#555
Note:
not only Chapter members have trouble getting their numbers right! Sorry
for the three numbers #552! We are really up to #555 (I hope I don't
similarly get stuck on #666!).
One final
note - there's so much coming in at the moment that even back here it's getting
difficult to process. Many of the readers of 'austraLasia'
want a precis. I'll do my best.
INTERVENTIONS
ON 'EVANGELICAL WITNESS'
A wide
range of interventions as one can imagine. Here is a sample:
* Salesian spirituality must be based on a spirituality of
the young (GC23).
* The lay dimension of our life needs thorough study or
we become too clericalized. The 'problem' of the
Brother vocation...is it more a problem of Religious Life itself?
* We are
world-wide protagonists for the virtue of chastity. How then to tackle
the problem of sexual abuse - can there be a Congregation-wide policy on this
matter?
* Community self-evaluation on days like monthly
recollections, retreats - maybe the evaluation needs to come from those outside
the immediate community!
The
difficulty is that there were many interventions on this topic/document: there
is a real danger of something too long under the guise of 'depth'! As Tom Dunne puts it: "It took all day (five hours) to hear
the interventions on two documents! The
irony of all this is that the intention of most speakers was to encourage the
commission to make the document SHORTER!! How a group like this can come
up with a short document is beyond me.... The good news is that the assembly is
beginning to run out of steam. We may have had our fill of speeches in
the aula. In the same way as a bagpipe
gradually empties of its air after a while, we seem to have lost our enthusiasm
for five-minute speeches.
INTERVENTIONS ON ANIMATING PRESENCE AMONGST THE YOUNG
Following
the discussions reported above, interventions on this topic were fewer - such
matters as the responses we can make to vocations, e.g. inviting young people
into our communities, working with the Volunteer movement, having communities
that will transform the young, preparing experts in working with the young,
having Salesians in positions of responsiblity
where they could be effective....
