Don Bosco is popularly admired and known around the globe as a saint, priest, ‘father, friend and teacher of youth’. However, no one has attempted a serious study on his peace traits and the peace culture he radiated to the thousands he encountered – physically, through his letters and his copious publications. To confirm the validity of this curious yet unique choice, the author, Fr Peter Gonsalves, SDB, adopts an unconventional approach with three separable yet interconnected research trends. The first part of the book presents Don Bosco’s peace response to twenty conflicts in his own life. The second broadens the popular understanding of ‘peace’ to embrace the scientifically accepted notion proposed by sociologist Johan Galtung and to test participant perceptions about Don Bosco’s peace characteristics. The final study which forms the bulk of the book, explores the personal, social, political, cultural and transcendental aspects of Don Bosco’s routine peace culture, thereby highlighting its universal and ever-relevant applicability.
Peer reviewers have expressed their appreciation for this work accomplished over the span of three years:
Antonino Drago, professor of the history of physics at the University of Naples (1986-2004), Italian pacifist and recipient of the prestigious Premio Nazionale Cultura della Pace in the year 2000, predicts: “It will be a book that will be a reference for many other studies to follow.”
Sr Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at Vatican City says: “The value of this book is not only in its historical accuracy, in its deep analysis of Don Bosco’s behaviour in a conflict situation, or in highlighting his unique contribution to the culture of peace but more importantly in inspiring insights for our world and our actions as Christians and as peacebuilders.”
Fr Morand Wirth, SDB, historian, prolific author and spiritual guide at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome, considers it “opportune and significant that this path-breaking book dedicated to Don Bosco’s peace culture be published precisely in this year 2022, a year in which the disciples and admirers of St. Francis de Sales celebrate the 400th anniversary of his death. The patron saint of Don Bosco and of the Salesian family deserves this felicitous privilege.”
Fr Michael Winstanley, SDB, formation delegate, Rector, Provincial of the Salesian province of Great Britain (twice) and international author and preacher writes to Fr Gonsalves: “I have found it extremely well written, very interesting, very professional. I enjoyed it. I hope that your book will be published soon, and receives the accolade it deserves. Many thanks and congratulations.”
Fr Michal Vojtáš, SDB, Professor and Vice Rector of the Salesian University who holds the chair of Salesian History and Pedagogy and is Director of the Don Bosco Study Centre, has included this book as the sixth volume in the distinguished series of Studi e Strumenti and explains: “This publication offers a new perspective on the life of Don Bosco through an elaborate study. Seen through the lens of Galtung's theory, the categories of peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding create interpretative coordinates that help to throw new light on the preventive and expressive dimensions of Don Bosco's educational method for our times.”
Gonsalves, is from the Province of Mumbai, India, and was the founder-director of the publishing house Tej-prasarini (Light-Diffuser) between 1992-2000. In 2001, he was invited to the Salesian Headquarters on the Via della Pisana to design, initiate and coordinate the first Salesian five-language portal, www.sdb.org. After completing his doctorate in 2007, he was co-opted to lecture in the Faculty of the Sciences of Social Communication at the Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. He served as Dean of the same Faculty from 2015 to 2018 and is consultant to the Vatican Dicastery for Communication since 2017.
This book, Don Bosco’s Peace Culture, is the fruit of his longstanding desire to widen the horizon of discourse around Don Bosco’s non-violent approach to education manifested also through his gentleness in imitation of St. Francis de Sales. Gonsalves is competent to take up this study as he is conversant with studies on nonviolence and peace as well as Bosconian-Salesian pedagogy. His doctoral research on Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent sartorial approach to liberating India from British imperialism is available in three publications: Clothing for Liberation (Sage: 2010), Khadi: Gandhi’s Mega Symbol of Subversion (Sage: 2012) and Gandhi and the Popes – from Pius XI to Francis (Peter Lang: 2015). He has authored three manuals for teachers: Exercises in Media Education (1999), Exercises in Peace Education (2003/2019) and Don Bosco’s Way - a South Asian Perspective (2011); and has also proposed a contemporary reading of the preventive system with a collection of best practices in Salesian Expressive Education (2012). All four productions of Tej-prasarini are freely downloadable from his website: www.petergonsalves.in
Copies of the 450-page book, Don Bosco’s Peace Culture, will be on sale at the website of LAS (https://www.editricelas.it/), the publishing house of the Salesian University, from the month of September 2022.
