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.