THE RECTOR MAJOR'S REPORT TO GC27

COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW

AND PROPHETIC OUTLOOK ON THE FUTURE

At the end of the presentation on the state and life of the Congregation, offered through reports by Departments, Regions and other particular sectors, and as a logical conclusion to these, I would like to offer an overview to confreres at the Chapter and, if possible, a prophetic outlook on the future. Indeed I think it is important not only to let you know what has been done but also offer you what we can glimpse of the future. In addition to the journey the Congregation has made over the last twelve years, I would like to offer you an outline of the road ahead.

1.PERSONAL EVALUATION OF MY TIME AS RECTOR MAJOR

1.1. Animation and government of the Congregation over the last twelve years

As I wrote in the report presented to GC26, the Congregation entrusted to me by GC25 found itself in a good state of health while at the same time demanding attention be given to certain issues, as we saw from the letter of convocation by Fr Juan E. Vecchi, the report given by the former Vicar of the Rector Major, Fr Luc Van Looy, to the Chapter Assembly,¹ and by the work carried out in that Assembly.

Fr Vecchi invited us to a renewal of our consecrated life, beginning with consistency in number and quality of local communities. The Vicar made an appeal to mystical experience as a way of recovering enthusiasm for the life we profess and the mission we are called to carry out. The Chapter highlighted the need to create communities capable of moving from life in common to fraternal life through a clear, credible and attractive Gospel testimony, offering those who benefit from our educative and pastoral activity the service of a more explicitly evangelising and vocation-oriented presence.

-From 2002-2008: “after GC25”

To put the major directions of GC25 into action, and in obedience to the request of the Chapter Assembly which had appreciated the six year plan drawn up by Fr Vecchi with his General Council, the Program of Animation and Government of the Rector Major and his Council for 2002-2008 was drawn up around four priorities: the primacy of spiritual life in the communities, the witness to communion and fraternal life by communities, making Salesian presence amongst the young more significant, and a personal and community commitment to formation.²

These priorities were meant to respond to the main difficulties and challenges indicated by GC25:

• individual choices and lifestyles which gradually drew them away from the community;

• community life arrangements which did not foster growth of confreres in human and vocational terms;

• difficulties with interpersonal communication which weakened the sense of belonging, and identification with the project of Salesian life;

• weakness in recognising the primacy of God, which lead to an obscuring of reasons for faith and our awareness of being consecrated;

• fragmentation of personal and community life which showed up in the inability to harmonise being and doing, work and prayer, education and evangelisation, individual initiative and community planning;

• lack of prophetic power in our life of consecration, blurring our visibility and making our communities less significant and less attractive in vocational terms;³

• estrangement from the circumstances of the young due to: ageing, the predominance of organisational and management concerns, individual projects, weakness in the journey of faith, the formation process and how young people understood their vocation, a fall in the number of vocations.⁴

The Rector Major and Council's Plan, with its strategies and interventions, was well received and taken up by Provinces, who in turn drew up or re-upholstered their action plans on this basis.

It seems to me to be important to highlight three things:

• a clear proposal of what we intend to achieve and the information given the whole Congregation for it to be involved in bringing about the hoped for renewal;

• our fidelity to the programme and our commitment to putting it into practice, enriching or modifying it along the way according to new requirements;

• the mid-term evaluation by the General Council, to evaluate the extent to which the plan is being achieved.

I am convinced, as I wrote when presenting the outline of the plan, that drawing up such a plan is an act of communion because it obliges us to look at things together, evaluate them with common criteria, make choices together of what we consider to be priorities, draw up an action plan to put them into practice. Few things create communion as well as sharing a project! Doing so is already to a certain extent governing, because we face up to things, the challenges we have to tackle and the energies we have available to do so. As a consequence then we have to make concrete choices. Carrying out a project is also animating, because in so doing we have not only to decide on what the major priorities are but we also have to choose who are the direct people to be involved and what kind of intervention we need to bring them to fruition. Finally, drawing up a project is also one form of evaluation because projects do not come out of nowhere; they are one stage along a long journey that in fact begins by evaluating the steps already taken and those yet to be completed.⁵

The evaluation half way through the six year period showed us that interventions had been planned but others we considered necessary needed to be added. Some of these had not been foreseen when we drew up the original plan. All processes had been set in motion but not all the overall objectives had been fully achieved. A change of mentality requires the kind of time that cannot be circumscribed by a six year period, so it is necessary to keep insisting and provide continuity.

From the Region Team Visits which on the one hand were meant to evaluate awareness, acceptance and implementation of the General Chapter, and on the other, tackle particular situations and then plan for the future, it emerged that GC25 had been one of the best known and implemented Chapters. The observation was made, though, that we still have some way to go when it comes to the spiritual renewal of communities, growth in deeper interpersonal relationships, a more fruitful animating presence amongst the young, both in pastoral and vocational terms.

The Rector Major's Letters, my animation visits to individual provinces, the many messages sent out, the various guidelines and directives from the Vicar and Sector Councillors published in the Acts of the General Council, were all intended to point to the four priorities in the programme of animation and government.

-From 2008-2014: “after GC26”

Following these same lines, after GC26 the new General Council drew up the programme of animation and government for 2008-2014. In line with the three core issues identified at the closing address for GC26, and by way of summary of all guidelines and deliberations, we highlighted three major areas:

• returning to Don Bosco in order to begin again from him;

• the urgent need to evangelise and need for vocation ministry;

• simplicity of life and new frontiers.

With regard to the first area the objectives were as follows:

• a commitment to knowing and loving Don Bosco;

• returning to the young;

• rediscovering the meaning of the Da mihi animas cetera tolle as a programme for spiritual and pastoral life.

In the evaluation we carried out we saw that the level of achievement for this first area could be considered as 'good'.

A real effort had been made to produce and disseminate books that could encourage an historical and critical understanding of Don Bosco. Salesian Sources were given attention, and today, finally, we can offer them to the entire Congregation. A further step would be to ensure translations in the languages spoken in the various provinces. There is also a greater awareness of the spiritual and apostolic passion that should be a feature of confreres' lives. We note the desire to overcome the great temptation of spiritual mediocrity, pastoral superficiality, reducing our works to being simple NGOs offering social and religious services.

But we note that there is still a great need for conversion if there is to be a real return to the young. It is increasingly important that we leave administrative roles to others where these roles take us away from those to whom we have been sent and do not allow us to spend time in their midst. Indeed today the situation is such that it is harder and harder to understand their culture. Caught up as we are in so many practical matters it makes it impossible to follow them up and help them to mature in all their dimensions and take on projects of life.

We have become aware that we have not succeeded in providing sufficient, well-prepared staff for our Regional Formation Centres, which are very useful structures of great significance. We can add to this the lack of coordination between these Salesianity Centres: it will be one of the things that the next General Council should tackle via the Formation Sector, in agreement with the Regional Councillors concerned.

With regard to the second area, the proposed objectives were:

• putting encounter with Christ in the Word and Eucharist at the centre of our communities, so we can be authentic disciples and credible apostles, and so we can testify joyfully to the beauty of a consecrated life totally dedicated to God in the mission to the young;

• seeing to an effective integration in every setting between education and evangelisation in the logic of the Preventive System;

• inculturating the process of evangelisation to provide a response to the challenges in regional contexts;

• creating a true culture of vocation in the Congregation, one that helps fully develop commitment to the Kingdom of God and taking on a project of life.

We maintain that the work done in this area has also been good. As a demonstration of this is the fact that lectio divina has increasingly become a practice for meditation and formation in local communities, although it is not evident that this practice, up to this point, has led to greater evangelical testimony and greater passion for the young. Our ability to attract vocations from our Salesian settings is still limited. We observe that most vocations come from settings other than our own, and acknowledging this has meant that this has become a special topic for further reflection, and a concern in the Congregation. While noting the commitment to a more faithful and dynamic inculturation of the charism there is still a long way to go. Worthy of note instead is the development of Formation Centres for Brothers (Coadjutors) in various parts of the Congregation; however there is still a lack of real conviction in provinces for offering our Brother confreres appropriate time for updating and formation.

Regarding the third area, the objectives we set out to achieve were:

• giving a witness of evangelical poverty, lived personally and by communities in the spirit of the Da mihi animas cetera tolle;

• making the choice of solidarity with the poor which allows us to make courageous choices on behalf of more needy youth and those at risk, relaunching the Salesian charism in Europe;

• creating new and more flexible forms of presence and reviewing the management model for works in view of a more effective educational and evangelising presence.

