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AGC433_Artime_Guidelines_GC28

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AGC433_Artime_Guidelines_GC28

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PRESENTATION BY THE RECTOR MAJOR

My dear confreres,

Four months have passed since the closure of the 28th General Chapter.

It concluded three weeks earlier than planned due to the pandemic that

made our continued stay at Valdocco impossible. Today I am offering

you this presentation with sentiments of profound joy for what we ex-

perienced at Valdocco and with satisfaction for what was – I believe –

a fruitful work carried out by all of us Chapter members and then com-

pleted by the General Council. This is because the Chapter Assembly

entrusted the Rector Major and his Council with the task of finishing

what had remained unfinished at the time of the early closure.

The document that now reaches all confreres through this publication

is subtitled “Post-Chapter reflection” and not “Chapter documents”,

as has customarily been the case in the past. This is because the Chap-

ter Assembly did not arrive at the point of final approval of the text by

vote. Only a few Chapter deliberations, especially those of a legal na-

ture, saw the light of day during the first four weeks of our work.

As I have said on other occasions, because of the circumstances we

had to live through GC28 was a “special” Chapter. Nevertheless, it

was not a Chapter without its guidelines and policy directions. In fact,

the document I am presenting to you contains a first part that both

I and the confreres on the General Council consider to be very impor-

tant for the animation, government and life of the Congregation over

the coming six years.

These are the programmatic guidelines that the Rector Major offers

the Congregation for the six-year period from 2020-2026. In this

wide-ranging proposal you will find, dear confreres, the reflection

that followed on from the General Chapter, a fruit of the Chapter itself

and a synthesis of the journey taken within our Congregation over the

previous six years. It is a rich and wide-ranging reflection that first of

all captures the spirit of what is contained in the Message that the

Holy Father, Pope Francis, sent to the General Chapter; it also brings

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together those elements that the Pope pointed to as essential and that

were already part of the reflection developed by the Chapter Assembly

on the first two thematic nuclei. The third nucleus – as you know –

was drawn up by the General Council.

These programmatic guidelines should certainly be motive for study,

analysis and further exploration both by the Provinces and by each

confrere, especially by the Rectors for their service of animation and

governance of the local communities. I assume that it will be the

object of study by the Provincial and his Council.

I maintain that the whole Congregation must follow this path, even if

at different tempos linked to the particular nature of each province. It

is to do with our identity, is charismatic and offers guidelines and

lines of action for our time.

This programmatic text for the six-year period is followed by the

Message of the Holy Father, which without doubt will touch the heart

of every Salesian and above all will be motive for meditation, study,

in-depth consideration and personal engagement.

The three nuclei proposed as themes for the work of the Chapter were

extensively developed, even though they did not go through all the

stages of study and development initially intended. The texts offer a

wealth of reflections, precise and timely proposals for the life of the

provinces and all our presences around the world.

Finally, the Chapter deliberations are contained in this document.

And as with all General Chapters, there are a number of messages and

addresses appended.

I consider that the document that you now have in your hands will

allow a deeper appreciation of the ecclesial, charismatic and identity-

giving motivations that will help us pursue the journey of fidelity that

we wish to continue as a Congregation and personally. Our world, the

Church and the young along with their families, need us today as they

did yesterday, in order to continue on their journey of fidelity to the

Lord Jesus. They need us as significant and courageously prophetic

individuals. May the Lord grant us this gift. Mediocrity and fears

would allow us to offer little to the young, and this little would not be

able to transform their life and fill it with meaning.

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I am also convinced that we all want to belong to a Congregation that

feels very much alive, and in which each confrere renews his dedica-

tion of himself daily: not just any old how, but by feeling that it is

well worth the effort.

I deeply desire that this “special” GC28 will help each confrere to

rekindle the apostolic passion that characterised our Father Don

Bosco, so that we can be other Don Boscos today, everywhere in the

world, in every culture and every situation.

Let me add a request. As I hand over this document, from a perspec-

tive of faith and with great confidence, I ask each one of you, dear

confreres, to make it an impetus for prayer, an object of patient study,

of careful and meditative reading so that it may touch your heart. I am

asking you to internalise the spirituality you will find in these Chapter

reflections, and to enter into dialogue with the proposals that seek to

be significant and prophetic in our way of taking them on and trans-

lating them into our life. I believe that a significant time of study,

getting to know and internalise them, and of heart-to-heart dialogue

before the Lord, must be the principal task entrusted to each confrere,

each Province and Vice-Province, each Region and Inter-provincial

Conference.

My dear confreres, the promulgation of this Post-Chapter reflection

takes place on 16 August 2020, two hundred and five years after Don

Bosco’s birth and a hundred and sixty-two years since our Congrega-

tion began. Until today, the journey of our Congregation and the Sale-

sian Family has been a very beautiful one. If our response continues

to be one that is faithful to the Lord, there is no doubt that there is

much more that will be written for the good of the young through our

daily self-dedication wherever there is a young person in need of

Salesians who are capable of being friends, brothers and fathers.

May our Mother the Help of Christians accompany us on this journey

and, as she did with Don Bosco, may She continue to do everything.

Let us learn from Her what it means to listen attentively to the voice

of the Holy Spirit and to be docile to Him; let us learn from Her to

cultivate a life deeply immersed in God and simple and convinced

dedication every day. This will increasingly make us authentic signs

and bearers of God’s Love for young people.

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Let us entrust ourselves to our Mother the Help of Christians “that

we may become witnesses to the young of Her Son’s boundless love”

(C. 8).

Rome, 16 August 2020

Anniversary of Don Bosco’s birth

Fr Ángel Fernández Artime

Rector Major

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THE RECTOR MAJOR’S GUIDELINES

FOR THE SALESIAN CONGREGATION

AFTER GENERAL CHAPTER 28

My dear Salesian confreres throughout the world,

I address you all with great pleasure after the General Chapter and

following the conclusion of the first plenary session of the new

General Council. With this letter, which I have shared with all the

General Council, it is my intention to offer you all, dear confreres, a

true “road map” for the next six years, given that the interruption of

the General Chapter, right in the middle of its proceedings, did not

allow us to have the Chapter documents that would have been the

norm and guide for the next six years.

Faced with the painful reality of the pandemic caused by the COVID-

19 virus which has impacted and still continues to afflict the world,

we experienced something unique: the interruption of a General

Chapter. This is the first time that a similar event has happened in the

history of our Congregation – if we exclude the tragic event of the

First World War which made it impossible to hold the 12th General

Chapter during Fr Paul Albera’s term as Rector Major; that Chapter

had to wait almost twelve years.

Nevertheless, in our case the interruption to the work of the Chapter

does not in any way imply that the 28th General Chapter was mean-

ingless and did not produce a wealth of content. And in addition, all

Chapter members returned to their provinces (some after waiting sev-

eral months at Valdocco) enriched by the experience they had accu-

mulated and by a Salesian sense of being nourished and strengthened

by the “sources of Valdocco”, the sources of our charismatic birth.

Despite the threat of the pandemic and the risk of the assembly being

suspended, the Chapter was able to elect the Rector Major and all

members of the General Council during the final week, as well as

entrusting us with the task of continuing the reflection on the points

that had not been tackled.

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This letter of mine and everything contained in the work entitled

“Post-Chapter reflection” seeks to be a faithful response to the man-

date received from the Chapter Assembly.

To that we need to add the sense of deep gratitude to the Lord for

what we experienced; especially for having experienced it at Valdoc-

co. Our GC28, indeed, was marked in a special way by the fact that it

took place at Valdocco, cradle of our charism, the holy place where

our Father Don Bosco “responded to the life of the young with a face

and a history”1. So then, we lived the time of our General Chapter at

Valdocco with the clear understanding that this is everyone’s home.

This is what the Holy Father, Pope Francis, reminded us of. He want-

ed to give Don Bosco, in the person of his sons gathered in the Chap-

ter Assembly, the beautiful gift of coming to visit us.

The Pope had disclosed to me some months earlier his personal

desire to come to Valdocco. At the beginning of the General Chapter,

conversations with those in charge of the Pope’s visit had confirmed

the visit scheduled for the 6th and 7th of March. Everything was ready.

We expected him to arrive on Friday the 6th of March at midday. He

would have been with us at Valdocco until the morning of the 7th and

then would have made a visit to his family. Unfortunately, the coron-

avirus pandemic and restrictions imposed throughout the Italian State

made this visit impossible – it would have been a unique event in our

history, at least for the length of time the Holy Father would have

been present and for his direct participation in the General Chapter, as

he had wanted.

By telephone, the Pope left us with a greeting that I shared with the

entire Chapter Assembly; and the following day we were able to have

a copy in hand of the Message he addressed to GC28 that you will

find as part of this publication.

