Founding and Renewing the Salesian Cooperators

Chronology: From Don Bosco's Friends to a World Federation

1841 'From the beginning of the work of the Oratories in 1841, there were enthusiastic and keen priests and lay-men...' is how Don Bosco begins his little sketch of the origin of the Cooperators in their regulations of 1876 (see below).

1845 DB got some indulgences from Gregory XVI and applied them to his Cooperators.

1846 Fr. Borel takes over direction of the Oratory in Don Bosco's sickness. Mamma Margaret moves into the Pinardi shed with him when he recovers in the fall.

1849 DB gives hospitality to cleric Ascanio Savio when the archdiocesan seminary closed. He added four other candidates (Felix Reviglio, Joseph Buzzetti, James Bellia, andour old friend Charlie Gastini). Only one, Bro. Buzzetti, joined the Salesian Society (not until 1877!), but all were of great help.

1850 Around 1850, DB uses 'Congregation of St. Francis de Sales' to refer to him and his helpers. Besides them, the 'Provisional Pious Union of St. Francis de Sales' is a group of lay people aiming to spread good books. Compare with original title of Salesian Bulletin in 1877 (see below).

1850 DB asked Pius IX for spiritual favors for a 'Congregation of St. Francis de Sales', meaning the staff of the several Oratories. This is the first time the name appears on a public document.

1852 Archbishop Fransoni, by letter from exile in Lyons, appoints Don Bosco head of the Oratories of St. Francis de Sales, St. Aloysius and of the Guardian Angel; gives him faculty to give the habit to clerics destined for service at the Oratories.

1853-1862 First shops at Valdocco; staff is nearly all outside craftsmasters.

1859 Salesian religious foundation, the Salesian Society.

1861 Fr. Ciattino, pastor of Maretto accepted on May 11 'as a tertiary' member. He is listed in handwritten roster as 'Tertiary-Cooperator'. Rua's copy of the first Salesian catalog has him as 'extern member'.

1862 Fr. Pestarino joins Salesian Society. He functions as an 'extern' at Mornese.

1864 Decretum laudis for Salesian Society. But the Constitutions' chapter on 'externs' is rejected. In 1867, 1869, and 1873 Don Bosco tries to put that chapter of rules for externs in an appendix to the Constitutions. No dice: see next entry.

1874 Constitutions of Salesian Society approved, but without the externs. Don Bosco turns instead to the Cooperator project as a means to preserve the idea.

1875-1888 Cooperators help to outfit missionary expeditions.

1876 DB gives Archbishop Gastaldi a copy of the regulations and of the papal brief of approval, asks his blessing and offers honorary membership. The Archbishop forbids publication. A nasty dispute ensues. DB never got the Cooperators approved in any diocese as Gastaldi wanted, because he considered them a spin-off of the Salesian Society.

1876 Pius IX approves Don Bosco's regulations for the'Union of Salesian Cooperators', and suggests a single Union for men and women. Text available in Rule of Apostolic Life (RAL) 86-96.

1877 DB plans for the First General Chapter (GC1) to consider Cooperators the 'soul of the Congregation'. The Chapter deliberates rules for Salesians to help the Cooperators. Count Charles Cays invited by DB as a chapter member. At this time, the Count was a novice; he had been a Cooperator. Chapter deliberates rules for Salesians to help the Cooperators, opens membership to whole schools, to religious of other Orders, to Franciscan and Dominican Tertiaries.

1877 Bro. Peter Barale's magazine (published since 1875) The Salesian Book Lover begins publication with name changed to The Salesian Book Lover or Salesian Bulletin, with the new purpose of uniting the Salesians with the Cooperators.

1878 June Salesian Bulletin publishes first necrology of Cooperators, including Card. Berardi.

1878 Newly elected Leo XIII wants to be not only Cooperator, but 'operator'. Cardinal Louis Oreglia, brother of the Jesuit and former Salesian brother Sir Frederick Oreglia, named Cardinal Protector of the Cooperators.

