ROME: 12th Sept. '04 --  With already some sixty members, three of whom are from the EAO region (Korea), the CDB, founded at the Salesian General House, Rome in 1994 by Fr. Vigano the then Rector Major, celebrated their tenth birthday on 12th September '04.  Nine of them gathered at the General House in Rome for this occasion.

The CDB (standing for 'con Don Bosco' or 'with Don Bosco') are a male group gradually aiming for the status of Secular Institute within the Church.  They were officially recognised as a Public Association of the Faithful by the Archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela, on 24th May 1998, and their first Ecclesiastical Assistant was Fr Corrado Bettiga, the present Rector of the General House in Rome.  The Ecclesiastical Assistant today is Fr Julio Olarte. Already they have several finally professed members, the most recent of these just finally professed three weeks ago. 

From 12th-18th September 1994, seven young men gathered at the General House in Rome and made their first profession.  On that occasion the Rector Major told them that they 'must be discoverers of Don Bosco the Founder, to try to understand the Holy Spirit, to see what the Holy Spirit was doing' in their regard for the good of the Church.

Today the CDB membership is spread around the world: Italy, South America, Malta, France, Central America, Korea, Czech Republic.  CDB members profess the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience but do not live in community.  Instead they continue to live within the world, in their local environment, perhaps within their family.  They give particular attention in their work to young people,  above all the poorest and most abandoned, to vocations and to the missions.  Their Salesian asceticism is based on 'work and temperance'.

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