(ANS – Brasilia) – From 16 February to 8 March, Fr Filiberto González, General Councillor for Social Communciations (SC), visited all six provinces in Brazil: San Paolo, Recife, Campo Grande, Porto Alegre, Manaus, and Belo Horizonte, and fiished with meetings in Brasilia, where the Conference of Provincials in Brazil is located (CISBRASIL).

The visit to Brazil was part of a series of animation visits involving a number of countries with significant Salesian presence and clear potential in the communications field. The Councillor has visited all the provinces in Spain, Italy and Poland; the eleven provinces of India except for three, and now with this latest visit, the six in Brazil. In these visits Fr González has proposed locating SC within the Overall Provincial Plan and the ordinary dynamics of each province; given that the history and possibilities are different in the various countries visited, so the principles offered by the SC Department need to be applied to different local realities.

Regarding the purpose of the visit, Fr Filiberto explains: “it is essential to continue supporting provincials and SC delegates in understanding and applying the new Salesian Social Communication System (SSCS). This process is shared between Salesians and lay people, who to the extent that it is applied, change their way of thinking about SC and its role in the Salesian mission”.

There are some basic points amongst the planned objectives: “we have always focused on understanding and applying five central points: a general common platform and four areas of organisation. The platform is based on the vocation and mission to the young of the Salesian who must be amongst the young, and on unity amongst the various sectors of the mission, always in function of the salvation of the young: youth ministry, social communication and missions, without forgetting formation and a solid spirituality, because of the personal experience of God and Jesus Christ that we communicate to the young, and because we always begin from the fact that each Salesian must be a communicator as well as an evangeliser and educator”.

“Then come the four organisational areas: animation of SC, which the provincial delegates to a Salesian or lay person and a team which has a plan; formation of Salesians, co-workers and the young to communication, which starts from the individual and then passes through media; information inside and beyond the province, ensuring a special relationship with the Congregation (ANS) and the Salesian Family and local Church (Salesian Bulletin, the annual ‘Salesians' Magazine, press office); and finally, production of Salesian charismatic and Christian cultural material, and public opinion on behalf of the Salesian and the Church's mission”.

Regarding aspects of SC observed during his visits, Fr González states: “the first thing we saw in these visits is that the SSCS has been printed and distributed to every Salesian and to educators in the six provinces and is now being studied and analysed. Very important too is the way national networks have been set up for schools, universities, social work and SC. This is a highly professional, transparent and unifying service, and has an office with CISBRASIL, in Brasilia, that not only unifies Salesians, but is carving out a unified path where needed and possible, with the Salesian Sisters (FMA). Only unity in our evangelising and educating mission can make us strong and significant at national level, and it offers many opportunities for action. A second aspect is that they are rapidly entering into the whole area of new technologies in the service of education and information. The schools network and the digitalisation of the Salesian Bulletin are amongst the best examples. A third point worth recognising is the decision to have one Publishing House for all the provinces, affiliated with a large Salesian Publishing House in another country; they produce school textbooks with a Christian outlook and from our pedagogical point of view, for all Salesian and FMA schools in Brazil and some other countries”.

Finally the Councillor pointed to some challenges for provinces in Brazil: “Continuing on the path to team effort amongst the sectors, at province and national level always on behalf of the mission to the young; developing shared programmes for initial and ongoing formation to SC which also includes our collaborators in the various works and the young themselves, educating them to new technologies and new languages; strengthening and unifying the SC Team in the provinces, seeing that their reflection and animation activities are part of the Overall Province Plan (OPP); consolidating the evangelising and educational image in the various sectors of the Salesian mission; working together, in a determined and sure way for the next World Youth Day and the Bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth; giving trust unity and strength to the national networks, with the support of each local work and beginning from the personal authenticity and vocation of each Salesian”.

Published 12/03/2013