Here too our evaluation led us to say that there has been a good level of achievement of these objectives. There is no doubt that the world financial and economic crisis which has also touched on the Direzione Generale [henceforth referred to as the General Administration], due to the ‘Gerini’ affair, but not just that – as the Economer General has pointed out – has touched all of us too. Despite this, solidarity has grown, something evident from the substantial assistance given to certain provinces or new presences. Although we have taken a major step forward beginning with the International Congress on Human Rights and the Preventive System, a greater commitment to social justice is still lacking. Instead there has been a gradual clarification and application of Project Europe, as will be seen in other parts of the Report. There has also been a growing number of Provinces where administrative roles have been placed in the hands of the laity but this has not yet meant a more committed, significant and fruitful evangelising presence by Salesians.

The programme of animation and government by the Rector Major and Council has not of course remained a fixed one, while being clear that it has always been the point of reference for all our interventions, projects and various initiatives. There have been new items which we have introduced over these six years and that were not initially planned.

I refer in concrete to the involvement of the General Administration in tackling serious crises over this period (cases of paedophilia, the Gerini affair, the Polaris affair, matters concerning Beit Gemal and all our properties in the Holy Land); finding financial resources for the ordinary running of the General Administration over and above solidarity requests to come to the aid of tragic events in Haiti, Chile, Pakistan, Sudan…; accompanying Provinces facing serious problems (SUO, SUE, AUL, GBR, IRL, GER, BEN/Ola, CIL, ILE, ICC …). To these we should add certain special initiatives which have enriched the process of animation over these years: the pilgrimage of Don Bosco's Relic (Casket, Statue), the Congress on “Don Rua nella storia” (Don Rua in history), the Salesian Family Charter of Identity, the three year preparation programme for the Bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, meetings with Provincials from every Region with a view to a more focused follow-up, and finally, reducing the number of circular letters from four to three, one of which is the commentary on the Rector Major's Strenna.

-A personal assessment

As you have been able to see I have tried to continue focusing on the major choices of recent General Chapters, convinced that their guidelines and major action directives cannot be fulfilled in the space of just six years. These are processes set in motion that need to be carried on and consolidated until they become a way of thinking and incarnating Salesian life and mission. And in line with the major direction from GC26, I have tried to foster amongst confreres a deeper awareness of Don Bosco and their more visible and effective presence amongst the young. In view of this I have tried to establish a continuity in content and reflection through my circular Letters. I believe I can say that the choices made have been well accepted, sometimes more sometimes less effectively, bearing in mind the progress made in Provinces and the attention given by Provincials.

Regarding integration, study, reflection, vision and collegial effort by the Council, integration has been positive and I am happy about this. I have worked very closely with the Vicar, the Councillor for Formation and the Economer in the matters that had to be tackled, indicated above, but I have sought to work more collegially, informing everyone in good time and in detail so we can have a communion of criteria, intentions and shared responsibility in decision-making.

In this second six year period I have felt pressured by so many requests and have tried to respond to countless request for interventions of every kind (congresses – letters – messages – conferences – interviews). Writing the Letters has been and remains a very demanding task and I have requested occasional help by way of certain contributions.

I decided to work with a planning mentality, conscious of the need to offer encouragement for spiritual, pastoral and vocational renewal, but without losing sight of the objectives to be achieved. As I have already said earlier I am aware that a change of mindset in ways of thinking, living and working requires a long time and constant accompaniment. I have increasingly felt the urgent need to lead the Congregation to live more radically in a Gospel way.

In my relationship with the various geographical areas I have tried to respond to every request coming from the Provinces, Provincial Conferences and Regions with messages, letters, visits and by preaching at Retreats. Particular attention has been given to Provincials, Rectors and Provinces more in need of accompaniment.

In evaluations carried out with Provinces and Regions, I have sought to draw attention to the six year plan, indications by Extraordinary Visitations, the task of inculturation, the degree to which decisions of the last General Chapter have been implemented, growth in a planning mentality, accompaniment of change processes. My concern has always been to stress the need for evaluating how much of what has been planned has been carried through, in order to avoid an empty and ineffective formalism, but above all to insist on the importance of animating and governing the situation entrusted to us with a sense of responsibility.

In carrying out the service of animation and government of the Congregation I have always had at heart fostering a new open and supportive way of thinking and, when talking with Provinces, also practical interventions and encouraging movement and exchange of confreres between Provinces and various cultures. This has been done especially in meetings with Provincials from the different Regions and during Team Visits. On these occasions I have repeatedly invited Provincials not to have a mentality of managing structures or the survival of works but rather to have concern for revitalising Don Bosco's charism, taking care of his identity, vitality and fruitfulness.

Finally, with regard to a more focused accompaniment for some Provinces or Regions that have found greater difficulty in following our planning and the relevant Provincial projects, I have sought to make this concern one of my preferential choices during this second six year period. I was perfectly aware that I could not perform my duties as Rector Major in the same way I did in the first six years. In the first six years my concern was to get to know the Congregation and make myself personally known in the various Provinces. In this second six year period I dedicated more time to individual Provinces or groups of Provinces (India – Poland – North Europe), setting up annual meetings, while maintaining my commitment to being present in every Region of the Congregation.

1.2. The current state of the Congregation

We are all aware of the difficult time that Christianity and the Church has been going through. Consecrated Life in particular is going through a period of great disorientation, especially for Congregations that came into being to meet a particular social purpose, and now that this purpose has diminished, they are experiencing a certain anachronism and are looking for new ways to make their charism relevant.

There are many causes for this and often these depend too on different contexts. In some parts of the world difficulties of Religious Life are due to a declining birth-rate, growth in material well-being and a generally secularised cultural climate; in other regions a certain lack of identity is more prominent, lack of visibility and credibility of religious life which is charismatic by nature, so should have a strong spiritual connotation. The damage caused by scandals arising from claims of abuse against minors has been very serious. This range of causes, without pretending to be dogmatic about them as a whole, has meant that the majority of Congregations have decreased in number of personnel, the problem being particularly relevant to Europe and the western world.

-Need for a culture of vocation

In our case, at the beginning of 2002 there were 16,422 SDBs,⁶ with a yearly average of 540 novices, an average 238 priestly ordinations and an average number of perpetual professions for Salesian Coadjutor Brothers of 31. Twelve years later the statistics tell us that there are 15,014 SDBs, 500 novices on average each year, an average of 200 priestly ordination and an average of 25 perpetual professions for Salesian Brothers.

The geography of vocation in the Congregation has changed. Countries in western Europe indicate that the average age of confreres is constantly on the rise, the number of confreres who die each year has increased, the flow of vocations is low, so works are being reshaped, along with Provinces and indeed, Regions. In western Europe Provinces that six years ago still had a reasonable number of new entries each year, like Poland, Slovakia, the Ukraine Delegation, have begun to feel the severe impact of cultural change that is taking place. In the Americas there has been a certain stagnation in some Provinces; the vocational robustness of relatively good numbers of novices and newly professed has not measured up, and so there has not been a growth in the number of confreres. Others witnessed an unjustifiable decline, bearing in mind popular religiosity and local culture, the Catholic 'humus' and youthful population of these countries, openness to the religious invitation by young men and the great poverty assailing a large proportion of the population. We find the most fruitful vocational area in the Congregation today in South Asia and in some countries of East Asia and Oceania, like Vietnam Province and the East Timor and Indonesia Vice Province. In Africa and Madagascar we find a promising and growing panorama of vocations, even though more care needs to be taken in selection, formation and accompaniment of the candidates.

Aware of the importance of Salesian consecrated vocations, we chose this as one of the topics to be tackled at GC26. Now in our evaluation we have to admit we have not succeeded in understanding the meaning and importance of the ‘culture of vocation’ that must be fostered in our settings. This explains why many who knock at our doors and express their desire to be Salesians do not come from our own works. All this, other than the fact that we find ourselves accepting people who do not always identify well with Don Bosco, his charism and mission, does not respond to a Salesian criteria for growth of our Family.

We all remember Don Bosco's dream where our Father saw sheep becoming shepherds. Here we have one of the most important challenges for our future. Firstly because the truest vocations are the result not so much of vocation campaigns but of the witness of life lived joyfully, with conviction and commitment on the part of consecrated men and the communities they live and work in. Secondly we have to consider that such a matter does regard the future of the Salesian charism. Without people consecrated to God and his mission the charism is inevitably destined to disappear. We risk depriving the Church, society and especially the young of a very precious gift. Finally, we need to consider, as an impetus for our concern for vocations, the pastoral outlook of Jesus himself regarding the need to proclaim the Gospel. He invites us in strong and open fashion: "The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest" (Mt 9: 37-38).

