3635_Salesian bishops and global vocation culture

By Our Own Correspondent

Torino, Italy, May 25 - After five days of the historical fifth meeting of Salesian Bishops, May 21-25, the 90 Salesian bishops, including five cardinals (Rafael Farina, Tarcisio Bertone, Ricardo Ezzati, Daniel Sturla and Charles Bo) already left Valdocco for their respective dioceses.

Mutual sharing among bishops from all five continents, prayer in the holy places of Don Bosco and personal contact with the Rector Major and his almost complete council, was a truly enriching experience. The global face of Don Bosco, who is welcomed by all different cultures and in the same time is serving the particular Churches worldwide, could be easily touched.

There was one special moment of deep sharing around the ‘Promotion of the Consecrated Life in the diocese’ in the afternoon of May 22. A panel discussion was started by Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, SDB archbishop of Santiago de Chile and member of the Congregation of Consecrated Life, who shared about today’s critical situation of consecrated life. Then followed experiential sharings from three other continents - Mons. Gaston Ruvezi, bishop of Sakania-Kipushi (RD Congo – Africa), Mons. Dominic Jala, archbishop of Shillong (India-Asia) and Mons. Luc Van Looy, bishop of Gent (Belgium-Europe).

Two bishops from Africa and Asia shared about the ongoing growth of consecrated life and its challenges in the context of young Churches (100-125 years). In Shillong (North East of India) there are four novitiates of female congregation and two novitiates of male congregations with more than 100 novices. And from one specific parish there are more than 100 religious and priestly vocation s as well. The challenges are about finding new ways of vocation discernment for religious life in the context of smaller families, growing materialism in the city and not-so-clear motivations for religious life. Congolese situation was characterized by many existential challenges of this African country, need of being more connected to the families of the religious and being more prophetic signs in own context. The signs of modern, materialistic societies make impact on religious life also in this rural environment of Africa (social networks, tendency to easy life).

On the other side, Mons. Luc Van Looy shared about the situation of consecrated life in Europe, where in past 15 years the numbers of religious dropped from 400.000 to present 250.000 of consecrated men and women in the old continent. The update about his own diocese of Gent was truly heart breaking: during past 12 years in the diocese of Gent the number of religious women dropped from 2175 to present 1440 (only 19% below 70 years of age!) and the number of priests diminished from 601 to 390 at present (average age of 74 years). Mons. Luc shared also about the ongoing effort to promote consecrated life. In spite of the highly secularized society during past 12 years nine young people of Gent has chosen consecrated life: 3 SDB, 2 FMA, 1 Carmelite sisters, 2 Trappist sisters and one local congregation sisters.

At the end of this global vision sharing, card. Ezzati shared some common points for the future of consecrated life in the whole Catholic Church, as pointed by Pope Francis in his opening of the Year of Consecrated Life (November 21,2014). There are 3 main pointers to the future:

(1) Become joyful witness to Jesus Christ.
(2) Become experts in building communion.
(3) Living outgoing religious life – going out of the comfort zones and asking continuously what God wants from us!