Fr Francesco Motto, Director of the Salesian Historical Institute, has recently produced anew book, dedicated to the Salesian community which for many years has had the pastoral care of the communities of Italian immigrants in the North Beach district of San Francisco, California.
The author traces the history of the national parish of SS. Peter and Paul in San Francisco, presenting the first Salesian pioneers who cared for the parish community and following the progress as they gradually won the esteem and concern of the local people.
In the introduction Fr Motto writes: “When the group of Salesians first appeared in public on Sunday 14 March 1897, there was no one to introduce them to the small group of the faithful present”. Nevertheless in 1930, at the funeral of Fr Raffaele Piperni, parish priest and rector from the very beginning there was a “great gathering of the people and local authorities” and even the traditionally anticlerical newspapers recognised the great work carried out by the Salesian and his co-workers.
Fr Motto’s book, therefore, pays due honour to the great work of the Salesians for the Italian community of immigrants at North Beach, struggling with the problems of their recent arrival, the regional and anti-Catholic prejudices. The author himself says that the publication of this book “seemed a duty in justice and a useful reminder of our past, as well as an historical contribution to fill a gap on the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy”.
In fact the book has received the patronage of the “Italia centocinquanta” Committee (in reference to the 150th anniversary, in 2011, of the Unification of Italy) and is the first in a short series of books and publications which will give some account of what the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians have done for Italian youth in these 150 years.
Published 19/10/2010