What is at stake then is not maintaining buildings or the particular social services we offer and which could in fact be managed by other agencies, but the Salesian mission. This is a gift of God to his Church that needs people like Don Bosco consecrated for the salvation of the young, especially those who are poorer, abandoned and at risk.

We also have to consider that vocational fruitfulness is inseparable from a commitment to evangelisation. Our work is not mere social service and the Congregation is not an NGO. This matter is profoundly bound up with our Christian identity. Jesus began preaching, and at the same time calling. This is a constant in all four Gospels (cf. Mt. 4:17-22; Mk 1:16-20; Lk 5:1-11; Jn 1:35-51). Vocation ministry is inseparable from youth ministry which has to lead young people to an encounter with Christ, to being aware members of the Church, to accepting mature projects of life, which include Salesian life.

-Our fidelity to Don Bosco in serving the young

During my second six years as Rector Major, the invitation to return to Don Bosco and the young has become ever more pressing. It has not only been a matter of carrying out the most important guidelines of GC26 but of seeing the opportunity being offered us by a range of events which have been a genuine grace from the Lord for us. I refer to the 150^th anniversary of the founding of the Congregation, the centenary of Fr Michael Rua's death, the pilgrimage of Don Bosco's Relic, the three year preparation for the Bicentenary of our beloved Founder and Father's birth.

The initiatives that accompanied each and every one of these events, at different levels – local, provincial and congregational – saw that they became a real kairós, a kind of great jubilee running from 2008 until 2015. The most valuable results have been in reviving joy and commitment as Salesians, the spiritual and pastoral journey of conversion, greater awareness of Don Bosco, Don Rua, the Congregation, along with miracles and graces that have been well testified to, and the gift of new vocations.

I continue to insist that geographical and historical distance is no impediment, but stimulates the need for a deeper understanding of our beloved Founder and Father, his charism, mission, spirituality, especially now that we have historical and critical work on him. We also have the legacy of Salesian Sources with translation already under way for some of them. Obviously mere production of these works does not guarantee they will be read, studied and well assimilated. All this would translate into an increasingly more authentic ‘Salesian culture’. Knowledge and study of this great charismatic and spiritual patrimony, enriched by true love for our vocation, should shape our way of thinking, feeling, relating, interpreting things around us, facing up to challenges, organising our personal and community lives. There is an urgent and essential need flowing from all this: good formation in Salesianity; a kind of ‘second novitiate’ we are all called to.

I maintain equally that generational differences should not be a reason for being apart from the young physically (assistance), due to a cultural estrangement that leads us to not understand them, or because of a change in target group that reveals only our difficulty in having a preferential love for the young. We can never forget or stop claiming as our own the “It is enough that you are young for me to love you very much” with which Don Bosco expressed how absolute young people were for his life.⁷ Today as yesterday the Congregation is called to live in fidelity to Don Bosco through our fidelity to the young. The Congregation was founded with and for them, and we cannot betray our origins. We cannot remain indifferent to their pressing needs, their urgent demands. Neither can we disappoint their legitimate expectations and aspirations. This is our mission, this is our service to society, this is our responsibility in the Church, our raison d'etre.

Today, as yesterday, and as was the case for Don Bosco, God calls us through the young. We cannot just be happy with the young people who frequent our works or social services. We are invited to go out of our houses and meet them where they live and wait for us, on the ‘geographical, cultural, existential fringes’. We are sent to be amongst them as pastors, to get to know them by name, lead them to fresh pastures and clear waters. We are called to give our life for them so they may have life to the full (cf. Jn 10:10-15).

In the letter of convocation for this Chapter, more than speak of the challenges of the young as I did six years ago when I was pointing out the three great values they are very sensitive to, despite a certain ambiguity (life, love and happiness), I chose to speak of ‘young people as a challenge’. The reason is that “I seem to observe in the Congregation a quite worrying phenomenon: here and there I notice a more or less conscious unwillingness and sometimes a clear inability to be sympathetic towards, to learn about or understand and accept graciously the new forms of expression which are a feature of today’s young people. We also find it difficult to accept the collective experiences with which they formulate their ‘spectacular’ lifestyles,⁸ those which they normally exhibit in their free time, are almost always on the fringes of the usual social institutions.”

The GC26 throws light on this situation when, speaking about the new frontiers, it states: "We also acknowledge the expectations of young people who are spiritually and culturally poor, and who ask us to be involved: young people who have lost meaning in life, lack affection because of family instability, those left disillusioned and empty by the consumerist mentality, the religiously indifferent, those lacking motivation because of permissiveness, ethical relativism, the widespread culture of death."⁹

This affective loneliness is not the only kind, nor would I say the most widespread form of poverty which today’s young people experience. The large majority of those living in developing countries are very well acquainted with economic poverty, family life at risk, racial discrimination, a lack of educational and cultural opportunities, the absence of preparation for work, shameless exploitation by third parties, illegal employment as labourers, a life hemmed in, various addictions and other social ills.

The current picture of the confusion of the young is such a desolate one that it calls for an urgent conversion, for compassion (cf. Mk 6:34; 8:2-3), no less than for action (cf. Mk 6:37; 8:4-5). Like and with Don Bosco, through education and preventive measures the Congregation is engaged in helping them to find themselves, to accompany them with patience and confidence in building up their personalities, offering them the means to gain their livelihood; but at the same time offering something suitable for them to have a relationship with God.

In order to recreate the Salesian charism in the very many situations we are part of and work in, it is not enough to adapt it to various youthful contexts. Today we need to invest in the young, making them key players and trusted collaborators, without ever forgetting that they are the reasons for our consecration to God and our mission. We want to do this while living in their world, speaking their language, standing side by side with them not only as those to whom we are especially sent, but above all as companions on the journey.”¹⁰

The theme, ‘the radical approach of the Gospel’ is connected with that of poverty in our life and structures. We need to internalise this value if we want to be credible and not give in to the temptation to worldliness. Only this way can we come close to those whom we are sent to by preference: “The young who are poorer, needy, at risk.” The Congregation, over these years, has continued to develop a very significant presence. This new commitment has certainly been provoked by the increasing gap between rich and poor and stimulated by a new awareness: that our Preventive System must connect very naturally to education to human rights in their entirety.

This is translated into building up more agile and responsive structures, which is why today, other than the classic and well-known and recognised work amongst street children, Provinces express their educational service through houses for children exploited in sex tourism, work for HIV/AIDS prevention, works for drug-dependant youngsters and young Rom/Gyspsies, places at the service of religious and spiritual re-awakening, projects of assistance in Refugee Camps and people displaced by war, programmes for fringe groups like migrants, web pages with excellent content, “telephone a friend” services available 24/7, work for youngsters suffering depression. We need to add to this the huge effort in renewing classic structures so they are present in new ways, so they can ensure a better quality offering directed to a new education and effective work of evangelisation.

From this point of view, for fidelity to God and our mission, the attention we pay to the least should always be part of the scope of our plans and activities. This would be true for all our settings. By the least we mean young people in a situation of risk brought about by economic, cultural and religious poverty; how many there are who are morally, spiritually and emotionally poor; youngsters who are impoverished through desperate family circumstances or who are on the fringes of society and Church. The giddy rhythm and rate of events can deaden our sensitivity or the sensitivity of the young people themselves. We need to find adequate pedagogical approaches so we can keep our hearts open to the cry for life begging for freedom of expression and dignity. This is where education has a critical word to say as an analytical tool and as an invitation to remove everything which seems unjust and which we would want to change.

Today we are confronted by an unjust and individualist world that discards the elderly through ‘cultural euthanasia’, depriving them of the possibility of sharing their wisdom about life and the values on which they have built what we have today. We are faced with a world that also discards young people, depriving them of the right to work and thus closing off a window on the future and on hope. Education to values like justice, peace, protection of the environment, solidarity, are only either utopia or a frustration for them. They need to be helped to overcome indifference and re-awaken their interest in the social scene; they need to be accompanied so they can understand the world around them; they need to learn to critically evaluate cultural phenomena and feel responsible and able to play a part in what is happening; they need to be involved in drawing up the collective responses that can overcome simply dropping out or having recourse to violence. Unfortunately things are not like this! Today even more than before, young people do not count and are not considered.

Poverty and marginalisation are not purely economic phenomena but expressions of a culture and a circumstance touching on people's awareness. So poverty and marginalisation are challenges that have reference to society's way of thinking. As a consequence moral education and pedagogical accompaniment of processes, attitudes and values become very urgent things today when faced with a society where problems of humankind, relationships between individuals and peoples, our relationship with the natural environment demand new ethical and moral guidelines more than technical and scientific solutions.

