Giuseppe Federici Study Center – For a new onset

The WALDESIANS continued to spread their errors among the people through words and the press, giving away 80 lire to those who allowed themselves to be ascribed to their sect. Some of the young people from the festive Oratories, which had caused serious displeasure to D. Bosco, and in certain matters they had sided against him, they had allowed themselves to be led into apostasy, accepting that vile coin. The consequence was therefore that their hatred sought to be vented against their former companions, from whom their conscience warned them that from now on they would be considered renegades. One evening Tomatis came home around 9 ore. Passing near the Consolata church, descended towards the Oratory, when he notices that two individuals are chasing him. Fearful, he quickens his pace, and they too. He runs and can enter the courtyard and close the door in time, because if he had delayed an instant they would have caught up with him. He immediately went to tell the story [347] a D. Bosco, who arranged for some precautions to protect the safety of the community.

D. Bosco, Giuseppe Brosio wrote to us, he suffered greatly from these defections and betrayals. One Sunday he preached in Valdocco against the errors of the Protestants and with fiery words he complained about those young people, who allowed themselves to be deceived by the leaders of impiety, and unmasked the deceptive arts which they used to lead youth to certain perdition. Suddenly he interrupted the sermon, as he used to do sometimes, and began to question some of the children, so that the classmates understood the topic well. Thus he clarified the reasons that invincibly defended some of the dogmas denied by the Protestants, mainly the virginity of the Madonna. D. Bosco became very excited while carrying out his argument, that his face became resplendent as if it were the flame of a lamp. I saw this. We will say in due time how on another occasion we were also witnesses of similar wonder.

Meanwhile D. Bosco had begun to devote himself with great diligence to the work of converting the heretics. For many years his constancy was such, which he had the consolation of receiving, in considerable numbers, recantations of apostates and those who were born in heresy. It is not to say how much he enjoyed when he could join someone to the true Church.

He was often visited by those who, deceived by the Waldensians, they had denied the faith, and he welcomed them with all kindness, he explained Catholic truths to them very clearly, he showed them how they had been seduced, he put before them the bad step they had taken: encouraging them to never despair of God's Mercy. In the same, time helped them as much as he could. Some were needy, and after having instructed them he gave them some aid. Others [348] welcomed them into the Oratory so that they would be freed from the possibility of falling back into error and so that they could be better catechised. I hospitalized some poor Protestant boys, instruct, and converted. Entire families were brought back by him into the fold of Jesus Christ, providing for some the way to live honestly with their own efforts. D. bears witness to everything said here. Two.

Some of the Waldensian neophytes came to the Oratory more to argue than to convert, e D. Bosco agreed. I myself, Can told us. Anfossi, I have witnessed these disputes argued by him several times, and the subtlety of the arguments he used was admirable, and it clearly appeared that not only had he made particular study with the aim of refuting the errors of Protestantism, but what was more, it had a special light from heaven; and which was also evident from the great charity with which he interacted with these deluded people. They did not always use courteous ways towards him, but he never stopped treating them gently. He said this was the most necessary virtue, particularly with heretics. In fact, if they realize that you want to prevail over them, then they get ready, not already to know the truth, but to fight it; and lively protests close the door of their hearts, while affability would have opened it. In fact, Saint Francis de Sales, although very skilled in controversy, he gained more heretics with his sweetness, than through science. The strength of an argument without the sweetness never converted anyone.

And more than one of the aforementioned presumptuous people were persuaded by D. Bosco, and placed back in Peter's boat.

The so-called Waldensian shepherds did not take long to notice the zeal with which D. Bosco worked to bring back the backsliders to the Catholic faith. Then some of them themselves came to D. Bosco, with the hope of refuting it and [349] to then boast about it publicly. But they could never do it, not only for the strength of his reasons, but because he knew how to stop them in those digressions from one topic to another, in which they are masters, both because of their ignorance, and for the art of making the conclusion of a thesis impossible, determined. D. Bosco sometimes left the argument direct and positive, and proceeded with questions, especially when it comes to ecclesiastical history, council of the gods, of the SS. Fathers, and their haphazard answers fell into such anachronisms as to make the hens laugh. He was also very expert in obtaining, even from a fairly cultured opponent, concessions whose consequences he had not been able to foresee, and it created such embarrassments and difficulties for him that he could not free himself from. Those gentlemen therefore returned humiliated.

Meanwhile, also this year he continued to distribute a new edition of the booklet entitled Notices to Catholics, which in thousands of copies promoted great good in Piedmont and especially in Turin. While but D. Bosco, he fought the heresy camped outside the circle of the walls of Valdocco, the ugly beast was trying to sow discord in the Oratory itself.

A certain reformed friar minor of the convent of S. Thomas in Turin, Father Vitale Ferrero, brother of some boys who attended the Oratory, he had become very good friends with D. Bosco. He knew how to conceal the wickedness of his heart so well, that D. Bosco, believing he was a trustworthy person, he had invited him to lunch with him several times . So in that year 1852 commissioned him to give the panegyric of Saint Francis de Sales on the feast day. The friar ascended the pulpit, and he began to speak in Piedmontese dialect which he understood very well. The descriptions he outlined were alive. Painted S. Francesco on foot, tired, went up the mountain [350] to save souls, and that he mended his clothes which he had spoiled, making the parallel with others who ride in a carriage and send their stuff to the tailor. With those others he was referring to the Bishops.

Then he brought a parable of the eagle and the fox. The eagle was on a tree, and the fox crawled on the ground, full of disgusting sores, pestilentially, and wanting to hide his wounds, he tried to hide among the hedges and then go among the animals and infect them. But the eagle watched for a while’ of time all the fox's sneaky steps, and then he cried out to all kinds of animals: – Beware of the fox! – And the perfidious preacher concluded: – Children, you know who the eagle was? Luther! You know who the fox was? The Catholic Church!

To this conclusion D. Bosco, who up to that point had been attentive to his every word with immense pain, he advanced towards the pulpit as the friar descended, and took him by the hem of his habit, he told him in a vibrant voice, so that all the young men heard: – You are unworthy of wearing this dress!

After a short time, that unfortunate man left the convent with permission from his superiors, on the pretext of attending to his old father. However, he arrived home dressed as a secular priest, he kicked his father out into the middle of the street, then he threw away the dress, and ended up giving himself over to Protestantism with a public profession of heterodox faith, under the guidance of the Waldensian pastor Amedeo Bert. Sent to London to pervert the Italians residing there, he died in the same year from a stab wound received by a compatriot.

The unfortunate man had come to preach in the Oratory in agreement with the Protestants; but he hadn't been able to contain himself carefully, immediately throwing away the sheepskin. Those young people who heard it, [351] after about 40 years they still remembered the impious parable in every detail. That story had made such an impression on their souls!

E D. With great pain Bosco had narrated to them the apostasy of that unfortunate man, recommending him to their prayers

With such an unsuccessful coup, heresy had created greater abhorrence against itself in the minds of those of the Oratory.(…)

Meanwhile the Waldensians, near the temple they were building, they began to found schools for girls from wealthy families, others for poor young people of both sexes, a nursery school, a hospital, a Deaconry to distribute subsidies to the poor, and not far away a college of Waldensian craftsmen. But to this industriousness in evil, paid largely by England, D. Bosco contrasted his industriousness for good with great sacrifices: to profane constructions, where error would be taught and blasphemy would resound, sacred buildings, in which the truth would be preached and the holy name of God glorified; to the accumulated treasures of the Bible Societies, the offering of faith and charity.

source – http://www.centrostudifederici.org/don-bosco-la-setta-valdese/