What are the program guidelines for the next six years?
You can imagine that we have yet to go deeper into what we want to plan for the next six years, but I can say that our efforts will go in this direction:
→ We must continue to grow in the charismatic identity, that is to say, what it means today, in the 21st century, to be Salesian of Don Bosco as he wanted us to be and to be aware of the priority of our vocation as evangelizers of young people, educators for them together with their families and witnesses of God's Love for them.
→ Today we are more than ever called to be affectively and effectively among young people. That is, to return more and more to Don Bosco. I call this the 'Salesian sacrament' of presence.
→ The formation of the Salesian and the young Salesian that the world and the Church need today, wherever we are, is a priority for us. Nobody needs a generalism that kills the most essential part of our charism.
→ I dream that when one hears the word Salesian today in the world and in our societies, people and many people of goodwill understand that they speak of the children of Don Bosco who are and live for young people, who love them "madly", as God loves his sons and daughters, and who make bold and radical choices for them.
→ It is the hour of generosity in our Congregation understood as the availability of all 14,500 Salesians in the world, who must help each other everywhere, in any country and nation. We are not Salesians for a land or region. We are Salesians of Don Bosco, and the mission and the boys and girls who have no opportunity, the discarded, the most fragile, could be waiting for us and need us in the most diverse places. We must reach them and, to do this, we will call Salesians from one country and another to continue to broaden the horizons and new frontiers of the Salesian mission.
→ Finally, we intend to continue growing in what is already a great strength and a true gift today. It concerns the reality of the Salesian family in the world and its educational and evangelizing mission which we share with hundreds of thousands of lay people in the countries to which I have already referred. This is still the strength and the challenge at the same time.
I don't know if you had the opportunity to speak with the Pope after your re-election. What did he say to you?
I didn't speak to the Holy Father after my re-election, but I did so the previous Friday. First, the Pope gave me a message for all the Chapter members and then we spoke on the phone when he himself called me. You can imagine what it meant for an entire General Chapter like ours that the Holy Father called us to tell us that he was sending us something important for him and for us. A message, which isn't formal at all and which becomes a program for all of us. A magnificent message that we are already translating into the lines of governance of the coming years. Undoubtedly we have a Pope who loves everyone in the Church and loves every man and woman of goodwill. And we too, as a Congregation and Salesian Family, feel very much loved by the Holy Father. For me, it is more than evident that we live a moment of grace in the Church, in the midst of so much pain and so much fragility that affects the Church herself.
Before coronavirus: there was much talk of preventing abuse and the issue of women. How do the Salesians deal with both situations? What measures have the Salesians implemented in both fields?
It is certainly one of the saddest pages in the history of the Church. And it is the greatest tragedy and damage a Salesian can do, since we promised, like Don Bosco, that our life would be for young people.
I can assure you that for many years (I can speak to you from my experience as a Provincial since 2000) we have been consolidating and building an ethical code in all the parts of the world in which we find ourselves.
And I add another nuance: for a long time, and it was felt very strongly in this General Chapter, we speak, in full harmony with the Synod of Bishops on young people, and in communion with the Pope's Apostolic Exhortation on this topic, against all types of abuse. I asked our Congregation for a radical, preferential, personal, institutional and structural choice in favor of the neediest, poor and excluded boys and girls. And also the priority and the radical option for the defense of boys and girls and young victims of any abuse, including sexual abuse, but not only: the abuse of violence, the lack of justice, the abuse of power. .. So much and so terrible that it denigrates and destroys.
But allow me just one more critical point on this very painful subject. I say this in the form of a question: when shall we have the honesty – the honesty as a society - to tell ourselves that we have a serious social problem regarding the sexual abuse of minors that is not being addressed? When will we say socially and recognize that the vast majority of these situations occur in family settings, with parents or with other family members? When will we have the social courage to extend the denunciation to how many institutions and groups involved in it?
I honestly believe it is a problem that is not addressed socially until the last consequences.
Finally, with reference to women, I will say two things: the first is that Don Bosco has always had in the Valdocco Oratory the figure of the mother, of the mother for her children. The first was his mother, mother Margarita. This example was followed by other Salesian mothers (for example that of Blessed Michael Rua, his first successor) and even the mother of the bishop Bishop Gastaldi.
The second is this: for many years the Magisterium of the Salesian Congregation, through the General Chapters, asked that women have an educative responsibility in Salesian presences. There was ample reflection, which clearly highlighted the value and importance of the presence of women in Salesian educational works.
