NEW ROCHELLE, NY Sept. 12, 2018 (Excerpt) A chaplain to the Missionaries of Charity Sisters in Yemen at that time who was also serving Catholics there on a religious visa, Father Uzhunnalil, now 60, was abducted March 4, 2016, after a group of gunmen barged into the care home for the elderly run by...
Read Full Story(Crux) Preparing for pope, young Chileans say they’re glad he wants their views
January 8, 2018SANTIAGO, CHILE Jan. 8, 2018 (Excerpt) The playground at the Salesian-run school is filled with children in brightly colored swimsuits, laughing and screaming as young Catholic volunteers spray them with water in the 100-degree summer sunshine. The children range in age from 6 to 12. They are...
(Crux) Salesian priest remembers the day Father Tom was kidnapped in Yemen
December 15, 2017MUMBAI, INDIA Dec. 15, 2017 (Excerpt) Salesian Father George Muttathuparambil received the phone call at 11:15 in the morning on March 4, 2016. Sister Sally, the mother superior of the Missionaries of Charity center in the Yemeni port city of Aden, was in a state of shock on the phone. The other...
Global Sisters Report: Where gangs are family, job training offers chance to escape violence
December 14, 2017CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Dec. 14, 2017 (Excerpt) It’s not the gangster language itself that worries Sr. Ana Maria Mainero, a Salesian Sister of Don Bosco. What worries Mainero is when young children start using those words, signifying their uneasy relationship with neighborhood gangs. Words like...
(Crux) Salesians use anniversary of Indian shrine to reflect on mission to youth
November 16, 2017MUMBAI, INDIA Nov. 16, 2017 (Excerpt) The church was built in the city’s Matunga neighborhood in 1957 by Italian Salesian Father Aurelius Maschio, who modelled it on the famous church in Turin bearing the same title. The Salesians already operated Don Bosco High School in the same neighborhood,...
(National Catholic Reporter) Salesian-run ministries in Uganda aid South Sudanese fleeing violence
November 3, 2017PALABEK REFUGEE CAMP, UGANDA Nov. 3, 2017 (Excerpt) As civil war escalates in South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, refugees fleeing violence gather over the border in northern Uganda to ask God for peace. They sing hymns and sometimes recite the rosary. Others fall to their knees and weep in...
(Catholic News Service) Salesian home gives former child-soldiers new lease on life
February 2, 2017ROME Feb. 2, 2017 (Excerpt) While the process of healing and reconciliation continues in Colombia after 52 years of war, Salesians in the country are helping some of the most vulnerable victims of the conflict: former child-soldiers. On the lush green hillsides of Colombia’s second-largest city,...
(Ink Stick Media) Haitians south of the border: A tale of two cities
January 29, 2017TIJUANA, MEXICO Jan. 29, 2017 (Excerpt) In 2016 and early 2017 Haitians started pouring into Tijuana. And they came in droves. The sheer numbers overwhelmed the downtown shelters. At one point some shelters that had room for 30 people, usually Mexicans that the U.S. deported, were occupied by...