PRESENTATION
The text you have in hand is the result of the work of the Salesian Congregation’s Social Communication Sector. It aims to offer the most recent guidelines for understanding the question of social communication serving the Salesian mission in the Church.
This handbook is being published 14 years after the text bearing the title Salesian Social Communication System, and is the result of collaboration with Communication Delegates, experts in communication and other consultants. It will certainly be enriched by your knowledge and experience.
The Salesian Congregation, in its various areas of intervention, always aims to keep up with the times. This is an attitude that over the years has led us to the continuous search for dialogue between faith and science, the gospel and youth culture, the Preventive System and the digital world.
As educators of young people, we are responding to the challenges and opportunities of digital culture through profound reflection on communication and the use of various information technologies, the internet, social networks and, most recently, Artificial Intelligence.
Starting from the values of the gospel and the Preventive System, together with lay people and educators we wish to discuss this reality by listening to the new generations, accompanying adolescents and young adults in their social worlds, in search of new languages and new ways to educate them to love, to the meaning of life and responsibility, to the construction of their personal project.
The Church, after the Synod on Young People, asked us to deepen our knowledge of the dynamics of the digital environment: “The digital environment presents a challenge to the Church on various levels; it is essential, therefore, to deepen knowledge of its dynamics and its range of possibilities from the anthropological and ethical point of view. This requires not only entering into it and promoting its communicative potential with a
view to the Christian proclamation, but also giving a Gospel flavour to its culture and its dynamics. Some initiatives along these lines are already under way and should be encouraged, deepened and shared.”1
Recently, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication published a text on the topic of digital technology, stating that we are experiencing a gigantic change today, but we still have to face the way in which we, as individuals and as an ecclesial community can approach the digital world as “loving neighbours”, genuinely present and attentive to each other on our common journey along the “digital highways”.2
The Salesian Congregation, in step with the Church, has made a great effort to update the reflection on the Salesian charism, on the Salesian identity of consecrated persons and lay educators, on further exploring and updating the Preventive System in light of the changing times in which our young people live. Through studies, conferences, meetings at every level within the Congregation, a fundamental theme emerged: social communication as an aspect of the youth world, especially in relation to digital culture.
The Communication Sector, through its various initiatives, has studied, delved into and responded in a Salesian way to the important dialogue between communication, evangelisation and Salesian education.
Communication is part of the great Salesian charismatic heritage, one of the priorities of our founder Don Bosco, and is an expression of our identity and our mission as educators.
The Salesian Congregation animates and manages communication under the responsibility of the Social Communication Sector. To accomplish this task, it developed a text to guide and offer direction for communication throughout the Congregation.
The text, bearing the title Salesian Social Communication System – published for the first time in 2008 and updated in 2011 – has been an important point of reference. Nevertheless, we have arrived at an historic moment wherein an epochal change is needed in terms of both organisational structure and practical directions.
Why renew the Salesian Social Communication System Document?
If we consider the communication revolution over the last fifteen years through the development of digital technology, social networks and socio-cultural changes in the world of youth, development of the Document is necessary.
Thanks to the Magisterium of Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, the Church has expanded its vision of communication, especially through the annual Messages for World Social Communication Days and the documents from the Synod of Bishops on the Young, but also through directives contained in documents such as Ethics in the Internet, Laudato Si’, Fratelli Tutti, Global Compact on Education, Dignitas Infinita.
Further development of the Document must also be implemented in consideration of the requests of GC27 and GC28, in the light of the Rector Major’s Action Guidelines for the six-year period (proposal number 3): “Living the Salesian sacrament of presence” and considering the new Vatican document Antiqua et nova on Artificial Intelligence.
It is also appropriate to broaden the vision of communication in terms of its charismatic, educative and pastoral and ecclesial dimension, in accordance with the Salesian Youth Ministry Frame of Reference.
Beginning with the Rector Major’s request addressed in 2020 to the Communication Sector, the latter was entrusted with drafting this Document, involving a study of the digital habitat: “Engage the Social Communication Department, at various levels, in offering resources and stimuli for a constant process of verification, updating, inculturation of the Salesian mission in the digital habitat where young people live, involving our universities in a network with other centres and agencies that more closely follow and study the transformations that the digital world is bringing among the new generations.” (AGC, 433).
The work on this Document was carried out with the involvement of a large number of Communication Delegates, those responsible for the Salesian Bulletin, Radio, Publishers and social media. As a result, we developed a communication instrumentum laboris, integrating all the proposals and topics presented by these groups.
Starting from the fundamental principle that renewal is possible, in full respect of the guidelines of the Magisterium of the Church and the Salesian Congregation, the new communication text remains faithful to our tradition and the heritage which is part of our identity.
The goal of this new Document is to be a guide and a formation tool in continuity with what has been stated in the earlier edition, at the same time seeking to respond in a Salesian style to the socio-cultural changes of the new generations and the digital world. Through new educative and pastoral demands and cultural challenges along the Church’s journey, it is necessary to bring communication closer to the evangelising and educative proposal of Salesian Youth Ministry.
This Document is a tool offered by the Social Communication Sector to shed light on, update and guide the reflection, practice and sharing of communication work in each Educative and Pastoral Community. All this can be achieved through the various Communication Delegates and their teams. Finally, the Document aims to contribute to the formation of Salesians and lay people who work collaboratively in carrying out the Salesian mission in today’s world.
Rome, 31 January 2025
Fr. GILDÁSIO MENDES DOS SANTOS
General Councillor for Social Communication
Complete file