C.M. Paul
Rome, January 6, 2023 —- Marking 75th anniversary of the murder of the apostle of peace Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a new book by Indian author from Rome explores 19th century Italian priest educationist in a new perspective as peace-builder.
Nathuram Vinayak Godse a Hindu nationalist from Maharashtra shot MK Gandhi popularly known as “Mahatma” in the chest three times at a multi-faith prayer meeting in Birla House in New Delhi on 30 January 1948.
Italian educationist Giovanni Bosco popularly known as Don Bosco who lived between 1815 and 1888 is much admired and known worldwide as a saint, priest, “father, friend and teacher of youth.”
The 470 page Kristu Jyoti Publications Bangalore is entitled: Don Bosco’s Peace Culture – a theory-based study of his response to conflicts.
Author Prof. Peter Gonsalves, an authority in Gandhian studies claims, “no one has attempted a serious study of his [Don Bosco’s] traits of peace and his culture of peace which he radiated through thousands of personal contacts, letters and numerous publications.”
Gonsalves served as Dean of the Faculty of the Sciences of Social Communication at the Salesian University, Rome from 2015 to 2018 and was consultant to the Vatican Dicastery for Communication between 2017- 2022.
To confirm the validity of this curious yet unique choice, the author, Mumbay Salesian Fr. Gonsalves, takes an unconventional approach with his three distinct but interconnected strands of research.
The book is divided into three parts.
The first part of the book presents Don Bosco’s peace response to the various conflicts, challenges and crises in his life.
The second seeks to expand the popular understanding of peace to embrace the scientifically accepted notion proposed by Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, and to test participant perceptions about Don Bosco’s peace traits.
The final study, the major part of the book, explores the personal, social, political, cultural and transcendent aspects of Don Bosco’s peace culture in daily life, thereby highlighting its ever-relevant applicability in different contexts across the world.
The question that lurks the mind of the reader is : How could a simple priest who lived during the middle of the 19th century be an example of “nonviolence” and a practitioner of “conflict resolution” – terms now associated with high-level diplomacy?
Gonsalves aligns the above concepts with Catholic Social Doctrine and creates a theoretical framework with which to explore Don Bosco’s activities and their legacy through Salesians and other Christians today.
Gonsalves does not hesitate to state, “Through the framing of the culture of peace, we see in Don Bosco a strong peace builder, who has created peace within himself and works to see it fructify in the world in a fully nonviolent way.”
The value of this book is not only in its historical accuracy, in its deep analysis of Don Bosco’s behavior in several conflict situations, or in highlighting his unique contribution to the culture of peace but more importantly in inspiring insights for our post-Covid world and our action as Christians and as peace-builders.
Gonsalves’s three major books on Mahatma Gandhi are : Clothing for Liberation: A Communication Analysis of Gandhi’s Swadeshi Revolution (2008); Khadi : Gandhi’s Mega Symbol of Subversion (2012); and Gandhi and the Popes (2015). END