1 FRANCIS, Message to the members of GC28, Rome 4 March 2020. I will take advan-

tage of this first note to tell you that my letter will be enriched by quotes from the text

of the message that Pope Francis gave thought to for us as a Congregation and as a

Chapter Assembly, and that he sent us at the most fitting moment of our reflections and

work. Given the importance that the Holy Father’s words have, I have decided not to

offer them as footnotes but in the body of this document. It is enough to see the text

between inverted commas to recognise that it is the Pope’s words.

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From the very beginning of GC28 we were living with a strong

awareness that led us to place ourselves in an attitude for “the Spirit to

rekindle the charismatic gift of [our] founder”. This is what the Holy

Father wanted, inviting us not to close the windows to the noise and

clamour coming up from the courtyard at Valdocco, evoking the first

Oratory. This “background noise” must accompany us, making us

restless and intrepid in our discernment.

This is what we will be busy with over the next six years, for the good

of young people throughout the world; young people who had an

actual, visible face in the splendid group who spent a few days with us

in the General Chapter. They challenged us, they spoke from the heart

and mind and we were moved by it.

And since everything at Valdocco speaks to us about Don Bosco and

his young people, and because today’s young people are calling on

us, speaking to us and waiting for us, we are proposing some goals as

a Congregation that will put us in a position to give an answer to the

reality today, and that will get us out of our fears and our comfort

zones, wherever they are and whatever they are.

These guidelines, dear confreres, have the objective of becoming an

action programme for the next six years, in absolute continuity with

the path previously travelled by the Congregation and which, for this

reason too, gives us strength and courage.

There are a number of challenges we have to face up to over the next

six years. I am offering them to you as the fruit of reflection carried

out during the General Chapter and following on from it. I am offer-

ing them to the entire Congregation, having come to a detailed

knowledge over the past six years of the real circumstances we are

experiencing and, ultimately, of the Church’s journey. I am offering

them to all the provinces after having shared them with members of

the General Council, because these challenges must be the mirror

before which every province around the world is called to compare

itself. They need to become the criteria defining the aims, objec-

tives, processes and concrete actions for the next six years in all

the places where the charism of the sons of Don Bosco has taken

root.

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The challenges that we need to give a response to and the objectives

to be pursued are as follows:

1. SALESIAN OF DON BOSCO FOREVER. Six years for

growth in Salesian identity

2. In a Congregation where we are invited by the “DA MIHI

ANIMAS, COETERA TOLLE”

3. To live the “SALESIAN SACRAMENT OF PRESENCE”

4. Formation for being SALESIAN PASTORS TODAY

5. ABSOLUTE PRIORITY for the young, the poorest, the most

abandoned and defenceless

6. TOGETHER WITH LAY PEOPLE IN THE MISSION AND

IN FORMATION. The charismatic strength that the laity and

the Salesian Family offer us

7. IT IS TIME FOR GREATER GENEROSITY IN THE CON-

GREGATION. A universal and missionary Congregation

8. Accompanying the young towards a SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

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1. SALESIAN OF DON BOSCO FOREVER: “Monk or no

monk, I am staying with Don Bosco” (Cagliero). SIX

YEARS FOR GROWTH IN SALESIAN IDENTITY

“The Lord has given us Don Bosco as father and teacher.

We study and imitate him, admiring in him a splendid

blending of nature and grace. He was deeply human, rich

in the qualities of his people, open to the realities of this

earth; and he was just as deeply the man of God, filled

with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and living ‘as seeing him

who is invisible’” (C. 21).

In my last intervention in the Chapter hall during the GC28 closing ad-

dress, I made reference to a conversation I had with a confrere the day

before. He asked to speak with me and said: “Do not leave us alone.

We need help to be truly Salesians, so we do not lose our identity”.

I had a profound sense that right at that moment the Lord was also

speaking to us through this confrere of ours, and that he was making

us understand the importance and urgency of giving growth to and

strengthening charismatic identity in our Congregation.

The essential and fundamental point of departure is our circumstance

as consecrated individuals. The future of consecrated life, and of Sale-

sian life for us consecrated members, has its raison d’être in its foun-

dation, Jesus Christ. As people who are consecrated, the sequela

Christi, the following of Christ, shapes our identity, integrating our

pastoral formation within it. As consecrated individuals, as Salesians

of Don Bosco, God makes of us “a living memorial of Jesus’ way of

living and acting”2. And the vocational challenge for all of consecrat-

ed life and for us in particular as Salesians of Don Bosco, is that of

“always returning to Jesus”, renouncing everything that is not Him or

that distances us from Him.

With much humility and clarity of vision we need to recognise that

the way out of the crises of religious life, of Salesian life, of the diffi-

culties of each province, will not be found in new projects, nor in

2 Vita Consecrata, 22.

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strategic plans, nor in a “planning 3.0”. Most of the time, in the face

of disillusionment, existential fatigue, lack of motivation... it is a case

of returning to Christ, to religious life, to Salesian consecrated life.

Because, we can live by wrongly believing that everything makes

sense when we are doing things. No, dear confreres: without Jesus

Christ at the centre of our thinking, feeling, living, dreaming, work-

ing... there is no future, and we cannot offer anything that is signifi-

cant. In the words of Pope Francis: “The Lord asks everything of us,

and in return he offers us true life, the happiness for which we were

created. He wants us to be saints and not to settle for a bland and

mediocre existence”3.

Let us not forget that the Salesian mission and the Congregation itself

came into being from God, raised up by his Spirit: “With a feeling of

humble gratitude we believe that the Society of St Francis de Sales

came into being not as a merely human venture, but by the initiative

of God” (C. 1); and that each one of us Salesians of Don Bosco, is

sent to the young by God himself who sends us (C. 15).

After this “special” General Chapter 28, I believe that 162 years after

the beginning of our Congregation, we Salesians are expected to be

ready and agile in listening to the breath of the Spirit of God, the Holy

Spirit. That we are expected to continue to have Jesus Christ the Lord

as our foundation and the centre of our life so that we will renew the

prophecy that must characterise our life, and continue to grow in our

humanity. And this until we become those “experts in humanity” who

know, to the point of being moved by it, how to see and contemplate

the pain and needs of our brothers and sisters (beginning with those in

our communities), of the young, of boys and girls and their families.

We must seriously take up our prophetic service. Our specific contri-

bution is to be an icon of Jesus’ lifestyle, totally consecrated to the

Father and his Plan for humanity: The Kingdom. Therefore, we are

expected to be signs and witnesses of God’s fatherly presence – a gen-

tle presence capable of a tender gaze and with arms thrown wide open

especially to the poorest, to our young people – making our brotherli-

ness a reality, making it attractive, alluring, and living with simplici-

ty and moderation.

3 FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, Rome 19 March 2018, 1.

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The Risen Lord invited his disciples to return to Galilee to meet him

there and see him once again. This invitation is extremely relevant for

us, and expressing myself in Salesian terms, I would like to say that

our Galilee for encountering the Lord today, as Salesians of Don

Bosco, passes through Valdocco, the beginnings of Valdocco, fragile

as they were, but with the strength and passion of the “monk or no

monk, I am staying with Don Bosco”, that the young John Cagliero

expressed with such ardour and youthful enthusiasm. Valdocco is

indeed the spiritual and apostolic atmosphere in which each of us

breathes the air of the Spirit, where we nurture and strengthen our

charismatic identity. And it is the place of “transfiguration” for every

Salesian who, by taking care of all the elements of our spirituality, can

contribute to making each of our houses an authentic Valdocco, where

it is possible to meet our Lord Jesus Christ face to face in daily life.

Jesus passes by, looks at us with love and calls us to follow him. And

in the mystery of this call, in the gaze that does not judge but looks at

and searches us from within, in the adventure of walking in his foot-

steps, everyone can discover the plan that God has designed for each

of us in an original form. Today, many of those who decide to aban-

don the Congregation suffer from the same thing: they have not come

into contact with the Lord Jesus and have not had the same passion as

the young Cagliero for staying with Don Bosco in order to follow

Jesus. That is why sometimes any other pastoral offering that has

glimmers of autonomy, self-reliance, independence, management of

oneself and one’s own economic resources, exerts in some confreres

sufficient fascination to push them to ask to go elsewhere. At times,

also the gift of ministerial priesthood is not fully understood and is

manipulated and experienced as “power”. This obscures the covenant

that God has established with us through the gift of religious conse-

cration that is at the centre of our personal and community life.

PROPOSAL

This six-year period will need to be distinguished by a profound

effort in the Congregation to grow in charismatic depth, in Sale-

sian identity in all phases of life, through a serious commitment in

every province and every Salesian community to arrive at saying,

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as Don Bosco did: “I have promised God that I would give of my-

self to my last breath for my poor boys”4.

Therefore:

⇒ At every stage of formation, with the depth that corresponds to it,

we will take care of the elements that give every Salesian his

charismatic identity and that will see us fall in love with Don

Bosco and the young with the heart of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

⇒ We will give priority to the traits of our charismatic identity as

consecrated individuals that make us prophetic signs: a happy life

with its roots in the Gospel, a strong faith anchored in God; a

communion that makes our community life attractive, a prophetic

attitude in the face of injustice and evil, and an outlook of hope

along with the desire for conversion.

