John Bosco

John Melchior Bosco was born 16 August 1815 in Piedmont and ordained a Catholic priest who went to work in Turin as the city choked on the human cost of the Industrial Revolution. He spent his days with the boys no one wanted—street children, young offenders, the poor—and developed teaching methods that replaced the rod with relationship, a system drawn from the spirituality of Francis de Sales. In 1850 he drafted mutual aid regulations for young Catholic workers who'd lost jobs or fallen sick. In 1859 he founded the Salesians of Don Bosco in Turin; with Maria Domenica Mazzarello he later esta…