(ANS - Hong Kong) - On 25 January, Fr Václav Klement, Councillor for the East Asia-Oceania Region, began the Extraordinary Visitation on behalf of the Rector Major to the Province of China. In the next three months, he will travel to all the Salesian works in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, to strengthen the communion between the Rector Major and the Salesians of the Province. He will meet with and listen to the confreres and also lay mission partners and members of the Salesian Family.

The Salesian presence in China started in Macau in 1906 and is the oldest of East Asia. There are thirteen communities with 113 confreres and one novice (as of 1 January 2015). The confreres, of fourteen different nationalities, have an average age of 63. The Salesian Family is very dynamic with eight different groups - Salesians, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Salesian Cooperators, Past Pupils of Don Bosco, Past Pupils of the FMA, Volunteers with Don Bosco, Association of Mary Help of Christians and Sisters Announcers of the Lord.

The Province retains a strong presence in school education, with about 20,000 students in 15 Salesian schools, as well as three parishes, ten oratories and youth centres, three social projects for young people, the publisher Vox Amica and a lively SYM. While the number of Salesians is decreasing (from a maximum of more than 300 confreres in the '60s) the number of lay collaborators is on the increase and they now assume key positions in many of the works.

It is six years since the last visit. The aim of the visit is mainly to ensure the dynamic fidelity to the charism of Don Bosco. The continued response to the high level of migration in all three territories (Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong) requires a pastoral conversion on the part of all the confreres and the Salesian Family. The opening of the first Salesian works explicitly for young migrants from Southern Asia, the Philippines and South-East Asia, and the care for young migrants in schools, parishes and oratories, are all signs of openness to this conversion.

During the extraordinary visit two very significant anniversaries will be celebrated: the 80th anniversary of missionary life among the young people of China of two Italian missionaries, Fr Gaetano Nicosia (aged 100) and Fr Ernesto Rescalli (102). At the same time the process of beatification of the second Chinese Provincial, the Servant of God Fr Carlo Braga, has already begun.

As a visible sign of the renewal desired by GC27, the visitor will leave in every community a large poster of the Salesian icon for the six years from 2014 to 2020: "The vine and the branches" (cf. Jn 15, 1-11).

Published 29/01/2015