(ANS – Ljubljana) – From today Friday 16 September until Sunday evening Fr Pascual Chávez is engaged in a visit to the “Saints Cyril and Methodius” Province of Slovenia, where his talk at the 30th Stična Youth Festival in eagerly awaited.

Having left Rome during the morning the Rector Major reached Ljubljana about lunch time. The first stop on his travels was Rakovnik, where Don Chávez met the members of the community. On his programme for the afternoon is a visit to the Salesian house at Maribor-Celje, with the blessing of the work for the new Don Bosco Centre and Mass with the diocesan and Salesian clergy in the city. Presiding at Mass is the Metropolitan Archbishop of Maribor, Mons. Marjan Turnšek.

The high point of the visit is Fr Chávez’s presence at the Stična Youth Festival an annual event for the Catholic young people in the country, which in the setting of an old Cistercian monastery attracts each year between 6 and 8 thousand young people from all the six dioceses on Slovenia. Fr Chávez has a major role in this important faith event for the young: in the morning he will lead a workshop for those involved in youth ministry and in the afternoon he will preach at the Mass.

On Sunday 18 the Rector Major will visit the community of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; he will meet the elderly Salesians at Trstenik; he will take part in the Mass in honour of the Servants of God of Ljubljana, including Fr Andrej Majcen SDB. In the afternoon he will attend the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Želimlje Grammar School, the first Catholic school in independent Slovenia

Early on Monday morning 19 September Fr Chávez will return to Rome.

Published 16/09/2011