austraLasia #2184


Cagliero's Mission Lives On - first 'Cagliero missionaries' commissioned in AUL

MELBOURNE: 28th June 2008 --  In 2005 the present Provincial of the Australia-Pacific Province, Frank Moloney, was Dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Lauren Bicknell, another Australian and a recent CUA graduate, was setting off to work as a lay-missionary in Zambia. The idea of a Salesian Youth Missionary based in the Australia-Pacific Province was born: in Washington DC.
    The Cagliero Project has been in operation for since the beginning of 2007. We wanted to commemorate the figure of the Salesian who led our first Salesian mission, and to also insist that this is not simply a “volunteer” service. We “mission” committed Christian young people to be witnesses of Jesus Chris in the Salesian tradition.
    Lauren Bicknell directs the Cagliero Project from an office in the Province Centre in Ascot Vale. We have been designing it, establishing contacts with other Salesian youth mission centres and also with possible missionary fields. Of recent months we have been interviewing and training our first potential missionaries. On Sunday, 22 June, the first Cagliero missionaries were commissioned by the Provincial. After a final formation weekend, out first two missionaries, Stephanie Wood and David Prior, made their formal commitment to the Salesian mission, and were given mission crosses. It was a moving ceremony, with the Parents of both David and Stephanie present. Stephanie has a long association with the Salesians. Her grandfather was a member of the first Salesian novitiate in 1942, and her father was a Salesian from 1964-71.
    Both missionaries will work in Thailand. David will be working in Chiang Mai in a recently established centre for tribal young people. Stephanie will be at BangSak, in a centre for youngsters orphaned by the tsunami. The Australia-Pacific Province is working in close collaboration with the Thai Province, another sign of the close bonds being formed across the East Asia Oceania Region. We wish Stephanie and David every blessing. We hope that this first small group of Cagliero missionaries will be the seed that leads to a further manifestation of “a vast movement of persons who in different ways work for the salvation of the young” (Constitution 5).
    Further information on the Cagliero Project can be found at www.cagliero.org.au.
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Title: australasia 2184
Subject and key words: EAO Provinces AUL THA
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2184