MANILA-PARANAQUE: 31st August 2007 -- The Salesian
'Ratio', otherwise known as the Formation of Salesians of Don Bosco,
speaks of the management of inter-province Study Centres as follows:
"Interprovincial collaboration for a studentate or
study centre implies the creation and proper functioning of an entity
holding shared responsibility (for example a 'curatorium')".
Such a body, involving provincials or their
delegates from six provinces or vice provinces in the EAO Region, met
in the presence of the Regional Councillor, Fr Klement, at Seminaryo ng
Don Bosco at Paranaque, south of Manila, on 30th August. The provinces
or vice provinces represented were from FIN, FIS, ITM, KOR, THA,
VIE. The meeting was moderated by the Provincial for Philippines
North, Fr Andrew Wong.
The Paranaque complex is a single compound but
involves two entities: the Seminaryo ng Don Bosco and the Don Bosco
Centre of Studies. Numbers in these centres have grown, as a result of
the inter-provincial collaboration backed by an agreement forged at a
meeting of EAO Provincials in Melbourne this year. But the
process had already begun following the Team Visit for the Region at
Hua Hin in 2005.
The Salesians involved in the studentate community,
65 in all between staff and students, are drawn from five provinces.
Thailand, represented at the meeting, currently doesn't have students
there. The nationalities of the students are more than five,
however, especially as a number of young missionary students (e.g. for
PNG-SI) are there, some of them from India and Sri Lanka.
Salesian students involve those doing theology, as well as those doing
an English
language course (all from Korea), and a Brothers formation course. The
number of students overall, in the complex, however, involves more than
500 since Paranaque, besides being a centre of theological studies (the
faculty is affiliated with the UPS in Rome), is also a centre of
formation for the laity and an institute for catechetics and youth
ministry.
One of the issues that occupied the time of the
Provincials in their meeting, was the development also of facilities
for Salesian Brother formation. Specific formation for Brothers is an
issue being tackled in the Salesian world by concentrating formation
opportunities in approved centres such as the Paranaque one. _________________ AustraLasia is an
email
service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions
as an
agency for ANS based in
Rome.
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