For sure we are not starting out from zero in any of these fields. We have tried and tested experience behind us. There is a general effort to remain up to date in our educational and pastoral service, partly urged on from the centre of the Congregation, but also in part by individual confreres and Provinces, even if we do need to admit getting behind in things and that so many youth circumstances still escape us. So today our institutions at congregational, provincial and local level need to adopt a new attitude to these new circumstances for young people.

-The worldwide nature of the Congregation

The Congregation has continued to expand, including during this second six years of my time as Rector Major, and it has continued to strengthen its worldwide dimension. It is in 132 countries today, possibly being the most widespread religious Congregation in the Church. This does not mean we are carrying out a planned expansion, which would mean a lack of awareness and responsibility given the already indicated shrinking vocational scene. We continue to receive invitations from Bishops in countries where we still have no presence. Certainly, as it is in the Gospel and the Church, which came out of a particular culture and are open to every culture, identifying themselves with none of them, we can be filled with joy at seeing Don Bosco and his charism being able to implant itself and develop amongst any peoples. Aware of the absolute need for inculturation of the charism so it can touch the heart of culture and be expressed according to the variety of cultures, I wrote an important letter on this topic.¹¹

The challenge requires good understanding both of the culture where the charism is, and of the charism which is being planted. Only this way can they mutually enrich one another: the charism takes on a new face and develops its potential, while culture takes in new features which purify and uplift it. If this understanding is lacking, we get only transculturation, an imposition of the cultural elements which belong to the people but which have nothing to do with the charism; or we get mere acculturation where different things come together and have an influence but are not actually taken up. Naturally as in the case of any new planting or grafting, inculturation takes time and care. This is everyone's task, but it is the local Salesians who are called on to be the ones principally responsible for giving Don Bosco an American, Asian, African, Oceanian, European face. There may still be areas today where Christianity and so also the Church and the Congregation, are seen as foreigners. When we speak of inculturation however, we cannot just consider geographic or cultural areas, but refer particularly to the world of the young whose culture for us risks becoming a distant, unknown and incomprehensible planet.

One of the faces of our globalised world as it is experienced today in many religious and civil contexts, is interculturalism. This dimension today is increasingly seen as a requirement of mission ad gentes. On account of this we need to consider the importance and opportunity represented by living in international communities and actually practising intercultural experiences. Interculturalism in my view is the maturest solution we have for the challenge of multiculturalism, which is a feature of most countries and many Provinces today. Interculturalism overcomes the exclusive dualism we occasionally note between cultural integration and cultural pluralism. The first choice leads to a strong elimination of any cultural difference, stressing the worth of and imposing the local culture or dominant ethos. While the second seems to make cities into a collection of ghettos where each one reproduces its own culture in that suburb. In view of this, interculturalism in our communities and works – increasingly necessary in the future, especially in European countries, but not only there if we wish to revitalise the charism – could continue to offer a contribution to this huge social challenge.

The globalisation of the Congregation, though, is something going on at different rates. Not all Provinces for understandable reasons are at the same level of appropriation of the charism or in taking up the direction the Congregation has taken, especially since the Special General Chapter in 1971. There are some Provinces with a history that now extends beyond a 100 years, while others are only writing the first pages of their story. This brings a twofold and not only imaginary risk with it: we could remain anchored to the past with a fine story to tell, for the first group; or we could think that it is all starting today, a story yet to be told, for the second group. Both still have much to give and much to receive. Remaining faithful to Don Bosco and his charism implies understanding his story, pedagogy, spirituality, but also the development that ensured from his charismatic work until today, with an attitude of dynamic fidelity.

The charism, actually, is dynamic; it is a living thing, not just an historical document or valuable object to be kept in a museum or displayed in a display cabinet; it is a spirit that gives vitality, unity and identity to individuals and institutions; like a diamond its many facets are discovered a little at a time. The diverse nature of the Congregation achieves its most perfect unity through charismatic identity, the project of life of the Salesians of Don Bosco, their history and the major choices made by General Chapters. This identity is not reduced to clear thinking but is experience of life above all. It is from this that the need arises to live in a state of ongoing formation; this is everyone's task, but also a task for animation and government by Provinces until there is a greater understanding of the project of life which we have professed and greater consistency in our personal, community and institutional lives.

-The problem of vocation and formation

One of the issues that has attracted most attention during my time as Rector Major has been the one of vocation and formation. We have noted a threefold phenomenon: psychological fragility, vocational inconsistency and moral relativism. There are many causes that have given rise to these problems. On the question of psychological fragility and vocational inconsistency the General Councillor has carried out a special reflection the conclusions of which resulted in a “guideline” from the Councillor for Formation offered in the AGC.¹² The question was taken up by the Union of Superiors General (USG), who gave two of their half-yearly assemblies to it.¹³ This is just to show that the question is one which interests all Orders, Congregations and Institutes of either apostolic or contemplative life.

After all, care for vocations and formation has always had to face up to anthropological, social and cultural challenges. This means that today we have to deal with provocations that require new solutions and really because we are faced with a culturally new kind of youth who have difficulty making choices and considering these choices as final ones. Perseverance and living in fidelity is an effort for them, they don't understand the need for ascetics and renunciation, they run away from suffering and effort. Today's young person feels a need for self-affirmation at a professional and financial level. He wants independence and protection at the same time, he finds it difficult to appreciate celibacy and chastity, distorted as they are by widespread visual media, and he experiences a lack of literacy in faith with a poor experience of Christian life.¹⁴

Convinced that the problem is a much broader one, and importantly, much more vital than we think, I dedicated my final circular letter to this topic, one I have very much at heart and I hope is the likewise for everyone. The problem is a broader one because it has to do with the origins of vocation to consecrated life; it is a more important one because the vitality, unity and identity of the Congregation depends on formation, as does government. Someone pointed out to me that my first circular letter was “Salesians, be saints”,¹⁵ in which I sketched out a project of life, a programme for animation and government, and an educational and pastoral invitation of quality, and that my final letter “Vocation and formation: gift and task”¹⁶ was a way of achieving the first.

What is solidly accepted is that formation to being faithful to God, the Church, our Institute, to those to whom we are sent has already begun with the selection of candidates. We need to focus much more on personalities with a certain proactive psychology, the ability to make free choices and organise their life around these without compulsion from outside or inner dependencies. Added to this is the need for discernment with a double point of reference: on the one hand criteria regarding suitability which are shared by the formation team, and on the other clear evidence in the candidate of the qualities that favour identification with a project of evangelical life. All of this means that formation needs to be increasingly interested in personalisation, understood as evaluating the genuineness and depth of motivation, personal assumption of values and attitudes which are consonant with Salesian life, and a well-prepared form of accompaniment on the part of formators.

In the Ratio and Criteria and norms we have two very valuable documents, the result of the Congregation's praxis in formation, with contributions from the humanities and consultation with “Ratio”s from other Religious Institutes. We have to be very clear here that we can make mistakes in other areas, but not in formation, because that would mean ruining generations of Salesians, mortgaging or even compromising the very mission itself.

I also want to remind you that formation is the Congregation's task which it entrusts to Provinces who then have the duty of carrying it out, ensuring the personnel, structures, resources that make it possible. This means we cannot justify a desire to have all stages of formation accounted for in our own Province. The most important thing is an awareness of properly forming the Salesian which the Congregation, Church, and young people need today. Hence the binding urgency of looking after initial formation communities well, improving our study centres, preparing formators, not just teachers or professors but ensuring the vitality of the community, the quality of faith, the radical nature of the sequela Christi.

-The Salesian Brother Vocation

Over these years one of the important tasks we have taken up is looking after the vocation of the Salesian Brother. My dear predecessor, Fr Juan Edmundo Vecchi, writing a circular letter on this topic for the Beatification of Bro. Artemides Zatti, had already invited the Congregation to make a special effort to promote and develop the Salesian Brother vocation, help to make it more visible and esteemed. We sought in fact to translate this invitation into our animation and government programmes for 2002-2008 and 2008-2014. It is a grace, I believe, to conclude my mandate having had the immense joy of the Beatification of our Brother and Martyr Iztván Sándor, from Hungary, a beautiful figure to get to know and propose.

Over these twelve years the number of Salesian Brothers went from 2,317 in December 2001 to 2,092 in December 2007, and 1,824 in December 2012. Although these statistics do not seem so encouraging, even more so since the number continues to decline, I find it a positive fact that in the various Regions there are efforts to set up and strengthen communities and centres for the specific formation of the Salesian Brother. Another positive fact is that there are a growing number of Brothers carrying out roles of animation and government in the Provinces, not only as Council members but as Provincial Delegates for Youth Ministry, or Formation or the Economy.