⇒ In the Provinces there must be a careful discernment regarding the

obediences given to the confreres, so as not to risk losing the au-

thentic sense and passion of the Salesian heart and not to fall into

forms of charismatic genericism or a leaning towards diocesan

pastoral situations that lead to separation from the Congregation.

⇒ We will continue to pay great attention so that as a Congregation

we are not infected by the “virus of clericalism and career-seek-

ing”5.

⇒ In the reflection and sharing within each community we will value

the first part of the document “Animating and governing the

community. The Ministry of the Salesian Rector”, that presents us

with “The Salesian Consecrated Identity”.

4 MB XVIII, 258, also cited in the Constitutions, art.1.

5 Cf. FRANCIS, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit, Rome 25 March

2019, 98. The exhortation has this quote: “Clericalism is a constant temptation on the

part of priests who see ‘the ministry they have received as a power to be exercised,

rather than a free and generous service to be offered. It makes us think that we belong

to a group that has all the answers and no longer needs to listen or has anything to

learn’”, Francis, Address at the Opening of the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the

Synod of Bishops (3 October 2018): L’Osservatore Romano, 5 October 2018, 8.

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2. In a Congregation where the “DA MIHI ANIMAS, COETERA

TOLLE” is URGENT

“With a feeling of humble gratitude, we believe that the

Society of St Francis de Sales came into being not as

a merely human venture, but by the initiative of God.

Through the motherly intervention of Mary, the Holy Spir-

it raised up St John Bosco to contribute to the salvation of

youth, “that part of human society which is so exposed yet

so rich in promise.

The Spirit formed within him the heart of a father and

teacher, capable of total self-giving: ‘I have promised God

that I would give for my poor boys’” (C. 1).

Testimonies from the early times of our congregational history, and

the reflection it has developed over the course of the years, highlight

something very significant: the saying that best expresses the zeal and

pastoral charity of the Salesians of Don Bosco is “Da mihi animas,

coetera tolle”.

Dominic Savio, the young lad in the presence of the 34-year-old priest

Don Bosco, and who saw those words written over the entrance to his

office, understood them perfectly: “I understand; here you do busi-

ness not with money but with souls”6. Looking at Don Bosco, we

learn of his profound spirituality and those special qualities as an

educator that marked his way of relating to teenagers and older youth.

In Don Bosco and his history we encounter the basis of his educative

and pastoral activity that is characterised by a very concrete proposal

of Christian life; by the attention shown to each young person, along

with a commitment to offering concrete responses to their needs; and

by his trust in God’s presence.

Our task, above all in accompanying the young, must be characterised

by the creative pedagogical and spiritual capacity typical of our

Father Don Bosco, by means of which we are able to overcome our

remoteness from the sensitivity of the new generations, offering them

6 G. BOSCO, Vita del giovanetto Savio Domenico, allievo dell’Oratorio di S. Francesco

di Sales, in ISS, Fonti Salesiane: I. Don Bosco e la sua opera, LAS, Roma 2014, 1040

(or Salesian Sources, Kristu Jyoti, Bangalore, p. 1180).

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a loving ear and compassionate understanding, prompting the great

questions about the mystery of life and helping them to seek the Lord

to meet with him.

It was precisely the 26th General Chapter that tackled all this by

reflecting on Don Bosco’s motto: “Da mihi animas, coetera tolle”. So

then, with today’s insight and with the understanding of our reality,

I think I can say that for us it is necessary and urgent that our Congre-

gation live, breathe and continue on its path, endeavouring to make

the “Da mihi animas, coetera tolle” a reality through proclamation of

the Gospel on behalf of our young people and for our own good.

Our mission very often places us on the frontier where we habitually

come into contact with Christians of other confessions, members of

other religions, with non-believers or lapsed believers: we would like

to carry the mission forward with and for them as well. Every time

and every place are suited to the Gospel.

My dear confreres, at this time after GC28

⇒ It is urgent that we give absolute priority to the commitment

to evangelise the young with conscious, intentional and explic-

it proposals. We are invited to introduce them to Jesus and the

Good News of the Gospel for their lives.

⇒ It is urgent that we help the young (and their families) to dis-

cover the presence of Christ in their lives as the key to happi-

ness and the meaning of their existence.

⇒ It is urgent that we accompany children, teenagers and older

youth in their process of education to the faith, so that they

may personally embrace the person of Christ.

⇒ It is urgent that we be “true educators” who accompany the

young from personal experience in dialogue with God in

prayer and in the celebration of the sacraments.

Without this, dear confreres, other titanic efforts of the Congregation

will tend towards the goodness of human development and social

welfare – that are always very necessary and belong to our charismat-

ic identity – but they will not lead us to the primary reason for which

the Holy Spirit raised up the Salesian charism in Don Bosco: “Faith-

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ful to the commitments Don Bosco has passed on to us, we are evan-

gelizers of the young” (C. 6). The first purpose of our youth ministry

is the conversion of the individual to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

With all the nuances of historical sensitivity that we need to bear in

mind and the linguistic understanding of the era that we consider to be

necessary, we cannot ignore the essential and constituent element that

characterised Don Bosco’s educative and pastoral activity, which the

Rector Major, Fr Vecchi, expressed this way: “The pedagogy of Don

Bosco is a pedagogy of the soul, of grace, of the supernatural. Once

this energy has been activated, the more profitable work of education

begins. The remainder, though valid in itself, is preliminary and con-

tributory to this which transcends it”7.

The “coetera tolle” makes us ready to leave behind everything that

hinders us from going out to those most in need of us. It is the asceti-

cism that emanates from the previous choice, renouncing much (per-

sonal tastes, preferences, and even legitimate actions and services) of

what does not allow us to devote all the energies of our pastoral heart

to what we have given priority to.

PROPOSAL

Therefore, I am proposing to our Congregation that for the next

six years we be demanding of ourselves in responding to the

“URGENCY OF OFFERING INITIAL PROCLAMATION

WITH MORE CONVICTION, because ‘Nothing is more solid,

profound, secure, meaningful and wisdom-filled than that initial

proclamation’ (Christus Vivit, no. 214)”8.

Therefore:

⇒ The Rector Major and his Council, and every Province, will be

committed over these six years to taking appropriate decisions to

qualify the Salesian presence in evangelisation and education to

7 J.E. VECCHI, Indications for a process of growth in Salesian spirituality, AGC 354,

1995, p. 26.

8 GC28, Priority of the Salesian mission among today’s young people. First nucleus,

no. 4.

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the faith. This is a genuine pastoral, personal and community con-

version to which we are called.

⇒ We will promote a youth ministry that accompanies the young

with a view to their personal maturity, growth in faith and that

has the vocational dimension as its unifying principle (DF 140,

ChV 254)9.

⇒ We will continue to be committed at all levels of the Congregation

to bringing about “a change of mentality in the face of the mission

that must be carried out” (Pope Francis to GC28)10.

⇒ We will make known and esteemed what was essential for Don

Bosco and for so many generations of Salesians as a fundamental

pillar of our work of evangelisation and education: the beautiful

presence of our Mother the Help of Christians in our educational

proposals and in our prayer with the young.

9 Final Document of the Synod on Youth, henceforth DF. ChV is Christus Vivit.

10 Pope Francis told us: “The ‘Valdocco option’ of your 28th General Chapter is a good

opportunity to compare yourselves with the sources and to ask the Lord: ‘Da mihi

animas, coetera tolle’. Tolle especially anything that has been accumulated along the

journey and that remains, and that in other times might have been an appropriate

response, but today hinders you from configuring and shaping the Salesian presence in

a meaningful evangelical way in the different situations of the mission. This requires

that we overcome the fears and apprehensions that may arise from believing that the

charism was reduced to or identified with certain works or structures; it implies a

change of mentality in the face of the mission that must be carried out”.

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3. LIVING THE “SALESIAN SACRAMENT” OF PRESENCE

“Our vocation is graced by a special gift of God: predilec-

tion for the young: ‘That you are young is enough for me

to love you very much.’ This love is an expression of pas-

toral charity and gives meaning to our whole life.

For their welfare we give generously of our time, talents

and health: ‘For you I study, for you I work, for you I live,

for you I am ready even to give my life” (C. 14).

In his Message to the Chapter, Pope Francis spoke to us of the “Val-

docco option and the charism of presence”, the charism I freely allow

myself to define as the “Salesian sacrament” of presence. The Pope

writes that “Even before things that need to be done, the Salesian is a

living reminder of a presence in which availability, listening, joy and

dedication are the essential features which give rise to processes. The

gratuitousness of presence saves the Congregation from any activist

obsession and from any kind of technical and functional reduction-

ism. The first call is to be a joyful and gratuitous presence among

young people”. Our being disciples of the Lord, our profound and au-

thentic way of being apostles of the young first of all passes through

our being among the people and, in a special way, among the kids,

among the young.

