Don Bosco always desired to be a missionary. In fact, he is considered a missionary saint, even though he never went on a mission. During the First Vatican Council, several bishops asked him to send Salesians to China, the United States, or Egypt, but Don Bosco had already been trying to discover the distant country from his "Dream at the age of Nine."
Don Bosco's life was that of a dreamer in the broadest sense of the term. He had more than 150 prophetic dreams, some of which were missionary in nature. In the first of these dreams, Argentine Patagonia was revealed to him as the destination for his first missionaries. In another dream, he saw airplanes before they even existed, and in his last dream, on April 10, 1886, while in Barcelona, the Virgin revealed to him the vast scope of the missionaries' work: "Draw a line from Beijing to Santiago de Chile, passing through the heart of Africa, and you will have an exact idea of what the Salesians must do."
His missionary spirit was so strong that just 15 years after founding the Salesian Congregation in 1859, under the name Pious Society of St. Francis de Sales, he sent the First Missionary Expedition to Patagonia, Argentina, in November 1875, with 10 Salesians.
For this reason, Misiones Salesianas organized a tribute to Spanish Salesian missionaries last Friday, February 14, 2025, to commemorate 150 years of Salesian missions. The theater of the Salesian Institute "Atocha" was filled with Salesians, returned missionaries, their relatives, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Salesian Cooperators, and members of the Salesian Family, to highlight the role missionaries play in the world by "building bridges of understanding."
"Our presence is always among the young and is aimed at building bridges."
"We are a missionary congregation," declared Salesian Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Rector Major from 2014 to 2024. "If we were not missionaries, we would now be only 2,000 Salesians working mainly in Italy instead of in 137 countries," he continued. The event also served to present the book La aportación española a las misiones salesianas, produced by the Mission Office.
Also present at the event were the Superior of the "Spain – St. James the Elder" Province (SSM), Fr. Fernando García; Salesian Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, Archbishop of Rabat; Salesian missionaries Fr. Manolo Jiménez, Fr. Faustino García, and Fr. Manolo Ordóñez; and the Director of Misiones Salesianas, Fr. Luis Manuel Moral.
The tribute to the Salesian missionaries began with a moment of remembrance and applause for Salesian missionary Antonio César Fernández, who was assassinated in Burkina Faso on February 15, 2019. Then, the SSM Provincial recalled that the figure of the missionary "is recognized and respected by all," while three testimonies from Spanish Salesians, sent from the Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and Syria, highlighted the Salesian presence "always among the young and aimed at building bridges in society."
The book La aportación española a las misiones salesianas, published by CCS (Central Catequética Salesiana – The Salesian Catechetical Centre) and available for purchase online, the compilation contains references to the nearly 1,300 Spanish Salesian missionaries who have served in the missions. "It was not easy to gather information on all of them, but today we can say that there are 215 living Spanish Salesian missionaries, and 121 of them continue to work across five continents," explained the project director, Fr. Jesús-Graciliano González.
"We are all missionaries from the moment of baptism, and the most important thing is to bear witness, because we need it."
The missionary testimonies of Fr. Manolo Jiménez, a Salesian superior in three different African regions during his 25 years of mission; Fr. Faustino García, a missionary for 30 years and for the past nine years the Director of the "Don Bosco" Free Secondary School in Tunisia; and Fr. Manolo Ordóñez, who went to Angola for five years and ended up staying for 23 long years, reaffirmed the missionary vocation, closeness, joy, and hope that Salesian missionaries always develop in their work, as well as their trust in Providence. The three spoke about how "we are Salesians before being missionaries," about "inculturation," "new frontiers," and "the importance of our presence in Muslim countries because we work for the Kingdom of God."
Cardinal Cristóbal López emphasized that "we are all missionaries from the moment of our baptism. The key is not to focus on convincing others through evangelization or social development work, but rather to bear witness—and now, more than ever, we must be strong witnesses."
The event concluded with Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, who highlighted the significance of the book being presented, stating, "No country has conducted such a comprehensive study on the Salesians as Spain has." He also reflected on his time as Provincial in Southern Argentina, where he had the privilege of visiting the first remote and inhospitable places that welcomed the Salesians 150 years ago. He described those pioneering missionaries as "saints and heroes, but who were also a little crazy."
Source: Misiones Salesianas