I am, though, of the opinion that to plumb the depths of the Salesian Brother vocation the Congregation has to insist much more on his identity, specific nature and complementarity. His identity is the same as the identity of every Salesian whose vocation is to be consecrated to God and sent to the young; the specific nature of the Salesian Brother comes from his secular (as in lay) way of living out this consecration and carrying out the mission, freed from any clerical expression, and above all marked by his special witness to the Kingdom of God in the world, his closeness to the young and their work (cf. C. 45). His complementarity is not only a matter of roles, but especially his lay expression of our common calling.

I am convinced that today, more than yesterday, especially in those parts of the world where the priest has a marked social role, we have to put greater emphasis on our vocation as religious, priest or lay, otherwise we run the risk of developing a class-based and clerical mentality in the Congregation.

-Two questions to reflect on

Throughout my time as Rector Major we have pursued an ongoing deeper reflection in the General Council on two matters in particular, taking on the responsibility of identifying and establishing the Congregation's policy in their regard.

The question of sexual abuse had already become an urgent issue during GC25 and required that Chapter members take a stance, even if just from an educational and preventive point of view. This continued then when the Rector Major and Council drew up a document sent to Provincials by the then Vicar, Fr Luc Van Looy.¹⁷ A further document was added to this, updating the earlier one, it too drawn up by the Council in 2004 and sent to Provincials by the current Vicar of the Rector Major, Fr Adrian Bregolin. With the help of the Regional Councillors both documents were studied at meetings of Provincials, who were asked to abide by the directions indicated there.

In the second six year period the situation become ever more pressing given a by now much clearer understanding of what can be considered to be abuse against minors: physical violence, psychological pressure, sexual abuse. Society's sensitivity to the matter had also grown: on society's part, especially with certain groups, there was strong pressure to bring to light every case of abuse, even from a long time ago. The Holy See had also offered some more precise guidelines on the question. As the Vicar has already pointed out in his report, most Provinces took up the Congregation's protocol for handling cases in a responsible way. A “code of ethics and for protection of minors” was also asked for, and many Provinces and Regions have drawn this up. For my and the Vicar's part we have been concerned with accompanying the Provinces facing major difficulties in this area.

In this Chapter I would like to repeat that the Congregation fully accepts the Holy See's policy of zero tolerance with regard to confreres involved in this abominable and painful crime. Everyone knows - at least I hope they do - the letter I wrote on the topic, entitled “I am the vine, you are the branches” The vocation to remain always united to Jesus to have life,¹⁸. It is a letter that should be studied, taken up, and seriously taken on by everyone. Our personal lives should stand out for our shining witness of chastity leaving no room for shadows, ambiguities and absolutely no abuse against minors. When there is abuse, the Congregation cannot but stand with the children entrusted to us by God and their families.

It is understood that light be thrown on and justice be done where allegations are made, including giving confreres the right to demonstrate their innocence when they are unjustly accused of such crimes. We need to add that besides the moral seriousness of it, which is our deepest regret, we have to consider the damage done to the Congregation's reputation, the serious feeling of unease it creates amongst the majority of confreres who live their vocation well, and the serious financial damage we often have to undergo to compensate victims. The money that comes to us through Providence is for the good of our young people, our mission; unfortunately in such situations it has to be put into making amends for these grave injustices. I think this is the right opportunity here to appeal once more to our responsibility in proper discernment of the suitability of our candidates to consecrated life. We have to take great care of our formation processes, paying attention to the positive signs of suitability for the Salesian vocation.

The matter of correct administration of goods had been on the General Council agenda as part of the programme of animation and government in the Economy sector already during 2002-2008. The reflection was taken up again following some outlandish behaviour in the finance area by some individual confreres, communities, even Provinces who put their Provinces at risk and in some cases even compromising the General Administration itself.

In this area the, reflection by Council, carried out especially by the then Economer General, Fr Gianni Mazzali, was translated into guidelines sent to Provincials, where everyone was asked to act according to what has been established in our Constitutions and Regulations. At the same time Provinces were invited to become increasingly autonomous from a financial point of view and to express solidarity for people who are poor and dependent. With a view to more professional and transparent management, the Economers General, Fr Gianni Mazzali first, then Bro. Claudio Marangio and then Bro. Jean Paul Muller, have offered various updating courses over the twelve years to Provincial Economers, have visited Provinces in need of advice or assistance, have drawn up and published guidelines in the Acts of the General Council, for a life of evangelical poverty which is consonant with our project of life.¹⁹

In the second six year period the matter of our finances has become much more delicate and demanding for a number of reasons. Certainly the financial and economic crisis has had significant impact. Since 2009 the world has been strongly influenced by this, and it has had particular repercussions in Europe and the United States. Many groups in society have suffered unemployment, or redundancy, increased taxation and been forced to live in conditions of poverty. This new scenario has weakened the help coming from many of our benefactors and deprived our institutions of resources, including the General Administration, leaving them in a seriously precarious situation even in terms of their very ability to function. We can add to this Bro. Claudio Marangio's decision to resign his mandate halfway through, for vocational reasons. This concluded with a request for dispensation from religious profession, and led us to approach Bro. Jean Paul Muller, who had been second in the voting for this role at GC26. I would like to express my thanks and the thanks of the Congregation to him for accepting this role in such difficult circumstances.

The economic situation and problems relating to it have already been widely illustrated in his report where he has highlighted how the “Gerini Foundation” affair has impacted on us so strongly due to the transaction involving its supposed successors, signed in June 2007, which involved the General Administration and not the Foundation itself, as guarantor. This is the point of dispute today. If we add to this the result of a legal arbitration which unjustly and exorbitantly increased the real value of the Foundation's patrimony, you can well understand how serious the problems that flowed from this have been. At this point there has been a firm decision to follow through with a civil and penal process and hence make an appeal to justice to have this entire affair properly reviewed.

I conclude my mandate hoping for a decision favourable to us which will demonstrate the fraud and extortion we have been victims of. But the lesson is one all of us have to learn. As Don Bosco's first successor, Blessed Michael Rua had already pointed out, we should never accept bequests or legacies with obligations or legal problems tied to them. We have to be faithful to what our Constitutions and Regulations establish in this respect. I am also convinced that the management of the Congregation's resources demands huge competence and responsibility and cannot therefore depend on just one person. I hope that having the Economer General supported by two confreres of proven competence and administrative ability, can be defined as normative, as well as having a group of professional advisors to work with him in studying all the legal factors tied in with the financial area today.

All these matters together have led us to a profound reflection in the Council on the economy of the General Administration. This reflection was preceded by a number of discussions in the first three years of this six year period. A General Council commission then drew up a proposal, prepared with a view to guaranteeing a practice which would support the General Administration in its ordinary functioning, ordinary and extraordinary maintenance and also in continuing to help needy Provinces. The decision the Council took was to bring the issue to GC27 with information on the financial situation of the General Administration which can help to make it understood why there is need for an annual institutional tax and a contribution from the various Provinces according to their possibilities.

I take this occasion to make reference to the solidarity of the Congregation which helps individuals, works and Provinces through the Rector Major's Fund, in addition to more institutional kinds of aid from the Mission Offices. I would also like to highlight the fact that until now the Rector Major has paid his own tribute, and that has been made possible thanks to the generosity of Provinces or individual houses, who have responded generously to occasional appeals from the Rector Major. Without this it would have been impossible carry out restoration at Colle Don Bosco, the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, the Sacred Heart Basilica in Rome, St John's Church, etc.

-A word on requests to the Rector Major made by GC26

GC26 had a series of requests of the Rector Major, taken into consideration from the outset of planning for the six years and which I would like to account for now. Except for the one asking us to rethink Youth Ministry, these have all been given to the juridical commission who will present them to the Chapter Assembly for study, potential observations and final approval.

• No. 45 of GC26 regarding Youth Ministry asked the Rector Major “through the competent Departments" to encourage "a deeper understanding of the relationship between evangelisation and education," with a view to updating the Youth Ministry handbook which Fr Antonio Doménech in his time had drawn up. This has been carried out by Fr Fabio Attard and the Youth Ministry sector with a wide involvement of individuals, Provinces and teams involving theologians and people in the ministry field.

As a General Council we have studied the document prepared by the Councillor for Youth Ministry and given our own contribution, according to our competence, especially regarding the aspect of its essential agreement with the Constitutions and General Chapters.

In presenting this Handbook Fr Attard offers the aims of this fundamental frame of reference which does not offer special novelty in terms of pastoral guidelines but a new and theologically updated arrangement.

• No. 118 of GC26, given that the next GC had to evaluate: the question of entrusting the Salesian Family to the Vicar of the Rector Major, coordination of the three sectors of Youth Ministry, Social Communication, Missions, and the configuration of Regions in Europe, asked the Rector Major with his Council to promote “for the next General Chapter an evaluation of the Structures of Animation and central Government of the Congregation, involving the Provinces." This too has been done.