What has been said in colloquial terms cannot be better expressed.

Dear confreres, we are talking about recovering the first love of our

vocation, the love we experienced when we felt that the Lord was

calling us to be a joyful and free presence among the young. I venture

to say that there is not a single Salesian who has not felt this love in

his heart one way or another.

We reflected on this during GC28. We realised that many young peo-

ple live in a real situation of orphanhood even though they have par-

ents. The young people themselves told us this in their message to

GC28: “we are afraid, confused, frustrated and need to be loved...

ours is a hard struggle... We believe that our society is individualistic

and that we, too, are often individualistic... We want to... [return] to

the first love that is Christ, to be his friends. We want to journey to-

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wards spiritual and personal growth and we want to do it with you

Salesians”11.

We do not doubt this truth of the young people themselves, a truth we

recognised at the same time in the Chapter hall: “They ask us for time

and we give them space; they ask us for relationships and we provide

them with services; they ask us for fraternal life and we offer them

structures; they ask us for friendship and we provide activities for

them. All this commits us to rediscovering the riches and potential of

the ‘family spirit’”12.

The young people who accompanied us during the General Chapter

addressed a strong appeal to us to be a significant presence for them.

They told us explicitly: “Our search for spiritual and personal fulfil-

ment worries us. We want to journey towards spiritual and personal

growth and we want to do it with you Salesians... We would like you to

guide us, in our situation, with love... Salesians, do not forget us young

people because we have not forgotten you and the charism you have

taught us! We want to express this with all our hearts. Being here, we

have fulfilled a dream – in this special place in Valdocco, where the

Salesian mission began, bringing together Salesians and young people

for the Salesian mission with our desire to be saints together. You have

our heart in your hands. You must take care of your precious treasure.

Please do not forget us and continue to listen to us”13.

Dear confreres, it is a great privilege to hear the heartbeat of young

people’s hearts! I have no doubt that throughout the Congregation

there are so many confreres who are true Don Boscos today for the

young. But I am not satisfied with this. We must all be like this. We

must continue on the way of conversion. This commitment demands

from us a change of mentality and rhythms of life, openness of mind

and heart, overcoming habits that have struck root and become crys-

tallised. Young people say that they love us, that they need us, that

they are waiting for us. Don Bosco’s expression “studia di farti

amare”, strive to make yourself loved, is fully relevant today. Pres-

11 Cf. Young people’s letter to GC28.

12 GC28, Priority of the Salesian mission among today’s young people. First nucleus,

no. 5

13 Young people’s letter to GC28.

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ence does not only consist in spending time with young people as a

group, but in meeting them individually in a personal way, establish-

ing a relationship that allows us to get to know and listen to their

desires, their difficulties and struggles and, at times, their fears and

qualms. It is a relationship that seeks to go beyond superficial knowl-

edge, offering friendship characterised by mutual confidence and

sharing. Loving kindness or goodness has thus become a substantial

form of Don Bosco’s charity. He is asking us today, as he did in the

Letter from Rome in 1884, for the capacity of encounter, readiness to

accept, familiarity. Like Don Bosco, we still have to cultivate the art

of taking the first step... eliminating distance and barriers and giving

birth to the joy and the desire to see each other again, to be friends...

This art also consists in creating, with patience and dedication, an at-

mosphere rich in humanity, a family atmosphere where young people

feel very free and able to express and be themselves, joyfully assimi-

lating the values that are proposed to them. This pedagogy of family

spirit is also a school of faith for young people. We offer love and

unconditional acceptance so that they may discover, progressively

and from an option of personal freedom, trust and dialogue, as well as

the celebration and community experience of faith.

And let us not forget that Salesian presence is a special presence,

meaning that the Salesian treats young people with deep respect,

meets them at their level of freedom, and treats them as active and

responsible members of the educative and pastoral community. This

is why the Salesian learns a style of listening, dialogue and personal

and community discernment. And this applies not only to ministry

among the young but also to our houses of formation, where “we

learn to be Salesians”.

But this mode of presence is not possible if one is distant from young

people: far from them physically and far from their psychology and

cultural world. This is the danger. The right alternative is to live as

Salesians, as sons of Don Bosco, with the same experience of father-

liness as he lived with his youngsters, one that translates into a real

love and at the same time real “authoritativeness” in their regard.

Starting from the great value that presence among the young has for

us. In the Pope’s Message to GC28 we read: “Your consecration is,

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above all, a sign of the gratuitous love of the Lord, and for the Lord in

his young people, which is not defined primarily by a particular min-

istry, function or service, but by a presence. Even before things that

need to be done, the Salesian is a living reminder of a presence in

which availability, listening, joy and dedication are the essential fea-

tures which give rise to processes. The gratuitousness of presence

saves the Congregation from any activist obsession and from any kind

of technical and functional reductionism. The first call is to be a joy-

ful and gratuitous presence among young people”.

Allow me to remind you that presence today also touches on the dig-

ital world, a new real areopagus for us, a habitat for today’s young

people. Here too we need to be present with a clear Salesian identity,

with the desire to bring the proclamation of the good news, and sim-

ply with the joy and simplicity of disciples of the Lord 14.

PROPOSAL

I propose for this six-year period, as an expression of our CONVER-

SION, what was already requested by GC26, and that is:

“Let each Salesian find the time to be present with the young as a

friend, educator and witness to God, whatever his role in the

community may be”15.

Despite the fact that it seems strange that I have to ask a Salesian to

find the time to be with young people, I consider it extremely neces-

sary.

Therefore, the proposal is to:

⇒ Foster an effective and affective presence among and with the

young, in communion of life and action. And to enhance and re-

launch the good experience and the renewed role of the assistant,

not only for the practical trainee but for the entire life of the Sale-

sian of Don Bosco.

14 “The digital revolution asks us to understand the profound transformations that are

taking place not only in the field of communication, but above all in the way we set up

and manage our human relationships” (Nucleus 1 as drawn up by GC28).

15 GC26, “Da mihi animas, coetera tolle”, no. 14.

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⇒ Ensure the style of the oratory setting in every presence: climate

of familiarity, welcome and acceptance, spirituality and the di-

mension of profound joy.

⇒ Accompany the energy young people have by fostering their

active role and leadership in every house and in the Salesian

mission that is carried out there.

⇒ Ensure the presence of formators in the formation communities

where the Salesian spirit is communicated in the first instance

through example: being among them, strongly helping the young

confreres to be primarily responsible for their own formation.

⇒ Engage the Social Communication Department, at various levels,

in offering resources and stimuli for a constant process of verifi-

cation, updating, inculturation of the Salesian mission in the digi-

tal habitat where young people live, involving our universities in a

network with other centres and agencies that more closely follow

and study the transformations that the digital world is bringing

among the new generations.

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4. FORMATION FOR BEING SALESIAN PASTORS TODAY

“Enlightened by the person of Christ and by his Gospel,

lived according to Don Bosco’s spirit, the Salesians com-

mits himself to a formation process which will last all his

life and will keep pace with his maturing in other ways. He

learns by experience the meaning of the Salesian vocation

at the various moments of his life and accepts the ascetical

demands it makes on him.

With the help of Mary, his Mother and Teacher, he gradu-

ally becomes a pastor and educator of the young in the lay

or priestly state which he has embraced” (C. 98).

Formation is truly a precious gift from the Lord that brings to matu-

rity in us, as Salesians of Don Bosco, the inestimable gift of the

Father’s call to the Christian and consecrated vocation. Despite the

fact that the situation regarding vocation numbers is not uniform

throughout the world, every year the Congregation is blessed with the

admission of around 450 novices. We thank God because, as our Con-

stitutions say, every call is an indication of how much the Lord loves

the Church and our Congregation (cf. C. 22).

Nevertheless, the Chapter Assembly also recognised some of our

weaknesses and expressed them thus: “We note, in fact, that at times

the Salesian consecrated identity seems weak and not deeply rooted:

the primacy of God in personal and community life does not always

emerge clearly; forms of clericalism and secularism risk bringing

‘spiritual worldliness’ into the Congregation; the promotion of the lay

Salesian in some regions is scant; the lack of trained personnel in the

area of Salesianity, despite the abundant material available, is a sign

of insufficient attention to the deepening of the charism”16. In point of

fact this emerged very strongly during the work of our 28th General

Chapter.