1880 Conference by DB to Cooperators in Marseilles, France.

1881 Jewish M. Lattes of Nice joins.

1881 Sixth missionary expedition crosses on steamer Umberto I, owned by Cooperator Evasio Piaggio.

1882 Cooperator Fr. Apollonio chosen Bishop of Treviso.

1882 DB addresses Cooperator groups in France.

1883 GC3 asks for clarifications on Cooperators. DB responds with draft rules for 'decurions' (leader of 10 or more Cooperators, usually a pastor, possibly a priest or Cooperator).

1884 Entire convent of Visitation nuns in Pinerolo joins.

1886 DB says 'There will come a time when the name "Cooperator" will mean "true Christian"...' See Apostolicam Actuositatem, Vatican II decree on the lay apostolate, §33, the last sentence in the document.

1886 DB addresses Cooperator groups in Spain.

1886 GC4 discusses promotion of Cooperators by Salesian parish pastors.

1886 Three Cardinals and 50 Italian bishops join.

1887 Acts of GC3 and 4 recommend steering artisan past pupils to the Cooperators or a Catholic labor organization.

1893 A 'General Chapter of Diocesan Directors' of the Cooperators is celebrated at Valsalice. It begins planning the Bologna Congress.

1893 Fr. Rua publishes Manual of Theory and Practice for Salesians to help the Cooperators.

1895 First International Congress of Cooperators in Bologna.

1900 Second International Congress in Buenos Aires.

1903 Third International Congress in Turin. Official contacts with the Catholic Congresses movement.

1904 GC10 codifies new set of regulations for Salesians to promote the Cooperators. Focus on duties of provincial and local delegates, and of each Salesian.

1906 Fourth International Congress in Lima; Fifth in Milan.

1909 Sixth in Santiago de Chile.

1910 Congresses of Cooperators and Past Pupils in Turin. These were planned to coincide with Fr. Rua's priestly jubilee, but he died in April.

1915 Seventh International Congress in São Paulo, Brazil.

1920 Congresses of Cooperators (Eighth) and Past Pupils in Turin; dedication of cast bronze monument to DB. These were planned for DB Centenary in 1915, but the war interfered.

1920 Fr. Ricaldone (Councilor for Arts and Trades) writes that brothers, pastors and Cooperators can find Salesian brother vocations.

1925 Cooperators organize Congresses in various places to commemorate golden jubilee of Salesian missions, including Ninth International Congress at Buenos Aires.

1926 Tenth International Congress in Turin.

1930 Eleventh International Congress in Bogotà, and the last until 1952.

1947 GC16 thanks Cooperators for efforts in helping the increasingly sophisticated and expensive Salesian technical schools.

1952 Pius XII's address to Convention (not Congress) of Cooperators in Rome places their apostolate in the orbit of the lay apostolate.

1958 International Convention at Brussels. GC18 clearly distinguishes Cooperators from Benefactors.

1961 International Convention at Barcelona.

1964 Fr. Ricceri, Councilor for the Cooperators, interprets 'hour of the laity' as 'hour of the Cooperators'.

1965 GC19 adopts Fr. Ricceri's draft document on Cooperators by acclamation. This is in homage to the new RM, but prevents any serious debate. The document places the movement clearly in the line of lay apostolate, recommends a youth section, and calls them the 'Third Salesian Family'.

1965 Council document on laity ends saying the Lord sends the laity on the Church's mission, and 'they are to show themselves his cooperators' (AA 33).

1966-1971 Between GC19 and SGC, Young Cooperators develop in Italy.

1971 The 20th General Chapter, also called the Special General Chapter, commits Salesian Society to 'revitalization' of the Cooperators, in response to their message to Chapter. The same Chapter put out a renewed theology of the Salesian Family.

1974 Renewed interim regulations.

1985 Renewed Rule of Apostolic Life finished, promulgated by Fr. Viganò.

1986 Approval of Rule of Apostolic Life.

Spiritual and Charismatic Meaning

As we have seen from the chronology, Don Bosco clearly believed in the 1870's that the Cooperators began in 1841 with the Oratory. The question is, did he have that expansive view in the 1840's? A piece of evidence in favor of the 'from the beginning' view is the 1850 'Provisional Union of St. Francis de Sales'.