We began with a questionnaire sent out to all Provinces and a study carried out by an appropriate commission involving lay experts. The Council gathered all the contributions from Provinces and the Commission's proposals, and we studied, debated and concluded our discernment by voting on each and every one of them. As part of this evaluation and the proposal to be offered to GCG27, we also studied and voted on the configuration of Regions in Europe after taking into account the responses of each of the Provinces in Europe. Obviously it is up to Chapter members to decide on each and every one of these items.

• Finally, the last item in no. 111 of GC26 asked the Rector major with his Council to define “define the nature and objectives of the Congregation's intervention on behalf of a renewed Salesian presence in Europe.”

Project Europe, in reference to this number from the last Chapter, was one of the major priorities in the General Council's programme for these six years, treating it as a project of the Congregation. The first step was to set up a Commission made up of the three Regional Councillors for Europe, the three Councillors for the mission, three Provincials representing each of the three Regions, headed up by my personal Delegate, Fr Francesco Cereda.

All the Provinces in Europe were immediately consulted on the basis of which I then defined the nature and objectives of the Project, which I then presented to the second meeting of all Provincials in Europe at the end of November 2008. At this meeting I made known the three great areas on which to work for relaunching our presence in the Old Continent: 1. Endogenous [= from within] revitalisation of the Charism, 2. Reshaping of works, 3. Sending missionaries.

I must confess that I have watched with great satisfaction how Project Europe and its three 'pillars' have been taken up and increasingly shared by Orders, Congregations and Institutes of Consecrated Life in Europe²⁰. The evaluation on how Project Europe was proceeding, carried out at the meeting from 30 November to 2 December 2012, enabled us to see the objectives achieved in each of the three areas and those which remained as a challenge. I think the most important thing was setting this process in motion. Like all great projects it will take many years to be adequately assimilated and realised in concrete.

I see it as a providential fact that the Year of Faith, recently concluded, the Synod on New Evangelisation for passing on the faith, whose post-synodal letter marks out the Church's spiritual and pastoral programme for the coming years, and the topic for GC27 are in reality a confirmation of our Project Europe and reinforce the choices we made and that we have to see put into place with ever greater conviction.

2.A PROPHETIC OUTLOOK ON THE FUTURE

After presenting the state of the Congregation, I invite you now to take a look at the situation and offer a prophetic interpretation of it. I invite you to do this not so much to say something about the future, but rather putting ourselves (myself with you) in a position where we listen to God speaking to us through what we are experiencing. This will help us discern and take up his will as a project of life.

So what are the attitudes, the most relevant guidelines for us to achieve a more significant and fruitful future with a pastoral, vocational and spiritual outlook? What should the Congregation be like today, and more concretely, what should each individual Salesian be like today in order to respond faithfully today to expectations from God, Don Bosco, the Church, society, the young?

2.1Listening to God

Today it is common enough to find many and varied interpretations of how things are now and what the future is for Religious Life. Some paint this with three images: being in the desert where there is nobody, as a metaphor to make ourselves present through our action and testimony where neither State nor society goes; going out to the periphery and leaving others at the centre, and expecting to be stripped of power and privilege; or going to the frontiers where more prophetic life and action are needed. Some play with words and think that Consecrated Life may be now called to focus radically on God, source of our identity, and focus on what is essential, and decentralise ourselves by going towards the frontiers. There are those who foresee change through the image of a monastery that changes from being a closed fortress to being an encampment, open to everyone especially the poor, the Religious amongst them, involved in the choice of justice and solidarity, simple lifestyle, fostering globalisation from below which starts from the poor and the excluded; with communities more like hearths than hotels, with more communion in life and more fellowship, providing an impetus to true unity in diversity, with lay people beside us as companions on the journey.

In his post-synodal letter Vita Consecrata, John Paul II, using the icon of Transfiguration, outlined the profile by speaking of the mysterium Trinitatis, to indicate the strong experience of God which is the basis of Religious Life and its principal mission. He then offered the signum fraternatis, to emphasise that behind every vocation is a convocation and that fraternal life is a criterion of authenticity of an experience of God and is already an expression of the mission. Finally he pointed to the servitium caritatis, to stress that it is mission which leads us to share the joys and hopes, sorrows and anxieties of humanity.

In the Union of Superiors General which I was President of for six years (from 2007 to 2013), and more concretely, from the motto of the International Congress on Consecrated Life in 2004, we sought to interpret and promote religious life as a Samaritan life marked by a great passion Christ and passion for man.

The most interesting thing is that deep down despite the different expressions and emphases, all these attempts at definition take account of the principal traits of Consecrated Life which define it.

Spirituality. In all religious Institutes a remarkable effort is being made so that the Word of God and the Eucharist are truly at the centre of the consecrated individual's life and that of his or her community. We are convinced that the consecrated individual is a living and transfigured memory of the transcendent dimension in the heart of every human being.

Commmunity. We are aware that a witness of communion open to everyone in need, is fundamental in our world immersed as it is in selfishness and loneliness. Consecrated Life if lived in community, is already in itself a proclamation of the Gospel.

Mission. We see the need of a mission to carry out and to love, on the “margins” of society and the Church, in ‘frontier’ positions that are so not only geographically but also culturally and existentially. This mean entering and locating ourselves in a world of exclusion, poverty, but also in ever more secularised contexts which attempt to eliminate God not only from political choices of the State, but especially in the warp and woof of society and in people's very awareness, as if we had to live without God. However mission also includes “passion”, understood as the suffering or impotence of so many religious who continue to pray and offer themselves up for the Church and the workers in the harvest, as also the “passion” of martyrdom of so many religious imprisoned or killed for the Kingdom. They are the best representation of Christ Jesus who continues his passion in the world through his Church.

In the Congregation, already since the approval of the renewed text of our Rule of Life, religious consecration has been presented as a project of life unified around apostolic mission, fraternal communion and the practice of the evangelical counsels (cf. C. 3). In fact this is the profile of the Salesian who in the letter of convocation of this GC27 I described as mystic in the spirit, prophet of fraternity and servant of the young.

Let us try now to better understand and define this new profile in the light of the profound change we are experiencing in our times as challenge and opportunity, in such a way that we may be able to better predict the future of the Congregation.

2.2. Salesian life under the banner of change

We are all convinced that we are going through a profound and momentous time of change. Without it sounding like rhetoric we can tranquilly speak of ‘historic, momentous change’. Indeed it would seem that transformation is the most distinctive feature of this historical period of ours. Everything changes. It is not enough just to make that observation however. What is important is to be aware of the need that we as religious have of looking at the current context of the world as an historical 'locus' in which we are called to follow Christ and carry out the Salesian mission. The world in all its shapes and sizes contains a profound theological significance for our way of life. It is not a question of putting up with it or trying to avoid it, but of understanding that its challenges are opportunities for us. History and the world are not optional ingredients in our relationship with God.²¹

2.2.1. The change we are going through

The current situation comes out of a long and articulated process. The word that recurs most often in describing our times is complexity. It should not be given undue simplification. It is honest to say clearly that we need courage to live with complexity without ever ceasing to look out for the “unum necessarium”.

Another point of convergence is the observation that changes across our planet are not in fact all equal and have different significance for us. We are caught up in an extraordinary interaction between what is happening at global level and the histories of our continents and individual countries. So seen this way complexity indicates a process of transition whose trajectory we are unable to see the end of.

- Secularisation and the return of the sacred

Beginning with an inevitably Euro-Atlantic concept, which nevertheless lies at the root of global processes, we note the impact of the process of secularisation which presents as a development coming out of the beginnings of modernity and which has tended, through the centuries from the 15th century until now, to rewrite our existence and its significance in terms of the primacy of the subject (individual), autonomy and freedom. Our cultural, scientific and legal vocabulary is being rewritten “etsi deus non daretur”. At the same time this new underpinning idea has gradually tended to privatise religious experience and strip it of public value.

The Church's brave struggle to respond to this process has meant wonderful art, culture and theology, well-balanced documents, but none of this has stopped a model emerging of grace separated from nature, faith from reason, Church from world, religious life/priesthood from secular life²².

This cultural direction has been tinted over time with secularist and atheist tendencies, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, with Feuerbach and Marx announcing the end of religion and Nietzsche the metaphorical death of God, all pointing to his imminent social insignificance, which in many countries in fact is what is happening.