I would dare to say that if this happens in all religious congregations

and also in the formation of diocesan seminarians, the abysmal gap

that we perceive between formation and the Salesian mission is,

16 GC28, Profile of the Salesian today. Second nucleus, no. 1.

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without doubt, a huge challenge for us. Perhaps this gap is due to the

great distance that exists between the situation of initial formation

houses and life in the apostolic communities (the ordinary communi-

ties in all the provinces); perhaps the phenomenon also depends on

the fact that formation does not always succeed in touching the heart

of the young Salesian in formation; perhaps understandings and

information are passed on in the formation curriculum that do not

touch on Salesian life and mission. Growth is a slow process of the

individual developing as a whole, an interrelationship of life experi-

ences, existential needs, understandings, mission, relationships, vo-

cation, project of life... In this process of holistic development, we

form ourselves to be educators and pastors in a new world and in a

renewed mission. Whatever may be the reasons for the limits in for-

mation that we have noticed, we find ourselves faced with a huge

challenge that the Congregation has highlighted and that we must

tackle decisively over the next six years.

On the other hand, we cannot deny that there is a dangerous belief:

that formation ends after completing the initial phases; and, in the

case of candidates to the priesthood, finishes once they gain access to

the ministry. This misconception does a lot of harm to us and leads us

to paying a heavy price in pastoral ministry. It is therefore a matter of

understanding formation as a lifelong process of personal transforma-

tion, even if it is characterised by particular intensity and specific at-

tention in the early stages. Ultimately, formation is a necessary path

for building and safeguarding our vocation.

Often, we do not know how to transform daily pastoral life into an

ongoing opportunity for our formation and therefore “both the reli-

gious and educative and pastoral community are unable to become

the natural and ordinary environment in which one is formed” 17. We

are aware of some of the likely kinds of pastoral fragility: superfi-

ciality, improvisation, activism. No less important is the danger of

individualism. All of this requires humility, lucidity, authenticity and

a new impetus in the community understanding of our life and our

mission.

17 Idem, no. 3.

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As was said at the General Chapter, initial formation is a multifac-

eted, positive and promising reality. Faced with this situation, the

formation of the formators, meaning the formation of confreres who

accompany the formation of young Salesians with a “particular

vocation within their vocation”, and the setting up of good teams of

individuals who can accompany the stages of formation, are a real

urgency and priority given that the community is the first place of

formation.

Perhaps we need to be speaking of adopting a new style of formation?

In his Message to the General Chapter, Pope Francis speaks to us of

the notion that: “Reflecting on the profile of the Salesian for the

young people of today implies accepting that we are immersed in a

time of change”18. There is a need, then, to renew our style of forma-

tion, something that needs to be thought of more and more in person-

alising, holistic, relational, contextual and intercultural terms19. We

will have to continue to make progress in order to set up and really

experience formation within the context of vocation and therefore far

from being understood, as has been the tendency sometimes, as just a

duty that lasts a few years and is necessarily superseded in order to

arrive at “real life”, concrete life, the life we were looking for. What a

dangerous notion of formation it is when we contrast real life with the

formation of the Salesian educator and pastor!

In short, formation is a real work of handicraft, both on the part of the

one accompanying the confreres and on the part of each individual in

his own process of formation. In this field today there is no more

room for “mass-production”. The craftsperson speaks about unique

works of art, art that is handmade, one-to-one. And speaking of this

handicraft, today we cannot ignore the role of women in our Salesian

educative settings. “The presence of the woman in our works is an

accepted fact, as regards both those for whom we work and those who

share with us the responsibility for education”20. To this effect, Pope

Francis addressed a strong appeal to us in his Message, saying: “What

would have become of Valdocco without the presence of Mamma

18 Idem, no. 5.

19 Idem, no. 5.

20 GC24, no. 166.

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Margaret? Would your houses have been possible without this woman

of faith?... Without a real, effective and affective presence of women,

your works would lack the courage and the ability to transform pres-

ence into hospitality, into a home. Faced with the rigour that excludes,

we must learn to generate the new life of the Gospel. I invite you to

implement approaches in which the female voice, her outlook and her

actions – appreciated for her individuality – finds an echo in making

decisions; not simply as a helper but as someone fully involved in

your presences”.

A renewed style and model of formation, including with the strong

emphasis that Pope Francis makes, will not be possible if we forget

the unique and most important protagonist, who is neither the forma-

tor nor the one being formed, but the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God to

whom each of us needs to be docile. This is why our Constitutions re-

mind us that “each Salesian accepts responsibility for his own forma-

tion” (C. 99). Allow me to add that each confrere must act in such a

way that the Holy Spirit transforms his heart throughout his life and at

its different moments.

A formative journey lived in this way will allow us to consolidate

in the Congregation what I have stated in the previous pages: the

“Da mihi animas” must be the driving force of our educative and

evangelising passion, and also the “energy” of the entire formation

process.

In fact, the apostolic nature of our charism is a determining factor

in our formation. As Pope Francis reminds us in his Message, “It is

important to say that we are not formed for the mission, but that we

are formed in the mission. Our whole life revolves around it, with its

choices and priorities. Initial and ongoing formation cannot be a prior,

parallel or separate instance of the identity and sensitivity of the

disciple”.

It is clear that we have before us one of the essential nuclei of the

Congregation’s journey for the next six years: to care for the vocation

of each confrere in particular, and of the young confreres in forma-

tion, in such a way that we all manage to be the Salesians of Don

Bosco that our young people and their families need today.

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PROPOSAL

That we commit ourselves to overcoming the gap between forma-

tion and mission by encouraging in the Congregation a renewed

culture of formation in the mission today throughout the Salesian

world, with measures and decisions of great significance.

Therefore:

⇒ We will promote a renewed commitment to the formative accom-

paniment of the confreres, one that can touch the heart and make us

available for a radical gift of ourselves. To this end we value the

aid entitled “Young Salesians and accompaniment. Orientations

and Guidelines”, which insists that our formation model can only

be the Preventive System.

⇒ The initial formation communities should preserve a simple

lifestyle, one characterised by spiritual depth and a great capacity

for service and work, that avoids a tendency to being comfortable

and well-off and forms to the needs of the mission. Pastoral ac-

companiment should be guaranteed as a fundamental strategy for

formation for and in the mission.

⇒ We will invest energy in being on the lookout for and forming the

formators and we will courageously tackle the rethinking of insti-

tutional references and formative structures.

⇒ The Formation Sector will carry out a serious and demanding

work of updating the Ratio, strengthening the aspects that favour

integration between formation and mission and prevent a gap

from forming between the two dimensions. The Sector will guar-

antee processes of true growth to maturity and personalisation,

and accompaniment.

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5. ABSOLUTE PRIORITY FOR THE YOUNG, THE POOREST

AND MOST ABANDONED AND DEFENCELESS

“The Lord made clear to Don Bosco that he was to direct

his mission first and foremost to the young, especially to

those who are poorer.

We are called to the same mission and are aware of its

supreme importance: young people are at the age when

they must make basic life-choices which affect the future

of society and the of the Church.

With Don Bosco we reaffirm our preference for the young,

who are ‘poor, abandoned and in danger’, those who have

greater need of love and evangelization, and we work es-

pecially in areas of greatest poverty” (C. 26).

I would like to begin developing this priority by starting from the few

lines I was able to dedicate to this topic in my last intervention in the

Chapter hall, before the early conclusion of our GC28. I can assure

you, dear confreres, that the words were few but the conviction was a

strong and great one.

I said: “I dream that today, saying ‘Salesians of Don Bosco’ means

consecrated ‘crazies’, that is, Salesians who love with a true Salesian

heart, who are perhaps even ‘a little crazy’, oriented towards the poor-

est”.

Dear confreres, it would be the death-knell of our Congregation if we

were to distance ourselves from the poorest. Don Bosco told us this

when he spoke of our poverty and the danger of wealth. Allow me to

be even more frank: if one day we were to leave behind the young-

sters, older youth and, among the poorest, our Congregation would

begin to die, a Congregation that today, thanks be to God, is in good

health despite our weaknesses!

So, let us pay attention to what I consider to be an authentic “Chapter

deliberation”, although not in the proper sense of the term, given that

its content is already found in our Constitutions. It is a question of

asking us for a radical, preferential, personal, institutional and struc-

tural option for the most needy, poor and excluded young people, an

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option that must show up in a special way, in the defence of boys, girls

and young people who have been exploited and are victims of any

kind of abuse: from sexual abuse to any other kind of exploitation;

from abuse caused by any kind of violence; from the abuse of mani-

fest and clear injustice to any kind of abuse of power. I believe that

this challenge is a great commitment that every Salesian must carry in

his heart. A period of six years guided by this light will give us much

life.

I am convinced that assuming this perspective as an indispensable one

will be very significant throughout the Congregation and in all con-

texts, cultures and continents. Today there are many youth poverties

that demand urgent attention from the whole human family, and no

doubt from us Salesians in a particular way. In fact, the history of our

Congregation is characterised by calls to go out to the poorest young

people. “As sons of Don Bosco, we have taken on an historical com-

mitment to serve poor young people”21.

