austraLasia #1846

Texting God - Salesian Youth Spirituality in the 21st Century

MELBOURNE: 16th May 2007 -- The annual Salesian Educational Leaders Conference of Australia-Pacific, mounted by the Salesian Principals' Association of Australia, one of two bodies which together make up the Youth Ministry component of province operations, is poised for its 2007 major event: Texting God - Salesian Youth Spirituality in the 21st Century. The three day conference will be located in Melbourne and will take place from Friday 18th until Sunday 20th May.
    Keynote speakers for the Conference include the Provincial, Fr Frank Moloney, who will speak on biblical perspectives in spirituality, Fr Ian Murdoch, a former provincial, who will address the question of Salesian perspectives in youth spirituality, and Dr Philip Hughes, prominent Australian researcher in the area of religion and faith in the Australian context.  Dr Hughes will take a wider research perspective entitled 'The Spirit of Gen Y'.  He is particularly well suited to speaking on the issue of youth spirituality in the Australian and Pacific context, having recently been engaged, in his capacity as senior researcher for the Christian Research Association, in a Youth Spirituality Roundtable which discussed the results and implications of a four year study of youth spirituality in the Australian context.
    The conference aims in particular to explore the metaphor well known to the Salesian context of 'a parish that evangelises'. It will, then, explore the spirituality of contemporary young people in the context of our Salesian tradition, and will attempt to articulate some of the opportunities and challenges we face in the spiritual formation of our young people.
    One particular feature of this year's conference is the participation of two Samoan educators from Don Bosco Alafua - Sr Monika Vaipuna, deputy principal of Don Bosco, and Mrs Isabella Penei, teacher and secretary at the Technical Centre.  They have been in Australia for a week already, visiting various Salesian schools.
    austraLasia hopes to bring you a summary of the conference as it unfolds at the weekend, and an indication of where, in the future, results of the conference could be available for further reading. In the meantime, tomorrow, most probably, we will offer you a brief look at another book by Fr Michael Cunningham sdb of the UK entitled 'Lost and Found - Spirituality for a Changing World'.
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 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use BoscoWiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm   Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org. To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.