Protestant theology in its way and Catholic theology in another have not reacted in time, if we could say so, to elaborate a theology of secularisation and death of God, including a theology of the world and a political theology; but in the space of just a few decades we are already faced with the return of the sacred, indeed of the “sacred uncivilised” as someone called it. We have gone quickly from the “collapse of the gods” to their inexorable return. Martin Buber had proclaimed this somehow when he said: it is not the death of God but his eclipse that we are dealing with.

Meanwhile projects of self-redemption, based on what Henri de Lubac calls The drama of atheistic humanism, thunder in like waves relentlessly one after the other. At the same time new room has been left for neo-liberal culture to sprout and for new syncretist religiosity and spiritualities of non-belonging, as they have been called, to proliferate; they have a substantial aversion to religious institution and they foster an individual relationship with the sacred based essentially on the emotions of religious experience, on harmony and well-being. The major paradox lies in the fact that such new religiosity does not appear to contradict the process of secularisation but it certainly alters its perspective.

For Charles Taylor, in his impressive work The secular age, the core of secularisation in today's Euro-Atlantic societies consists in considering faith in God as one option amongst others. We have gone from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one where even for the most devout believer this is only one human possibility amongst others. The birth of an “exclusive humanism”, where we can conceive the eclipse of all ends which transcend humankind's earthly prosperity eliminates every possibility of “naive” consideration of religious faith and opens the field up to very many options. Everyone, believer and non-believer according to Taylor, should by now make reference to a new “reflexive” background which has radically altered the weight and place of religion in our society. This opens the door to a plural society,²³ like the one we live in today and where we have to learn to coexist while seeking unity in dialogue and respect for difference.

Such a pluri-secular process requires new connotations and a formidable acceleration, intersecting with the unique “ideology”, if we can call it that, that knows of no crisis, meaning the widespread application of the technological area, extraordinary scientific discoveries which seem to make transformations possible that were unthinkable not so long ago.

What does it mean to be consecrated and to live out our apostolic mission at a time when the human being has rethought himself as “an experiment with himself” (Jongen)? Where the marriage between nature and technology seems to be increasingly more cogent, like in the metaphor of the cyborg where the final product is nothing but a robot? We are evidently seeing discoveries that put potential at our disposal that from an anthropological point of view profoundly impact on the meaning of the body, society and the cosmos.

- Variable globalisation

Another very widespread element is represented by new communication tools which allow for a spread of information and networking of resources via Internet. No need to recall yet again how much the Internet has altered life in society and community life for consecrated and apostolic life!

It is here that reference has often been made to our context, called a time of 'globalisation'. It is an extremely complex process, made possible by the new system of planetary connection through interactive communication. We have all recognised the difficulty in clearly describing the process and profoundly appreciating the opportunities it offers our way of life, but we are all aware that we can no longer avoid it.

The digital world is not a merely instrumental thing; it shapes our cultural codes, opening new possibilities for interaction but also disclosing the dangers of new and even deeper conformity. Interaction between the global and the local seems to be the big question mark emerging from sociology, between the “global village” and the local situation, or glocalisation.²⁴

As we well know the first effect of globalisation is felt in the economic scene. Today we are aware of new and anonymous financial powers which are very difficult to control or oppose and which have become truly ‘hidden powers’. And here we need to emphasise the contrast seen in the strong commitment of religious generally and we Salesians in particular to new and old poverties which challenge our way of life and our very mission of educational and pastoral service.

On the one hand secularisation, techno-science and globalisation generated a mindset marked by consumption and generating consumerism; on the other hand the same phenomenon sharpened conflicts and poverty in developing countries. If economies in many parts of the planet are focused fundamentally on responding to need, a culture is being created which is increasingly focused on satisfying 'desires', in the plural. The Encyclical Caritas in Veritate meaningfully states: “As society becomes ever more globalised, it makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers” (no. 19).

Globalisation, sharing of resources, new conflicts and poverty are also ingredients for new encounters between different cultural realities. It is not only new media that allow us to understand different cultures and traditions but the inexorable movement of peoples, migrations unprecedented in human history which are bringing into being increasingly pluralistic societies from a religious and cultural angle. In this way we have been able to recognise the significant shifts from monocultural societies to multicultural ones and now to increasingly intercultural ones, where differences are somehow forced to dialogue and interact. These processes are often painful but inevitable, and demand real involvement on our part.

So we cannot escape our responsibility at this particular hour in history. We are aware that the current economic crisis, one without precedent, is not a dialectical crisis, typical of capitalism which has seen its cycles of decline and boom, but is an entropic crisis because we have lost meaning and direction in our choices.²⁵ While a dialectical crisis needs good technicians and can be fixed after a few years by following the mechanisms of capitalism which knows there will be times of decline and recovery, an entropic crisis needs witnesses and educators like St Benedict of Norcia, St Francis of Assisi, St Ignatius of Loyola, like Don Bosco. All these men of God were able to give a cultural turn to history.

And this is why consecrated life in general and the Salesian charism in particular are needed more than ever. It is because the problem is cultural that it can be resolved with an educational project which understands how to unite values and ideals, know-how and understanding, social involvement and active citizenship. It is through such things that we need to be able to overcome the culture of greed that people have, their passion for unlimited possession, the gap between the market and democracy of structures which results in decisions of those who govern obeying the laws of finance rather than the common good.

It implies a genuine pastoral conversion because it means less ‘doing’ and more ‘acting’, being less given to transforming things and more to transforming people, bringing about the triumph of Charity in Truth. So we should be focusing our presence and our best energies where the transformation of people is most urgent. Pastoral conversion implies, as a consequence, taking courageous decisions.

- Being part of fast-moving complexity

Today everyone agrees that we are more caught up in a culture that seems marked by a “fast-moving” kind of complexity: it is the inevitable acknowledgement of an exponential acceleration of time. Many of the problems felt by the Church and religious life depend on the sudden impact of these changes on society and cultural models. Evidently, nobody can pretend that they can offer a decisive summary of what is going on.

Martin Heidegger, in an interview published posthumously in the book, Only a God can save us now, speaks of the anthropological displacement and uprooting of man due to what he calls the introduction of cybernetics in daily life. For us today, this insight is documented mainly in the fragmentation that characterises our attempts at synthesis.

2.2.2. The context calls on us to change: pastoral conversion

The changes are so profound and sudden that it seems there is not time to adequately assimilate them in the unity of our human subjective being. The risk is that this fragmentation somehow becomes part of us inwardly, making us all more fragile and exposed to the manipulations of unknown powers.

- What gain then is it for a man to have won the whole world?

Faced with such a challenging and demanding scenario there is no room left for escape, but there is room for renewed responsibility. From this point of view our way of life should be able to shoulder anew the valuable question that Jesus addresses to his audience: “What gain then is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self?” (Lk 9:25).

It is a case of asking ourselves what lets a man, in our case the young, live fully in the world and profit from its extraordinary potential without losing himself. In this context loss of self is understood as loss of one's freedom, not only autonomy but the possibility of a bent towards an ultimate and final good which can integrate everything one can experience in the course of a lifetime.

In this attempt at renewal, in order to better respond to today's challenges there are many factors that cannot be underestimated but which at the same time ought not be decisive to the point of paralysis in moving and enlivening the social body. I am referring to ageing and lack of personnel, the low influx of vocations, the complexity and weight of structures, resistance to the work of real shared responsibility with the Salesian Family and the laity.

-Reshaping of our works as pastoral conversion

There is no doubt that the current shrinking of numbers in the West generates not a little concern for governing Provinces with so many works and increasingly fewer people to staff them with. Confreres are so often caught up in an excessive frenzy of works and activism that empties them of their spiritual life and makes them weak and more vulnerable.

It is common fact today that we speak of the complexity and weight of our works without at the same time succeeding in setting up more agile structures which are equally effective in achieving our mission's purpose. Reconverting traditional forms into more agile structures is often very difficult and a cause of conflict: think of the drama when Provinces have to be fused and the forced closure of works and communities. Certainly, taking on lay, volunteer or professional personnel to keep works going and functioning is a growing reality but we still have a way to go. Changes urge structural rethinking.

Seeking to find solutions to pastoral problems, for the first time at Aparecida (Brazil), the 5th General Conference of CELAM spoke not only of the need for ‘personal conversion’ in order to better describe the situation of the disciple of Jesus as one who first submits to Jesus' Lordship and his Word to then become his zealous missionary. They also began to speak of the real need of ‘pastoral conversion’, saying that structures and bureaucracy ought not prevail over the mission to evangelise and that planning, while necessary, ought not swamp missionary impulse.

This tells us that the restructuring we are asking of Provinces is not fundamentally an administrative or juridical act but a pastoral one, because it means being present where we are but in a new way which is more responsive to the needs of those to whom we are sent and being present in areas where we have not been until now and where our presence is more relevant today.

