Written by Fr. Mike Mendl, SDB
The Province of St. Philip the Apostle is under the patronage of St. Philip the Apostle. It encompasses 15 communities: 10 in the Eastern United States (hence its SUE abbreviation) and 5 across the breadth of Canada.
The province presently numbers 127 Salesians and 5 novices, including 16 on temporary or permanent loan from other provinces.
The Salesians came to the U.S. in 1897 at San Francisco. The next year they arrived in New York, led by Fr. Ernest Coppo. They came to both cities specifically to minister to Italian immigrants. On Jan. 20, 1902, the U.S. Province was created, consisting of three parishes in California and one in New York. It was based in San Francisco, but by 1904 its headquarters had been moved to Troy, New York. The province relocated its seat several times before settling in New Rochelle, N.Y., in 1919. In 1926, a province for the Western U.S. (SUO) was created, based in San Francisco.
In the 1940s and ’50s, both U.S. provinces expanded into Canada, which led in 1988 to a vice province for Canada being separated from the U.S. provinces. But the entire vice province for Canada merged with SUE in 2009.
Fr. Paul Albera’s extraordinary visitation of the U.S. province in 1903 was significant. It gave him an understanding of the unique challenges the Salesians faced in this country. He always encouraged their labors and saw that additional confreres were supplied for the province’s parishes and schools.
The first Salesian school was set up at Troy in 1903 with the primary purpose of fostering vocations. It was transferred in 1908 to Hawthorne, N.Y., partly to be closer to New York City’s immigrants. It served both Polish and Italian students, and the confreres were Polish or Italian; in 1915 the Poles moved to Ramsey, New Jersey, where they founded what is now the province’s oldest school, Don Bosco Preparatory High School.
The Italian Salesians and pupils remained in Hawthorne, but a fire destroyed the school in December 1917. In less than two years, the province acquired a new site for the school in New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City. Besides founding Salesian High School there, the new provincial, Fr. Emmanuel Manassero, made it province headquarters. In the same house, in 1947 Fr. James O’Loughlen founded Salesian Missions to publicize Don Bosco’s worldwide works and raise funds for the missions.
Gradually, Salesian parish work expanded elsewhere in New York state and to New Jersey, Florida, Louisiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and eastern Canada, and for a time also in the Bahamas. New schools, including aspirantates, were established in Massachusetts, Florida, and Louisiana, eastern Canada, and briefly in Indiana and West Virginia. In several cities, including Boston (fulfilling a dream of Don Bosco), youth centers affiliated with Boys & Girls Clubs of America were founded.
The Don Bosco Messenger was founded in 1912 as a U.S. version of the Salesian Bulletin. It was renamed the Salesian Bulletin in 1949. Salesian Missions also publishes a magazine. The province has published newsletters under several titles in both print and digital form, and now most of the houses have their own social media. Additionally, the province returned from around a decade of hiatus in print media with the release of Don Bosco Insights in 2025.
As provincial, Fr. Richard Pittini founded Don Bosco College Seminary in 1928 as the primary house of formation for both U.S. provinces. Its enrollment in the various phases of formation peaked in the 1970s at about 200 candidates, novices, postnovices, and staff. But it had to close in 1989 due to a decline in vocations. After the founding years, the province’s students of theology were sent mainly to Italy until 1967, when they were enrolled at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. Since the late 1990s, Salesians have studied theology at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, in Jerusalem, or at Tlaquepaque, Mexico.
SUE has given three general councilors to the Congregation and three bishops to the Church, as well as many missionary priests and brothers for Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians came to the U.S. in 1908 and now have two provinces, based in Haledon, N.J., and San Antonio, Texas, ministering in both Canada and the U.S. Other groups of the Salesian Family in SUE include the Salesian Cooperators and ADMA. Past pupils of both the SDBs and the FMAs organize at the local level rather than province level. Some former Salesians from both SUE and SUO have organized as the Salesian Old Boys, meet annually, and keep in touch with one another as well as with the Salesians.