On wings of hope. Message
from the Vicar of the Rector
Major
With great simplicity, quietly and in total continuity,
remaining in my service as Vicar over the next few months I
will support the Rector Major by leading the Congregation to a
General Chapter, the 29th, in February 2025.

Dear readers of the Salesian Bulletin, I am
writing these lines with trepidation because, having been a
reader of the Salesian Bulletin since I was a child in my
family, I now find myself on a different page having to write
the first article, the one reserved for the Rector Major.
I do so gladly, because this honour allows me to give thanks
to God for our Fr Ángel, now Cardinal of the Holy Roman
Church, who has just finished 10 years of valuable service to
the Congregation and the Salesian Family, following his
election at the 27th General Chapter in 2014.
10 years after that day, he is now fully at the
service of the Holy Father for everything Pope Francis will
entrust him with. We carry him in our hearts and accompany him
with grateful prayer, for the good he has done for us, because
time does not diminish but strengthens gratitude. His personal
story is an historic event for him, but also for all of us.
His leaving, in canonical terms, for an even greater service
to the Church, is a remaining always with us and among us.

In total continuity
And now as a Congregation, and by extension as the
Salesian Family, how do we move forward?
Very simply, quietly and in total continuity. The
Vicar of the Rector Major, according to the Salesian
Constitutions, also has the task of substituting for the
Rector Major in case of need. And it will be thus until the

next General Chapter.
The Salesian Constitutions put it in a more
comprehensive and articulate way, but the fundamental concept
is this: remaining in my service as Vicar in the coming months
I will deputise for the Rector Major by taking the
Congregation to General Chapter, the 29th in February 2025.
This is a demanding task for which I immediately
ask for your prayers and invocation to the Holy Spirit to be
faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, with the heart of Don
Bosco.

My name is Stefano (Stephen)
Before moving on to the important things, a few
words to introduce myself: my name is Stefano, I was born in
Turin to a family typical of our part of the world: the son of
a Salesian past pupil father, who wanted to send me to the
same school where he had been in his day, and of a mother, a
teacher, also a past pupil of a Catholic school. From them I
received life and the life of a simple and concrete faith.
That is how my sister and I grew up. There are just two of us.
My parents are already in heaven, in Gods hands,
and they will be smiling broadly when they see the things that
happen to their son& they will surely comment: dun Bosch tenje
nà man sla testa! (Don Bosco keep a hand on his head!) Keep
him steady!
In Salesian terms I have always been part of the
Salesian Province of Piedmont-Valle dAosta, until I was asked
at GC27 to coordinate the Mediterranean Region (all the
Salesian places around the Mediterranean Sea, on the three
continents bordering it& but also including Portugal and some
areas of Eastern Europe). A wonderful Salesian experience
which transformed me, making me international in the way I see
and feel things. GC28 took the second step, asking me to
become Vicar of the Rector Major, and here we are! 10 years at
Fr Ángels side, learning during these years to feel the heart
of the world, for a Congregation that is truly spread all over
the earth.

The near future
The service of these coming months, until February
2025, is therefore to accompany the Congregation to the next
General Chapter to be held in Turin Valdocco from 16 February
2025.
Dear friends, the General Chapter is the highest
and most important moment in the life of the Congregation,
when the representatives of all the Provinces of the
Congregation gather together (we are talking about more than
250 confreres) essentially for three things: to get to know
each other, to pray and to reflect in order to think about
the present and the future of the Congregation and to elect
the next Rector Major and his entire Council. A very important
moment, therefore, which our Fr Ángel addressed in his
reflection on the theme Passionate about Jesus Christ and
dedicated to the young. This theme that the Rector Major has
chosen for the Congregation will be articulated in three
different and complementary aspects: the centrality of Christ
in our personal life, religious consecration; the dimension of
our community vocation, in the fraternity and shared
responsibility with the laity to whom the mission is
entrusted; the institutional aspects of our Congregation, the
evaluation of animation and governance in accompanying the
Congregation. Three aspects for a single generative theme.
Our Congregation is in great need of this General
Chapter, which comes after so many events that have touched us
all. It is enough to recall that the last General Chapter was
celebrated close to the Pandemic.

Building Hope
To celebrate a General Chapter is to celebrate
Hope, to build Hope through the institutional and personal
decisions that allow Don Boscos dream to continue, to give
it a present and a future. Each person is called to be a
dream, in the heart of God, a dream that is realised.
In the Salesian tradition there are those
beautiful words that Don Bosco said to Fr Rua, called back to

Valdocco to act in Don Boscos stead:
You were Don Bosco at Mirabello. Now you will be
so here, at the Oratory.
This is what really counts: Being Don Bosco
today and it is the greatest gift we can give to this world.