The abuses of a free press in matters religious and the sacrilegious war being waged by many apostate Christians against the Church and her ministers have prompted the undersigned laymen ...

1. To form a provisional pious union under the patronage of St. Francis de Sales...

2. This provisional pious society shall be the nucleus of a larger association, which... shall sponsor such educational, moral, and material undertakings as may be considered most opportune and effective in checking the spread of irreligion, and, if possible, in eradicating irreligion wherever it may have already taken root. (MB IV:172 = EBM IV 120-121)

Don Bosco's view of what the Cooperators should do is similar to the scope of the Salesians. The key sentence of the 1876 regulations, compared to DB's Constitutions, makes this clear:

1858 C I.1:
Purpose of this congregation
1. The purpose of this society is to gather together priests, clerics, and laymen who wish to strive after perfection by imitating Our Divine Savior's virtues, especially through works of charity on behalf of destitute youths. / 1875 C I.1:
I. Purpose of the society of St. Francis de Sales
1. The purpose of the Salesian Society is the Christian perfection of its members, all spiritual and corporal works of charity towards the young especially poor ones, and also the education of the young Clergy. It consists of priests, clerics and laymen. / 1876 regulations for the Cooperators:
The fundamental scope of the Salesian Cooperators is to do good to themselves by leading a life which is similar to that which is observed by Religious in the Common Life as far as they are able... This has for its principal end an active life in the exercise of charity towards one's neighbor and especially towards youth who are in moral danger.

So, the Cooperators have essentially the same scope as the Salesian Society, and a life as close as possible to religious. DB even says some would go to the cloister if they could!

Don Bosco explained the scope of the Cooperators to Fr. Lemoyne in 1884: their scope is not to help the Salesians, but the Church's pastors... instruments in the hands of the bishops. This is a change from the 1876 regulations. Already in 1876, Don Bosco was calling the Cooperators Catholic Freemasons.

The 1895 Bologna Congress, in Fr. Rua's words, aimed at 'the good of souls, and especially a new and powerful thrust for Christian education of the young and for a true regeneration of society...' The Salesian Bulletin said it was to answer Leo XIII'scall for the Catholic Congresses to confront the Church's enemies. As a matter of fact, however, relations between the Catholic Congresses and the Cooperators were minimal up to 1895: the leader of the Congresses, a lawyer named Giambattista Paganuzzi, was at this Cooperators' Congress at Bologna.

By the 1930 Congress at Bogotà, some were asking why have Cooperators when there was Catholic Action. When Fr. Ricaldone took over in 1932, and Fr. Trione died in 1935, the steam seemed to go out of the Cooperators' movement. The need for reconstruction after WW II brought back some interest.

GC17 and GC18 recommended study of Catholic Action in formation houses for brothers. Pius XII, addressing the Cooperators at Castelgandolfo in 1952, called them 'auxiliaries' of Catholic Action. He put the Cooperators' apostolate squarely in the framework of lay apostolate.

Fr. Egidio Viganò (Rector Major 1978-1995) says that Don Bosco came at the beginning of a new, industrial age; the former agrarian age had passed away. The new age was one of massive popular participation in society, and he wanted the Cooperators to participate massively in a Christian way. That is why he started with so many different kinds of helpers, right from the beginning.

When the Cooperators came to the 20th General Chapter of the Salesians, they said they preferred the name 'Salesians who are Cooperators' rather than 'Salesian Cooperators'.

Their new rules (The Rule of Apostolic Life, 1985), says in Art. 3:

3. A True Salesian in the World

Cooperators are Catholics who, while living their faith within the framework of their own secular condition, draw their inspiration from Don Bosco's apostolic project:

- by committing themselves to the same mission among the young and the poor, in partnership and a brotherly way,

- in close communion with the other members of the Salesian Family,

- working for the good of the Church and of society,

- to the best of their ability.
Cooperators are the Salesian Family's link to the world.