Salesian Domestic Volunteers

Who are the Salesians?

DON BOSCO’S SALESIAN FAMILY WORLDWIDE

In every continent there are so many young people hungering and thirsting for truth and love. They are restlessly in search of a friend like Don Bosco to bring them to the love of Christ. To do this, Don Bosco’s mission demands the presence of an entire family – The Salesian Family.

Our Family is made up of:
• SDBs: Consecrated men, lay and clerical
• FMAs: Consecrated women
• Cooperators: Lay Catholics who live fully Don Bosco’s spirit and mission in the Church and in the world.
• Youth and Young Adults: Past pupils and Members of the Salesian Youth Movement.
• A number of religious orders and associations who live the style, method and mentality of Don Bosco as their spirituality. There are 22 of them.

Don Bosco envisioned a countless array of Salesians working for the salvation of the young. Here below are the statistics of some of them.

THE SALESIANS OF DON BOSCO (SDBs)

Professed Salesians are 15,952:
• Priests – 10,669
• Salesian Brothers – 2,025
• Seminarians – 2,765
• Novices – 487
• Bishops – 118
• Cardinals – 5
- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (Secretary of State – Vatican City)
- Cardinal Raffaele Farina (Archivist and Librarian – Vatican City )
- Cardinal Joseph Zen (Bishop of Hong Kong – China, retired)
- Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo (Archbishop of Managua – Nicaragua, retired)
- Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga (Archbishop of Tegucigalpa – Honduras)

There are 8 Regions containing 91 Provinces.

The Salesian Congregation is present today in 130 countries of the world:

AFRICA – 43 countries
AMERICA – 22 countries
ASIA-MIDDLE EAST – 28 countries
AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA – 6 countries
EUROPE – 31 countries

The Salesian serve young people in more than 2000 institutions: Academic Schools, Trade and Agricultural Schools, Colleges, Universities, Oratories and Youth Centers, Parishes, Missions, Youth Movements, Publishing Houses, Media Broadcasting Centers, Multimedia Productions, Theatre and Music Clubs, Sport Clubs, Art and Graphic Schools, Catechetical Centers, Rural Development projects, Homes for street Children Asylums, Rehabilitation Homes, Counseling Centers, Centers for Immigrant Youth, Vocational Centers, Centers for Volunteering, Funding Agencies, etc.

THE DAUGHTERS OF MARY HELP OF CHRISTIAN (FMAs)
The Salesians Sisters is the common name for the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians or FMA (Filiae Mariae Auxiliatrice), a congregation of religious women within the Catholic Church who are dedicated to the evangelization of the young and the poor according to the spirit of their founders, St John Bosco and St Mary Domenica Mazzarello.
Internationally, there are approximately 15,000 Salesians Sisters working in about 89 countries:
• 23 countries in America
• 22 countries in Africa
• 18 countries in Asia-Middle East
• 3 countries in Oceania
• 23 countries in Europe
They seek to bring God to young people through educative activities conducted in a variety of contexts including schools, camps, hostels, retreat work and youth centers.

SALESIAN COOPERATORS
The Salesian Cooperators are a public association of lay Catholics, men and women, (about 35.000 in number) who share in the spirit and mission of Don Bosco. They live their vocation to contribute to the salvation of the young within the context of their own life, work, family and local parish. Groups of Salesian Cooperators are often associated with a local Salesian school, parish or youth center.
The Salesian Cooperators were established by Don Bosco himself. In order to address the needs of the hundreds of young people who came to him, Don Bosco sought the cooperation of committed Catholics to assist him in conducting and funding his work. His own mother, Mamma Margaret, was his first great collaborator in the work of the Oratory at Valdocco.
Don Bosco eventually formalized these collaborators and they made promises to live as disciples and missionaries to the young – in their ordinary life. With the help of Pope Pius IX the Salesian Cooperators gained canonical status as the Association of Salesian Cooperators in 1876.

SALESIAN PAST PUPILS

These are Salesian Young Adults and Alumni who make up the Salesian Youth Movement. They comprise of the vast majority of Salesian Family members. Every young person who has been to a Salesian school, Oratory or parish is part of the Salesian Family for life. There is official and unofficial membership as an alumnus but Don Bosco’s spirit lives on in the hearts of every man or woman that was Salesian educated.

22 OTHER MOVEMENTS, CONGREGATIONS

Many other groups make up the Salesian Family particularly religious orders that were founded by SDBs or FMAs and Salesian past pupils. Here below we list them:

Volunteers of Don Bosco
Daughters of Sacred Heart
Salesian Oblates of the Sacred Heart
Apostles of the Holy Family
Caritas Sisters of Miyazaki
Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians
Daughters of the Divine Savior
Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Sisters of Jesus the Adolescent
Association Damas Salesianas
Association of Mary Help of Christians
Catechists Sisters of Mary Immaculate Help of Christians
Daughters of the Queenship of Mary Immaculate
Volunteers with Don Bosco
Witnesses of the Risen Lord TR 2000
Congregation of St. Michael the Archangel
Congregation of Sisters of the Resurrection
Sisters Announcers of the Lord
The Disciples – Secular Institute
Friends of “Canção Nova”
Sisters of Maria Auxiliatrix
Community of the mission of Don Bosco (CMB)

MARY HELP OF CHRISTIANS… PRAY FOR US!