Arunachal Pradesh Home Minister pays homage to Don Bosco
(May 20, 2011) A leading minister of north-eastern India’s Arunachal Pradesh has
paid tribute to St. John Bosco, popularly known as Don Bosco, saying he has transformed
the lives of young people. “Don Bosco is a great personality, who made a difference
in history and continues to make a difference in the lives of the young,” Tokodabi,
the state Home Minister said last Sunday paying homage to the founder of the Salesians
of Don Bosco at a function organised by St. Mary`s Parish Church in the state capital
Itanagar. More than 2,000 well-wishers and friends of Don Bosco gathered on the
occasion of the veneration of the casket containing his relics, that is currently
touring India. Earlier on Sunday, Father Nestor Guria, Vice Provincial of the Salesian
Province of Dimapur, concelebrated a Mass at St. Mary`s Church, during which eleven
co-operators pledged to join in furthering Don Bosco’s mission. The Mass also saw
10 new communicants and several new baptisms. On Friday, the relics arrived in Sacred
Heart School, Golaghat, in neighbouring Assam state. A glass casket with a life-size
wax replica of Don Bosco containing bones and tissues of his right hand and arm is
currently on a tour of Salesian centres and missions worldwide in commemoration of
the 200th anniversary of his birth. Born on August 16, 1815, and died on January
31, 1888, Don Bosco started great educational and trade institutions for the disadvantaged
all over the world.