Our Father Don Bosco already told us: “Everyone will look on us and

welcome us sympathetically, as long as our concern and our requests

are for the children of the poor, those most at risk in society. This

must be our greatest satisfaction that no one can take from us”22.

Many years ago, GC19 declared: “Don Bosco and the Church send us

by preference to the poor, the under-privileged, the ordinary people,

especially so nowadays”23. GC20 also spoke of the absolute priority

of the “young” and among these, of the “poor and abandoned” when

it asked who were the actual beneficiaries of our mission24.

We ourselves said in our recent Chapter that we are consecrated to

God for the poorest young people. Like Don Bosco, we too promised

in our religious profession to offer ourselves to God pledging our

forces to the service of the young, especially the poorest of them and

this is why we must “[listen] together to God’s call coming to us

through forms of youth poverty. It also requires spiritual depth, so as

21 GC20, no. 580.

22 Cf. MB XVII, 272; MB XVII, 207.

23 GC19, ACS 244, p. 94 (p. 81 English edition).

24 GC20, no. 45.

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not to fall into activism or a corporate mentality; cultural preparation,

to understand the phenomena in which we are immersed and the new

forms of youth poverty; a willingness to work together, abandoning

all pastoral individualism; flexibility in rethinking our lifestyle and

our Works, especially when they no longer express the missionary

energy of the charism and respond primarily to the logic of mainte-

nance”25.

In short, the appeal I make to everyone is to really look at the faces

of our youngsters, our young people, until we get to know their life

stories which are often marked by real tragedies. If this happens it is

because we truly love young people and we feel their suffering

and pain. Speaking of the Valdocco option and the gift of the young,

Pope Francis has something very precious to tell us, and it has moved

me. He writes: “The Salesian Oratory and everything that arose from

it, as the Memoirs of the Oratory tell us, came about as a response to

the life of the young with a face and a history. This moved a young

priest to action who was incapable of remaining neutral or unmoved

by what he saw happening before him. It was much more than a ges-

ture of good will... I think of it as an act of ongoing conversion and

response to the Lord who, ‘tired of knocking’ on our doors, waits for

us to go and look for him and meet him... or let him out when he

knocks from within. It was a conversion that involved (and compli-

cated) his entire life and that of those around him. Don Bosco not only

did not choose to separate himself from the world to seek holiness,

but he let himself be challenged by it and chose how and which

world to live in”26.

PROPOSAL

Over the six years, let the Congregation in all its provinces make

the radical, preferential, personal and institutional option – mean-

ing on the part of every Salesian, on behalf of the most in need,

boys, girls and poor and excluded youth, giving particular atten-

25 GC28, Priority of the Salesian mission among today’s young people. First nucleus,

no. 8.

26 FRANCIS, Message to GC28.

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tion to the defence of those who are exploited and victims of what-

ever abuse and violence (“the abuse of power, the abuse of con-

science, sexual and financial abuse”27).

Therefore:

⇒ In every Salesian presence in the world and in every province, the

necessary decisions must be taken so that the poorest children and

young people in the places where we are present are never ex-

cluded from any Salesian house, whatever the effort to be made.

Thinking, deciding, creating ways to make this choice possible (as

our Father Don Bosco always did).

⇒ In every Salesian Province and Salesian house there will be a code

of ethics for the care, prevention and defence of the minors en-

trusted to us, with the commitment to protect them from any kind

of abuse, wherever it comes from. For us, boys, girls, young peo-

ple are sacred in the name of God.

⇒ At the world, provincial and local level, we will commit ourselves

to promoting the various networks, activities and best practices

concerning our work and presence among the poorest boys, girls

and older youth, especially among refugees and migrants. Sale-

sian organisations like DBnetwork, DBGA and RASS must con-

tribute to guaranteeing the protection of minors and to work in

ever greater communion with the Congregation’s Youth Ministry

Department (Sector).

27 ChV, 98.

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6. TOGETHER WITH LAY PEOPLE IN THE MISSION

AND IN FORMATION

“We bring about in our works the educative and pastoral

community which involves young people and parents, par-

ents and educators in a family atmosphere, so that it can

become a living experience of Church and a revelation of

God’s plan for us.

In this community lay people associated with our work

make a contribution all their own, because of their experi-

ence and pattern of life.

We welcome and encourage their collaboration, and we

give them the opportunity to get a deeper knowledge of the

Salesian spirit and the practice of the preventive system.

We foster the spiritual growth of each of them, and to those

who may be so inclined we suggest a closer of our mission

in the Salesian Family” (C. 47).

This article of our Constitutions contains the most essential elements

of our mission shared with lay people. We must examine ourselves

in the light of this perspective and verify the extent the journey of

the Congregation, of every Province and of every confrere is moving

in this direction that expresses our charismatic identity so well. We

are involved in the formation of the lay people who share the mis-

sion with us, supporting their personal growth, their journey of faith

and their vital identification with the Salesian spirit. We must also

offer them the means that allows them to carry out the tasks entrust-

ed to them. The (re)discovery of the vocation and mission of the

laity is one of the great frontiers of renewal proposed by Vatican

Council II and reflected in the Magisterium that follows28. Our

GC24 was certainly a charismatic response to Vatican II’s ecclesiol-

ogy of communion. We know well that Don Bosco, from the outset

of his mission at Valdocco, involved many lay people, friends and

collaborators in such a way that they could be part of his mission

among young people. He immediately “fostered participation and

the sharing of responsibility by ecclesiastics and laity, men and

28 Cf. GC28, Together with lay people in the mission and in formation Nucleus 3,

recognising, no. 1.

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women”29. It is therefore, in spite of our resistance, a point of no

return, because, in addition to corresponding to Don Bosco’s actions,

the model of the mission shared with the laity proposed by GC24 is

in fact “the only practicable model in present conditions”30.

Twenty-four years after that General Chapter, we need to recognise that

the reception and implementation of what was decided to have been

very different. In some regions, the presence of lay people in the Sale-

sian mission has become more evident. In other regions of the Congre-

gation the progress has been much slower. In other cases, the experi-

ence of communion is still in its beginnings – a path newly embarked

upon – and sometimes we even find real phenomena of resistance.

Certainly, over these years progress has been made, even in the most

diverse cultural situations. Often the relationships between Salesians

and lay people are characterised by warmth, mutual appreciation, re-

spect, collaboration and, when there is a clear identity, the reality of

educative and pastoral communities is very rich – even if the value of

the vocation and mission of the laity is not always perceived. We tend,

in fact, to more easily recognise what they do rather than their lay

identity.

It is true that there is great variety among the lay people in Salesian

presences in the 134 countries we find ourselves in: many works on a

contractual basis while many others, especially the youngest ones, as

volunteers. There are lay people with a strong Christian and charis-

matic identity, and others who are far from this. There are Catholics,

there are Christians of other confessions, or lay people who profess

other religions, and even people who are indifferent to religion.

Similarly, the ways in which communities and works relate to each

other are different depending on the existing circumstances, contexts,

etc... In the General Council’s reflection, we became aware of this

great diversity, as reflected in our contribution to nucleus 3 of the

Chapter that had not been developed by the Chapter Assembly due to

COVID-1931.

29 GC24, no. 71.

30 GC24, no. 39.

31 Idem, nos. 12-17.

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As I have said previously, “from the beginning our Founder was con-

cerned with involving the greatest number of collaborators possible

in his operational plan: from Mamma Margaret to work providers,

from helpful members of the public to theologians, from aristocrats to

the politicians of the era. We were born and raised historically in com-

munion with the laity and they with us. In particular, we must stress

the importance that the young had in the development of the Salesian

charism and mission: Don Bosco found his first collaborators in the

young who thus became, in a certain sense, co-founders of the Con-

gregation”.

So many times I myself – and certainly other Rectors Major – have

strongly expressed the belief that the involvement of lay people in the

Salesian charism and mission is not a concession on our part, a grace

we offer them, and nor is it a means of survival – as many confreres

have so very often thought. It is a right bound up with their specific

vocation. Of course, here the difference between being a simple work-

er in a Salesian house and being part, at the same time, of a job, a mis-

sion and a vocation is evident. It is a radically different relationship.

This demands from us in many cases a decisive change of perspec-

tive. As consecrated persons we are a specific incarnation of the Sale-

sian charism, but we are not the only repositories of it.

An absolute priority derives from this: “The sharing of the Salesian

spirit and growth in shared responsibility require the sharing of cer-

tain formation paths and experiences oriented towards spirituality and

mission, obviously without neglecting specific formation paths for

Salesian consecrated persons and lay people. Joint formation in

shared mission is an absolute priority and should be directed above

all to the members of the animating nucleus”32.

Lay people are companions on the journey, not substitutes or surro-

gates for the religious: they and we have specific identities and mis-

sion-related tasks. Therefore, our lay collaborators need to know and

experience Don Bosco close at hand, and that is what is lived in Sale-

sian houses where they are found. Such understanding and formation

32 Post-Chapter reflection 42, and cf. also Animating and governing the community, 106

and 122.

