member of a Roman Catholic order (called, guess what, the
Salesians: more completely order of Saint Francis de Sales).
The order was founded in Turin (Torino), Italy, in 1845 by Don Giovanni Bosco. Don Bosco dedicated himself to education and missionary (anti-Socialist) work.
The chief calling of the order, nowadays, is education.
In Italy the Salesiani still offer high-quality education (at a price). Curiously, they started out with professional schools for poor kids that had to learn a job - any job - to survive. In Salesian schools (that they call houses) education is uniformly good - the fathers all have at least one university degree - and the food is uniformly horrible.
A specialized order of nuns toils in the Salesian kitchens, faultlessly overcooking pasta, destroying vegetables and hardening the meat.
The Salesians also rejoice in a secundary co-saintlet, San Domenico Savio. According to what the good fathers told us, he must have been the most boring boy ever to walk on this filthy Earth.