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Dear Confreres and Friends, Greetings from Nairobi. Together with the Rector Major, we are here six General Councilors of the sectors, the Secretariat for the Salesian Family, and all the Provincials and their counselors of the Africa-Madagascar Region. We make the Team Visit to listen to the Holy Spirit and the reality of the young and the poor in this region full of hope. Just inspired by this fact I will send you this months message. Communication is a divine-human fact that touches the core of God and of man. In our human reality it begins with welcoming in the womb, and continues in the family, in groups of friends, in school, in work, in the religious community, olso in the Educative-Pastoral Community. All this has to do with our fraternal and pastoral communication which is really social. If communication arises from the encounter between people and has the aim to create a culture of encounter, then we do not put the media, the technologies in the first place, but the desire and the will to find others to live in the image of God. We are consecrated, specialized in God and in the evangelization and education of young people, especially the poorest. If our mission is to communicate the love of God to the young (C. 2), then our communication must be marked by living our charismatic identity[1]. So Salesian communication is a matter of BEING rather than doing, it is a matter of LIVING rather than of keeping, it is a matter of COMMUNION rather than just living together. The Salesian and the community have an experience of God to share: men of God and prophets of fraternity; a Good News to be transmitted: the Joy of the Gospel as servants of the young (CG 27). For many years, the Communication has been promoted and developed as a Salesian System of Social Communication (SSCS[2]) in the Congregation. The SSCS, approved by the Rector Major and his Council, presents the common criteria and languages, the structure and organization, the areas of intervention of this reality which has an historical and charismatic foundation in Don Bosco and in the birth and development of the Congregation. With communication we find ourselves in a field of great importance in our origins and of formative and pastoral, personal and institutional, cultural and social current at the same time [3]. Like Don Bosco, each of us is the first and more important message, and for this we need authenticity of life. After visiting all the regions of the Salesian world, this is the last, it is clear that all are making their own journey of communication: in its geographic and digital space, in its time and culture, with different stories, traditions, economies, staff preparation and particular visions that need a common vision for a good future. There are different structures, organizations and actions in the areas of animation, training, information, production, art and culture. In reality, slowly we grow in the practice of SSCS to become an alternative communication to that of consumption, emotions and fake news. I hope the message offered by Pope Francis for this year 2018 will strengthen the quality of the communication of every Province at the service of the young and poorest families by making visible the truth, the meeting, peace as an alternative to a communication made up of lies, petitions and indifferent before the poor. Greetings from all the members of the Department. Best wishes, Fr. Filiberto González [1] We must be aware that our Congregation and Mission were born of an evangelizing Father, educator and communicator. From our origins, communication is part of our Salesian being and of our mission. This is a historical fact. [2] “Our publications tend to form an ordered system, which embraces on a large scale all the classes that make up human society": Don Bosco, Circular Letter on the diffusion of good books. March 19, 1885. [3] “The digital world, "new Areopagus of modern time", challenges us as educators of the young: it is "a new courtyard", a "new oratory" that requires our presence and stimulates new forms of evangelization and education in us.” (CG27,62). |
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Kenya - Communication for communion, Salesian Family as opportunity. Team Visit On the third day of the Visit to the Africa-Madagascar region, the debate focused on the current state of Social Communication and of collaboration with the Salesian Family ... |
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Ethiopia - A new "app" for Ethiopias Salesian Bulletin Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - February 2018 - The Department of Social Communication of the AET Salesian Province has announced the launch of a new "app" of the Salesian Bulletin on the Google Play Store ... |
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