Care and educational activity of the Salesians in Prague in years of People's Poland
Authors: Markiewicz Hanna 
Published: November 2021

The Society of Saint Francis de Sales was founded by St. John Bosco. The guiding principle of the activities of the Salesians was to take care of abandoned and neglected youth. St. John Bosco (b. 1815, d. 1888), who had the good of young people at heart, launched his works in Turin and gave an example of how to make friendly contacts with young people who were waiting for understanding, spiritual support or the warmth of the family. Henceforth, he funded the Oratory, a place that was a substitute for a family home, where love for God and people was sown and deepened. In the Oratory created by John Bosco, his charges, usually vagrants, street children, people with prison experiences, met with understanding, spiritual values, kindness, help, in an atmosphere conducive to overcoming various types of mental crises, as well as material support. Don Bosco also ensured that they would receive education, mainly vocational one. Although he had no formal pedagogical education, St. John Bosco intuitively sensed the needs and expectations of young people. A distinctive characteristic of the educational method developed by St. John Bosco was its preventive system (pre-emptive, anticipatory). Its three pillars are reason, religion and educational love. In 1898 the Salesians came to Poland to Oświęcim where their Motherhouse still exists. After Poland had regained her independence and undergone structural changes, the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was established in Warsaw's Praga district in 1919 and a few years later the Salesians officially took over the basilica, opening an oratory for abandoned, loitering youths in its basement. Praga was a working-class district populated mainly by poor and unemployed people, living in cramped flats with numerous offspring. In pursuit of earnings parents often did not have the time and skills to take care of their own children, hence there was a high crime rate in this district. The Salesians managed to create an educational community and appointed Fr. Ludwik Rupala, a strict follower of the instructions of St. John Bosco and one of the most outstanding educators with many years of teaching practice, to the position of the head of the Oratory. Rupala was in charge of the Oratory from 1934 until the outbreak of World War II. During the war, the Oratory could not function officially and it was only after 1945 that work with youth was resumed, but in a revised format. This change was dictated by the then prevailing communism in which religion was not tolerated, therefore the functions of the Oratory were taken over by altar boys. The authorities tried to make tutelage more difficult for the Salesians, who, in their eyes, were treated as followers of religion, an opium for the people. The scientific, socialist worldview was the leading theme in Polish schools, where there was no room for either religion or Catholic organizations that successfully functioned in the pre-war Polish education. Despite admonition from the church hierarchy regarding the removal of all religious elements from schools, the state authorities have not changed their position on this issue since 1947. Irrespectively of the position of the authorities, the Salesians unofficially continued their educational and pastoral work among the Praga children and youths, organizing summer holidays, providing shelter, developing interests, promoting culture, creating a healthy educational environment, cultivating Christian traditions by putting on Nativity plays and the Passion of the Lord, receiving the Eucharist. And the reluctance of the residents of both the district and the citizens of the country towards the new system has integrated them, as more and more young people clung to the Praga Oratory which was providing home warmth, religious education, entertainment, education and relaxation.