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are not received merely through academic courses, but in another

special way, by reflecting, verifying and planning what is experienced

together in a presence. It is essential to take further steps in common

and joint formation, especially in those aspects that relate to knowing

and living our shared charism. Indeed, we know that “the first and

best mode of self-formation to participation and shared responsibility

is the correct functioning of the EPC”33.

It remains for me to emphasise in a particular and firm way that the

shared mission with lay people reaches its most complete and full

development when they are members of one of the 32 groups of the

Salesian Family of whom, as we know, twelve are lay groups. In the

case of members belonging to the Salesian Family the degree of

charismatic identity is often very high, and together we live out a true

vocation in the charism. It is one more reason for giving priority to

having members of the Salesian Family in our presences, including

as workers, when their professionalism meets the same conditions as

others.

Finally, we must not forget that the future of this charismatic element

– shared mission and formation with lay people – passes through the

formation of the future Salesians. I do not hide from you, dear confr-

eres, that I am concerned about the tendency of some of our young

confreres who yearn, I would almost dare say vehemently, to finish

their formative stages in order to see themselves with authority, po-

sitions and responsibilities before the laity. It is a tendency that runs

totally contrary to the path we wish to undertake as a Congregation.

Hence, “Formation in and for the shared mission must also touch on

the initial formation of the Salesians not only as a topic for study but

also through weekly and summer pastoral experiences. The experi-

ence of working with and under the direction of lay people during

practical training, as well as taking part in the Educative Pastoral

Community Council, are precious moments of formation, especially

if well accompanied by the members of the animating nucleus, both

lay and Salesian”34.

33 GC24, 43.

34 GC28, Third Nucleus, Together with lay people in the mission and in formation,

no. 43.

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PROPOSAL

⇒ Let the Congregation and all Provinces around the world take “fur-

ther steps” in witnessing to the shared mission and common for-

mation, improving the situation and functioning of the EPC in all

of the Congregation’s presences. One can be further forward or

further behind in living the mission and formation in and of the

EPC, yet one cannot but go in this direction. What I asked for in

GC27 continues to be a priority and urgency: “The shared mission

between SDB and lay people is no longer optional – in case any-

one still thinks so”35.

⇒ Let us go about including lay people in the formation teams in our

initial formation communities.

⇒ During these six years, in every Salesian province and presence a

process of discernment will be carried out jointly between Sale-

sians and those who share the mission and are part of the animat-

ing nucleus, so as to:

♦ realistically observe the situation of shared mission and forma-

tion (recognising)

♦ be aligned with the path that the Church and the Congregation

are taking (interpreting)

♦ draw up and implement processes of growth and transforma-

tion in synergy with other provincial, regional and congrega-

tional realities (choosing).

Therefore:

⇒ Lay people with a strong charismatic identity will be gradually

included within province teams, also taking on roles of responsi-

bility, coordination and leadership.

⇒ Formation will be carried out in the provinces according to the

operational model of animation and governance of the houses al-

ready decided on by GC24.

⇒ In Salesian Provinces and Salesian presences we will make the

evident and strong witness of the Salesian Family within the EPC

significant.

35 GC27, Witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel. Chapter Documents: Rector

Major’s address at the closing of GC27, no. 3.7, Rome 2014.

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⇒ With the support of the Youth Ministry and Formation Depart-

ments, regional ongoing formation centres will prepare aids suit-

ed to the different regional contexts and will encourage this process

at provincial and local level. Hence, they will become receivers

and disseminators of best practices and materials that will serve

as an example and stimulus for other Salesian realities.

⇒ At the level of local EPCs, value will be given to the third part of

Animating and governing the community – the Ministry of the

Salesian Rector, dedicated to “The educative and pastoral com-

munity” as a pathway for ongoing formation.

⇒ This process will be one of the fields to which prior attention will

be given in Provincial visitations, Provincial Chapters halfway

through the six-year period, Extraordinary Visitations and Team

Visits.

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7. IT IS THE TIME FOR GENEROSITY IN THE CONGREGATION.

In a Congregation that is always missionary

“Each one of us is called by God to form part of the Sale-

sian Society. Because of this God gives him personal gifts

and by faithful correspondence he finds his way to com-

plete fulfilment in Christ.

The Society recognizes his vocation and helps him to de-

velop it; and he, as a responsible member, puts himself and

his gifts at the service of the community and of its com-

mon tasks.

Every call is an indication that the Lord loves the Congre-

gation, wants to see it vibrant for the good of the Church

and never ceases to enrich it with new apostolic energy”

(C. 22).

In the concluding session of GC28 I said that, in my opinion, this “is

the time for generosity in the Congregation”. I have no doubt that

we have a history of 162 years characterised by great generosity that

already began with Don Bosco. Nevertheless, it seems to me that to-

day this generosity is more necessary than ever.

Let me try to explain myself clearly.

Today, no less than in the past, the reality speaks to us of the need for

evangelisation, pastoral needs and human development that we come

to know of in our contact with various contexts. We receive frequent

appeals, calls, inquiries because we take on one or other service in

many parts of the world. We see boys, girls, young people and fami-

lies in difficulty in every continent.

⇒ God continues to call us throughout the world to be “signs and

witnesses” of his saving Love for the poorest young people.

⇒ There is a need for our help as evangelisers and educators of the

young and adults belonging to the popular classes, in the most di-

verse of cultural and religious contexts.

⇒ There is also an urgent need for education and action on our part

to witness to and promote justice in the world.

⇒ Poverty and poverties continue to be a cry for us, more often than

not a silent, voiceless one: young people with their material and

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emotional poverties; true orphans, even though they have parents

and families, cultural poverties (without access to school, educa-

tion), spiritual poverties (without any understanding of transcen-

dent values nor of God).

The hope to be able to work (and at time also to study) more eas-

ily continues to result in mass migration to the big cities (and also

to other countries) with the natural consequences of maladjust-

ment and social marginalisation. To this is added the chilling real-

ity of the refugees and the camps in which they live; in many of

them our confreres share life with the refugees themselves.

(Kakuma-Kenya, Juba-Sud Sudan, Palabek-Uganda).

I could extend the list of this set of situations.

Dear confreres, we all belong to God and to our unique Congregation,

of which we are joyfully members. We are all Salesians of Don Bosco

in the world. Our affection will always be addressed to our confreres

in our province of origin where we are “vocationally born”; but our

truest and deepest membership is in the Congregation, and it begins

with our religious profession.

For this reason, over the next six years the opening of horizons must

become even more effective and real, thanks to the availability of the

confreres and the generous response of the provinces that have a

greater chance of offering help to other confreres. Sometimes with

agreements between the Provincials themselves, at other times with

the mediation of the Rector Major and his Council when it comes to

new foundations, new missionary challenges, new presences in other

nations or new missionary frontiers.

Fortunately, the provinces that are poorest in economic terms are the

richest in vocations, and the formation of all these confreres is made

possible by the generosity of the whole Congregation. Once again this

demonstrates that generosity makes all dreams possible.

We live in times when we have to face reality with a renewed mental-

ity which allows us to “cross borders”. In a world where borders are

more and more “a defence against others”, the prophecy of our life as

Salesians of Don Bosco also consists in this: in showing that for us

there are no borders. The only reality we respond to is: God, the

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Gospel and the mission that has been entrusted to us. It is precisely

for this that our international and intercultural communities have great

prophetic value today, without hiding the fact that building fraternity in

different situations requires a vision of faith and personal engagement.

The missionary reality of our Congregation continues to question us

and present us with wonderful challenges, the missions urge us on-

wards and make us dream beautiful dreams that come true.

When, in the ‘80s of last century, we continued year after year to lose

a significant number of confreres, the Rector Major, Fr Egidio Vi-

ganò, prophetically launched Project Africa, and today it is a wonder-

ful reality. In 2000, at the time of the new millennium, seeing the

tough pastoral reality and the need for a new evangelisation for Eu-

rope, Fr Pascual Chávez promoted Project Europe with conviction.

These are not times for being worried about survival, but opportuni-

ties for being more significant.

In his Message to GC28 Pope Francis also invited us to be careful

about fears that end up “with us being obsessed by a paralysing inertia

that deprives your mission of the parresia proper to the Lord’s disci-

ples. Such inertia can also manifest itself in a pessimistic outlook and

attitude towards everything around us, not only in relation to the

transformations taking place in society but also in relation to our Con-

gregation, our brothers and sisters and the life of the Church. This is

an attitude that ends up “boycotting” and preventing any kind of al-

ternative response or process”36.

PROPOSAL

I am proposing to the entire Congregation to make this time for gen-

erosity concrete by naturally assuming the availability of confreres

from all provinces (transfers, exchange, temporary help) for interna-

tional services, new foundations, new frontiers to we want to reach.