I have insisted on this more than once, stating that is it not a question of pulling out or lowering the sails, but of the simultaneous, threefold process of giving new significance, reshaping and relocating. It is the question of learning the art of dying and the art of living, letting go of what has to die so that the new can germinate, flourish and bear fruit. This is the fruit of the Spirit who tears out the heart of stone and transplants a heart of flesh this renewing the face of the earth.

- Newness of the Spirit

The youthfulness and perennial newness of the Church and humanity are the fruit of the New Man, the Risen Lord who, as John's Gospel tells us, locates the coming of the Spirit on the same day as the resurrection of Jesus. Breathing his Spirit, the Lord Jesus, the New Man, gives his disciples the mission and the possibility of being new men and bringing about a new humanity through forgiveness and reconciliation (Jn 20:19-23).

It was precisely the Holy Spirit who prevented the Church from remaining a synagogue, a place locking in the elect, a place for people who did not recognise they were sinners and did not want to be forgiven. The Church which springs from the Upper Room is always tempted to return there and close itself up once more. It is tempted to not allow itself to be forgiven, or to not have forgiveness as its task, especially when winds of contradiction are blowing from outside. That is when signs of fear appear once more: the little flock and closure instead of launching out again; closing up and isolating itself not even being aware that not all who knock are doing so to break down the closed door but because they want to come in. Only he can urge us to take charge of new directions and aim for new goals for the Kingdom of God, and for man.

The Spirit given by the Risen Lord also means another thing for us: it is the brand that give us our identity, marks us out from the world. Woe to us if we forget that and give into the seductions of the world and its logic! He, the Spirit, ensures that the Church is faithful to Christ. He makes sure that our cause with the world remains truly "Jesus' cause", "the truth", and not a different one.

Christian life and more so consecrated life that has become softened, gentrified, lacking momentum risks becoming irrelevant and harmless. It no longer has anything to say to anybody. Man today is distracted, disenchanted, indifferent, used to everything. And it is because of this that he needs to be vigorously shaken up by a testimony whose habits are especially provocative.

We need to recover the "Pentecostal, spiritual" dimension of Christian life; we need to rediscover the Spirit. I am not so worried about the current crisis in the Church and consecrated life. What I really fear is insignificant Christian and Salesian life; and the Christian has no significance, nothing to say, bothers nobody, when he is not spiritual.

Christianity, our faith, our Salesian vocation, cannot give in to facile solutions, compromises, benevolent concessions, nods and winks, balancing acts to fill in the gaps. They cannot give up their ideals and reduce their claims (which are ones Christ established), in order to arrive at amicable arrangements and generous transactions to win back popularity and get the numbers up. Precisely because the relevance of faith today depends on its identity and not on the degree of social acceptance we believe in the need for an increasingly more demanding commitment along these lines. We need to raise the stakes and dare to be clear, say openly who we are, what we want, what we are asking, without lessening our claims and demands.

2.3. Vatican Council II: point of reference and navigation chart

It is not by chance that Vatican Council II gave a whole chapter to Consecrated Life in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church. Indeed there can be no discussion of Consecrated Life without reference to the Church in which religious are the prophetic component by native calling.

The reason is that following Christ through the public profession of the evangelical counsels is not a purely human choice of an ascetic kind, or a personal decision taken in view of human perfection, as in other religions. Instead, Consecrated Life is a gift of the Holy Spirit, meaning it is of divine and charismatic origin and belongs intrinsically to the life and holiness of the Church.²⁶ This explains, then, why the events of Consecrated Life keep in step with those of the Church: when one is in crisis the other is too and each time the one flourishes, the other receives a shot of renewal and vitality.²⁷

We can see this in the change that the Church experienced with the sudden resignation of Benedict XVI from the papacy and the election of Pope Francis, two events that changed the ecclesial context in unforeseen ways.

The first obvious thing is that today's challenges are no longer those of Council times: some have changed appearance, others appear to be entirely new or came after. Atheism for example is no longer the “scientific”, Marxist atheism of 50 years ago but a practical atheism brought on by practical materialism and a dominant consumerist culture. Similarly humanity today is no longer divided by the Berlin Wall but other walls have been built up such as poverty and hunger, selfishness and racism, and the threat of nuclear war today is not what it was then, but has given way to international terrorism.

At the same time over these 50 years certain "signs of the times" have shown up heralding a better future for humanity which has shown some signs of progress towards peace: we have seen greater understanding among peoples, a commitment to a peaceful future, development, promotion of human rights, a more mature environmental awareness, an increasingly dense and extensive mass media and digital communication. How could we not find cause for hope from the choice of millions of young volunteers who generously take on the problems of suffering and the needy? And the humanising potential of new technologies applied to medicine and human life - are they too not cause for hope, other than being cause for concern?

We should just as equally take note that, along with the world, the Church too has changed. 50 years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council the Christian community has grown, although in recent years it might have lost enthusiasm and, in the words of Pope Ratzinger, now looks worn out and tired.

It is certainly not the first time that the Church has been through difficult times. It is inevitable that, with the passage of time, dust and dirt has accumulated on the people and institutions of the Church, as Benedict XVI had already declared. Pope Francis repeated this, warning the Church of a diluted spirituality, and the danger of becoming an NGO when organisation prevails over evangelising mission. Other interventions of Pope Francis have spoken of the tendency of the Church to become middle class and of the stagnation that can deaden its sensitivity to major social problems; clericalism that leaves no room for lay people and, in particular, women; being closed in on itself, self-referring, forgetting that she was born to evangelise. And when the Church becomes rich and powerful, weighed down by human support and privileges, whenever diplomacy prevails over prophecy, when the Christian community folds in on its internal problems and loses missionary impulse, the Holy Spirit who guides the Church intervenes: cleanses, renews and brings it back to its original purity. The return of apostolic times!

Is this not what Pope Francis is doing? With simple gestures and direct choices he tries to bring the Church back to the Gospel, promoting a missionary and pastoral Church on the move, building and evangelising, a poor Church which preaches the values ​​of poverty and announces a merciful God. Inspired by St Francis, whom he chose as his patron, and taking the Second Vatican Council as his reference point, Pope Bergoglio is carrying out his Petrine ministry through a testimony of simplicity, poverty and humility. With his choices for the poor, his gestures of sympathy, openness, dialogue, love, tenderness, he is trying to demolish the new walls and build new bridges. His courageous interventions declare and denounce everything contrary to God's plan for Man, both within the Church and outside of it, with great conviction, vigorous frankness and great foresight.

Although it is up to the Pope to resume and complete the process of renewal started 50 years ago by the Second Vatican Council in a very different scenario from the current one, Consecrated Life, and we Salesians as part of it, have a special responsibility.

3.CONCLUSION

From the evidence that I have presented to you thus far there are some useful insights for Chapter discussion, and one question in particular: what kind of Salesian and Congregation do we need today to be faithful to Don Bosco and, at the same time be in perfect harmony with the Spirit who is purifying, renewing and reviving the Church?

In my letter at the end of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro I wrote, "without it demanding too much, I must say that the way we are going in preparation for the bicentenary of the birth of our beloved Father and Founder Don Bosco, and especially GC27 with its urgent theme 'Witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel', is in perfect harmony with this appeal to Christ, his Gospel, simplicity, poverty and humility."

In my opinion, the Congregation today must be ever more faithful to its pastoral and educational charism for the young and increasingly open to all cultures, in a constant search for shared values and common elements of truth; expressing a Salesian life lived as poor people, with the poor and for the poor, resolutely open to collaboration with the entire Salesian Family and sharing responsibility with the laity, taking up the great choices of GC24 which commit us to sharing the same spirit and mission with them.

Dear brothers, let me conclude and hand over this report on the state of the congregation at the end of my term as Rector Major. I received a Congregation in good health from my predecessor, the late Fr Juan Edmundo Vecchi, and I hope to be able to hand it on to my successor with greater charismatic identity and good spiritual, apostolic and vocational vitality. With the celebration of the Bicentenary of the birth of Don Bosco the Congregation should feel strongly stimulated to be reborn in a totally different context than 200 years ago so it can be today, as yesterday, a gift from God for "the young who are poorer, needy and at risk ".

I entrust this General Chapter to Mary Immaculate, the Help of Christians, so that she who "showed Don Bosco his field of labour among the youth and was the constant guide and support of his work, especially in the foundation of our Society," can teach us to listen and accommodate what the Lord wants us to do in this historic hour, so as to "become witnesses to the young of her Son's boundless love" (C.. 8).

Fr Pascual Chávez V., sdb

Rector Major