2986 Cagliero11 happy birthday
austraLasia #2787

Happy Birthday Cagliero11!

ROME: 11 January 2012 -- The Mission animation newsletter 'Cagliero11' celebrates its 3rd birthday today. Why today? There would hardly be an austraLasia reader today who does not already have the answer, but just in case.... The 11th November 1875 was the day the then Fr Cagliero was chosen to lead the first missionary expedition to Argentina, so Cagliero11 takes the 11th of each month as its issue date..

As Fr Klement described it in the first edition, issued in the 150th year of the Congregation's existence: "With Cagliero 11 we are aiming to reach every Salesian community in the world to remind ourselves at least once a month to pray for all our missionaries ad gentes. As we are thinking of them, we remind ourselves that
we are all called to be ‘missionaries to the young’. In some provinces, on the 11th of each month a Mass is celebrated for missionaries, and theya re prayed for. This little newsletter could be used for spiritual reading, or as a part of Vespers/Evening Prayer.
Towards the end of it you will also find the Salesian Mission Intention which follows the general and mission intentions of the Holy Father – all this can be found too in www.sdb.org".

So it might be worth looking at our Region (Which we think, secretly, might have been part of the inspiration for this newsletter, since the Cagliero Volunteer Group had already started up in the Australia-Pacific Province!) and how Cagliero11 has featured here. Of course it goes out to the whole world, not just our Region, but our Region has been prominent in its production and dissemination. To begin with, Fr Alfred Maravilla, from PNG but currently completing his doctoral thesis and resident in Rome-Pisana, does much of the initial work of putting it together each month.

We know that of the 15 languages into which Cagliero11 is translated monthly, five of those are in regular use in our Region: English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese. Are there others we have missed?

We know too that a number of province web sites upload Cagliero11 regularly and that way make it available to communities. This is certainly true of CIN, GIA, THA, KOR, and possibly others in the Region.  Fr Klement himself runs a blog by the same name which can be found amongst the Salesian blogs on sdb.org


One of the pleasing features of Cagliero11 is the way it has gone a long way towards its principle aim - to find its way into every community around the world and be used in a variety of ways, not just for information.  While it would still be well short of being in every community, it has become a standard feature in many, often finding its way onto the refrigerator door, or being used as part of Evening Prayer on 11th of each month.  Fr Klement receives many comments based on articles, so it has also become a good communication tool. He would like to respond to the many suggestions to do this or that, improve aspects of production and distribution - but it all takes time and effort. He'll get there!


So, congratulations Cagliero11 and happy birthday!