 March 1963, just over a month after the start of the new administration, it was recorded in the minutes: "Already this year the Salesian Bulletin must begin in our Province, but always preserving the characteristics of the one in Turin."
A year later, the first issue was published under the name of "Salesian Bulletin. Organ of Salesian Cooperators ” (March-April 1964). It was twenty pages in black and white, illustrated with local and foreign photographs sent by the Salesian ANS agency, and a cover with a drawing of indigenous inspiration, attributable to Fr Jorge Mauchi.
The publication of the Peruvian edition did not go unnoticed in Turin. In July of that year the Salesian Bulletin in Italian said, "Since last March the ‘Salesian Bulletin’, which has already appeared in 30 different editions, has a new edition: the Peruvian one."
Since then, the magazine has undergone image and even numbering changes. From the first edition, until the March-April 2017 edition (year 52, no. 297), it had sequential numbering. However, due to the requirements for ISSN registration, with the May-June 2017 edition the count was split (Year 1, No. 1) until the September-October 2022 edition (Year 5, No. 32). But from the September-October 2023 edition it was possible to recover the numbering according to its historical trajectory, so much so that so far it has reached year 59, and publication no. 333.
Source: Salesianos.pe
