(July 28, 2010) Now in Honduras, soon to be in El Salvador, the relics of St. John
Bosco are being taken to communities throughout Central America. The year 2015 will
mark the 200th anniversary of John Bosco's birth, and his relics have been on tour
since June as part of the celebration and will be taken to 130 countries. St. John
Bosco is the founder of the Salesians and well-known for his work with youth. A glass
urn with a life-size statue of the saint contains the relics: bones from his right
hand and forearm. The statue is a model of the one in the Basilica of Our Lady Help
of Christians in Turin, Italy, where the remains of the saint rest. Salesian Father
Tadeusz Rozmus reflected that the right hand of this saint is significant because
with it he "blessed, wrote the Salesian constitutions, the Catholic letters and absolved
sins." The saint's relics are in Honduras until Wednesday, when they will travel
to El Salvador. The urn was already in Costa Rica and was also taken to Nicaragua.
There, President Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, retired archbishop
of Managua, participated in a ceremony with the relics. The relics will be in Mexico
from August 4 to September 11, and from there go to the United States. In Mexico,
the relics will be taken to 30 cities. Don Bosco's relics were blessed on April 25
in Turin by the Salesian superior-general, Mexican Father Pascual Chávez Villanueva.