austraLasia #1841

Salesian Japan faces up to the challenges - especially in schools

TOKYO-CHOFU: 7th May 2007 -- As elsewhere in the Region, Japan is going through the various processes which a Provincial Chapter in preparation for a General Chapter requires. In a number of provinces in the region the PC is now behind them.  In Japan it is scheduled for early June. Vietnam, Korea and Philippines North are likewise in proximate preparation for theirs.
    Just yesterday, Sunday 6th May, some 50 confreres from communities around the Tokyo area, Yokohama and Osaka met in proximate preparation for PC2007.  They have already noted the challenge of evangelisation in the school setting, and especially since schools have been an outstanding feature of Salesian work since the beginning in Japan.  They have also noted a number of new frontiers, though as always, the challenge is to maintain current frontiers within the educational structures they have.  Nevertheless, Japan is moving quite decisively into some of the less explored areas of juvenile delinquency, ministry amongst migrant workers and their children - there are any number of families who hold double nationality, for example Brazilian and Japanese.  There is constant awareness of the danger of being too closed to certain realities within Salesian works, while there are many needs of young people beyond.  The Chapter will also look at the other areas that have been common to Provincial Chapters around the world, responding to the Da mihi animas' theme of GC26 - the need to know Don Bosco better and to overcome the temptation to think that we already know him; the need to relaunch the figure of the Salesian Brother; the need to improve still further the human quality of fraternal life for ourselves and to make it more attractive to young people.
    A similar gathering will be held further South in the province in the coming week.
    The Regional, Fr Klement, will be in Japan during this period of preparation for the Chapter, and will then move on to similar brief animation visits in nearby parts of the Region.
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