For the three European Regions – North Europe, West Europe and Italy-Middle East – the Social Communication Department had organised a meeting of Provincial Delegates similar to those already held recently in Manila and Tiruchy. The Reference Persons for the Project for Europe also took part; a decision aimed at fostering mutual collaboration between those who, in the name of the Provincial, are called encourage communication and those with the task of promoting knowledge, information and action regarding the Project for Europe.
About 40 people were gathered at the Guest-house of the “Saint Luigi Versiglia” Salesian Institute in Genzano, Salesians and lay people from almost all the Provinces of the Old Continent for the meeting led by the Councillor for Social Communication Fr Filiberto González and some members of the Department.
The first part of the meeting on 12 and 13 May led by Fr Julian Fox was dedicated to the presentation of the second edition of the SSCS and to some issues regarding the religious life and digital culture/reality. The many questions asked were answered on the basis of the recent messages of Benedict XVI for World Communications Day and the need to open up Salesian formation, both initial and ongoing to the digital culture/reality.
Regarding the PE, the progress made and the journey still to be undertaken in the period 2011-2012 were the issues considered in the second part of the meeting led by Fr Donato Lacedonio on 14 and 15 May. The reports of the Reference Persons for PE revealed a very extensive and varied understanding and response to the PE and reaction to it so far. They also revealed not a few difficulties and misconceptions but also the willingness to overcome these and to implement the PE.
“It was a valuable and interesting meeting which has contributed to creating a Salesian European mind-set and encouraged a variety of synergies on behalf of the Salesian charism and mission,” Fr González points out in his letter following the meeting to the Provincials of Europe. He encourages the Superiors of the various circumscriptions of the Old Continent to see that the experiences at Genzano of the SC Delegates and the Reference Persons for PE are communicated and shared so that Provincial Councils and the communities may be aware of the new edition of the SSCS and of the spirit of the PE.
On several occasions during the meeting Fr Gonzalez encouraged the SC Delegates and the Reference Persons for the PE to be communicators of a personal and vital experience nourished by an encounter with Christ, described by the SSCS as the model for the Salesian communicator, rather then simply transmitters of information.
Published 17/05/2011