Therefore:

⇒ Provinces will be attentive to and available for appeals from the

Rector Major for the needs and challenges we take on.

36 FRANCIS, Message to GC28.

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⇒ The 150th anniversary of Don Bosco’s first missionary expedition

to Argentina (that will be in 2025) and the first centenary of the

missionary presence in North East India (in 2022), will be the

opportunity to continue our Congregation’s missionary project.

⇒ We made the missionary appeal concrete by inviting each province

to open a missionary project (refugees, immigrants, border cross-

ings, exploited children...) during the previous six years, giving

priority to the significance and the real requests for help from

today’s youth.

⇒ The Rector Major and his Council will indicate the appropriate

steps for strengthening the section in the Youth Ministry Depart-

ment (Sector) of the Congregation that deals primarily with the

situation of refugees and migrants (especially unaccompanied

minors and young people).

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8. ACCOMPANYING THE YOUNG

TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

We recognise that the focus on a sustainable future is a cultural con-

version, not a fashion, and like any conversion needs to be strongly

called by its new name.

The Chapter Assembly expressed itself with complete unanimity

when it was suggested that a small commission take on the sensitivi-

ty, that is in us in the face of this emergency. Caring for creation is

not a fashion. Humanity’s life is at stake, even though many public

officials, prisoner to economic interests, look the other way or deny

what is undeniable. This sensitivity materialised in a Chapter deliber-

ation approved by the Assembly. Pope Francis insisted that we must

avoid a “climate emergency” that risks “perpetrating a brutal act of

injustice towards the poor and future generations”37.

Our commitment to an integral human ecology comes from a convic-

tion of faith for which “everything is interconnected, and that genuine

care for our own lives and our relationships with nature is inseparable

from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others”38. We cannot sepa-

rate the care of the environment from the social life of human beings.

Therefore, ecology must be integral, human. And, consequently, we

are invited to an ecological conversion that concerns not only the

economy and politics, but also social life, relationships, affectivity

and spirituality.

In recent years we have witnessed disagreements by politicians from

various countries in the face of this emergency. The last meeting of

the leaders of the countries in Santiago de Chile (but held in Madrid,

Spain) had as its only result the agreement to meet again in a year’s

time. No significant operational agreement.

37 FRANCIS, To Participants at the meeting promoted by the Dicastery for Promoting

Integral Human Development on the theme: The Energy Transition and Care for our

Common Home (Rome, 14 June 2019).

38 Cf. FRANCIS, Encyclical Laudato si’, Rome 24 May 2015, nos. 71, 137-162. Hence-

forth LS.

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At the same time, millions and millions of people, most of them

young, have raised a cry worldwide. Pope Francis, sensitive to all this

as he has so clearly shown, reminds us that young people themselves

are asking for radical change and are asking “how anyone can claim

to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental

crisis and the sufferings of the excluded”39.

The proposal for a Chapter deliberation was expressed thus: “Togeth-

er with Pope Francis, we recognise the evidence provided by science

that the acceleration of climate change coming from human activity is

real. Air pollution, water pollution, improper waste disposal, loss of

biodiversity and other environmental issues that have a negative im-

pact on human life are increasing. Unsustainable production and con-

sumption are pushing our world and its ecosystems beyond their lim-

its, undermining their ability to provide resources and actions vital to

life, development and regeneration”40.

As I am writing these lines, planet Earth and all countries of the world

have been impacted to greater or lesser degree by the COVID-19

virus that to date has caused 624,000 deaths and has infected

15,300,000 people. We know well that the life of a single human per-

son is sacred, and that there is so much sorrow due to so many deaths.

But it is no less true that planet Earth has been bleeding for decades,

and that every year pollution causes many more human deaths than

have been the result of COVID-19. This fact, unfortunately, is not tak-

en so seriously.

It is no less true that the poorest (it is always the poorest!) suffer the

disastrous effects of deforestation and changes in climate, the ruin of

their very poor crops, their only resource for survival. This too is not

denounced.

I could go on making a list of these situations. It is not necessary. It is

enough to stress that as educators and pastors we cannot be indifferent

to this reality. We have to do something.

39 LS 13.

40 GC28, Proposal for a Chapter deliberation on the ecology.

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PROPOSAL

Listening to the worldwide cry of so many young people today,

WE SALESIANS COMMIT ourselves to BEING CREDIBLE

WITNESSES, personally and as a community, of CONVERSION

in caring for Creation and Ecological Spirituality41.

Therefore:

⇒ Every province in the world will respond, through the Provincial

Delegate for Youth Ministry, to the request to make our schools,

education centres, university campuses, oratories, parishes, edu-

cational models of care for the environment and for nature. As

a Salesian option in education we must include action on behalf of

creation: care for nature, climate and sustainable development.

⇒ As far as possible, let us expand the network of Salesian institu-

tions to be included in the Don Bosco Green Alliance, fostering

the participation of the young in global campaigns on behalf of the

sustainability of environmental and ecological causes for the care

of creation and human life.

⇒ Let us accept the request made to GC28 by the Salesian Confer-

ence on Renewable Energy in November 2019, that the Congre-

gation undertake to achieve 100% of renewable energy for all

provinces around the world before 2032. Even though the real-

ity of the Congregation is quite disparate across different coun-

tries, we accept this challenge in collaboration with the Provinces’

PDOs, Salesian NGOs, the DBN.

41 LS, 217.

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CONCLUSION

My dear confreres: let me conclude these guidelines by inviting you

to accept them not just as a simple letter, but as a message and pro-

gramme that seeks to be an expression of the beating heart of the Con-

gregation today throughout the world.

I am proposing two important elements as attitudes with which to

tackle the wonderful opportunity of the next six years:

⇒ The first of these is to do with a virtue: hope. Only with hope can

we tackle the future, in the confidence that the Lord will bring to

completion, with our humble contribution, what we propose here.

⇒ The second has to do with our attitude before God himself.

I would like to ask our Congregation that over these six years we

allow ourselves to be guided much more by the Holy Spirit;

that it will be He who truly moves our hearts and our human

capacities for animating and governing the Congregation and

provinces and communities, so that each of us can end up making

all the Salesian houses in the world other Valdoccos that offer a

response to the youngsters, the youth of today, as Don Bosco did

in his time.

With regard to hope, I would like to emphasise that, as we well know,

it is a virtue that has so much to do with our Christian faith; it is a dif-

ferent way of looking at the future. Christian hope is a way of living,

a way of journeying, a way of looking at things.

Hope is the fruit of an encounter with the Lord Jesus and is the fruit of

acceptance of His Spirit in us. Hope is not the result of calculations

and forecasts. “Neither pessimist nor optimist, the Salesian of the 21st

century is someone filled with hope because he knows that his centre

is the Lord who can make all things new (cf. Rev 21:5). Only this will

save us from living in an attitude of resignation and defensive sur-

vival. Only this will make our lives fruitful”42.

On the need to allow ourselves to be guided much more by the Holy

Spirit of God, He who is the true inner Teacher, I make my words

42 FRANCIS, Message to GC28, quoting his homily on the Feast of the Presentation of

the Lord for the 21st World Day of Consecrated Life, 2 February 2017.

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those of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, who met

Pope Paul VI (today Saint) in Jerusalem in January 1964. The result

of that encounter in the Spirit of God was the abrogation of the mutu-

al excommunications that existed up until that moment and that had

deeply wounded the heart of Christ in his Church.

This is the thought:

“Without the Holy Spirit,

God is far away,

Christ stays in the past,

the Gospel is a dead letter,

the Church merely an organisation,

authority power,

the mission propaganda,

liturgy a memorial,

and Christian action a slave morality.

But in the Holy Spirit

the cosmos is mobilised to generate the Kingdom,

the Risen Christ is there,

the Gospel is power and life,

the Church brings about Trinitarian communion,

authority is transformed into service,

the liturgy is memorial and anticipation,

human action is deified”43.

Let us bring this message into our prayer.

My dear Salesian confreres, this is what I felt I had a duty to commu-

nicate and ask of you all. I invite you to accept these challenges, this

road map for the journey over these six years, with all your heart and

with a profound desire to bring it to reality in the provinces and com-

munities. Certainly, with the grace of God and the maternal presence

of our Mother the Help of Christians, they will be years of fidelity on

the part of the Congregation and of courageous and also prophetic

43 The words are by Patriarch Athenagoras I, even though some attribute the quote to

Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim, in 1968.

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response to the signs of the times today. May our Mother, the Help of

Christians, continue to look after our Congregation and to “do every-

thing”, as with Don Bosco.

May Her mediation and that of all the Salesian holiness of our Fami-

ly be for us a blessing in the one important thing of our mission from

God: “To be in the Church signs and bearers of the love of God for

young people, especially those who are poor” (C. 2).

I accompany each and every one of you with a memento and prayer.

Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, sdb

Rector Major

Rome, 16 August 2020

205th Anniversary of Don Bosco’s birth