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WALKING WITH YOUNG PEOPLE IN OUR DIGITAL CULTURE

 

1. I would like to begin this letter with a question that involves all of us: how can we continue to be communicators, faithful to Don Bosco and our charism, in a changing world? It is a question put to me by provincials, young people, communication delegates and members of the Salesian Family, concerned about how to live and pass on our charism today in the digital world, without losing their soul.

2. If Don Bosco were here today, he would be a digital explorer. He would know how to get right to the heart of the young. He would want to understand its meaning and its mechanisms, so he could follow up their wild teenage pursuits and also their potential. He would invite us to follow him without any generational detachment, but with the kind of light that only those who know how to walk close to the earth, with a gentle and accustomed step can do, and who know how to deal with essential topics at life’s own pace.
Intelligently, Don Bosco understood that to communicate is to be in relationship. He lived and developed his educational system based on one central idea: young people are the reason for our existence. It is with them and for them that we communicate. In these times of great social and cultural change, the educational presence of the Salesians in the digital sphere aims precisely to educate through a direct relationship with young people, with a clear charismatic identity and fidelity.

3. We are all communicating within a virtual universe that conditions our relationships. Social media in particular are a place where people interact, share experiences and cultivate relationships as never before.
This dimension can cause us to lose sensitivity to interpersonal relationships, neglect fraternal communion in the community, or distance ourselves from the educational relationship with young people. The digital world is a great opportunity to educate and evangelise, but it always requires reflection and discernment, starting with the Gospel, to place fraternal relationship and communion always at the centre.

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