On behalf of the young” “

Almost 300 schools with a student population of 154,000 youngsters; 117 training centres with 30,000 young apprentices; 500 parishes; many youth centres with a membership of over 200,000 children and adolescents, to which should be added some 5,000 youths in university hostels and homes and a further 9,000 involved in social promotion and rehabilitation projects: these are some of the statistics of the Salesians in Europe, where the congregation founded by St. John Bosco now comprises 7,500 religious. In recent days leaders of the inspectorates of the Old Continent met in Rome, in the presence of Rector Major Don Pascual Chavez Villanueva to discuss what challenges are posed to the Salesian organization by the situation in Europe today. We asked them to tell us about the situation and hopes of youth in the various European countries. Poland. “The youth situation – said Tadeusz Rozmus, inspector of the area of south-east Krakow, one of the four Polish inspectorates – has changed a lot over the last decade and is still changing rapidly; the young acquire Western values thanks to the influence of the mass media and are heading towards equality of lifestyles between East and West. This is a normal and positive fact, but there are dangers to which we need to pay heed in our educational work, such as the diffusion of materialism and the spread of drug consumption”. “The last 15 years – pointed out Rozmus – have also seen a growth in the number of Salesian schools. There are now over 80 of then. We work a great deal with lay teachers, animators and young volunteers to turn these schools not only into places of education, but also into supportive environments where the young feel accepted and find the means to adjust to the new society that is taking shape, also following Poland’s entry into the European Union, to which the young look with confidence and great hope for the future”. A genuine challenges is posed to the Salesian vocational schools by the changes taking place in the labour market: “many coal mines and steel mills in Upper Silesia, a highly industrialized zone, have been closed: this has caused high unemployment and repercussions on vocational schools, which must restructure and help youngsters from the working-class world – in which many professions have disappeared – to reskill and turn towards new professions”. The training of animators is also important for the human promotion of the young: “in Krakow the Salesians have opened a national Centre of Youth Ministry where those responsible for animation in the various inspectorates meet together to reflect on the situation and prepare themselves effectively to tackle it”. CROATIA. Croatian youth too are looking towards the European Union with interest and hope: “There’s a great readiness to enter into processes that may permit us to form part of this new European reality – said Ambrozije Matušic, inspector of Croatia -, though he does not deny the problems that are emerging in this historic phase in the history of Europe, in which new ways of dialogue are being opened but also creating some difficulties because changes in the socio-political situation are being reflected in personal life and the life of families”. One of the problems that afflicts the young is, according to Matušic, “that of the spread of a lack of the meaning of life, though this is opposed by a strongly felt need to be accompanied, to live a positive human experience with someone with whom to share fears and hopes for life”. The Salesians respond to this need by offering the welcoming contexts of “schools that we did not have before the collapse of Communism; youth centres, clubs and interest groups that may offer concrete responses to the needs of the young”. EASTERN EUROPE. “Many young people – said Henryk Boguszewski, inspector for the huge area that comprises Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania and Belarus – are already in Europe. The geographic barriers are overcome by the mass media and the young now think in a European way. The problems too are the same as in Europe: jobs for the young from poor families who cannot assure themselves of a future as can the many wealthy families that exist, drugs, alcohol, nihilism. Among the young there is a widespread mentality to consider themselves Orthodox Christians even if many of them are not baptized and do not know their own pope, though they do feel a strong sense of attachment to tradition and family values. The Catholic Church has been present in Russia for many years now and esteem for it is growing, while the fear of proselytism that has in the past hampered relations between Catholics and Orthodox, is declining, even at the official level: the young, in particular, know that the Catholic Church is a bridge between Russia and Europe”. There is a “great future for the Salesians in Russia, thanks to their youth centres where the young learn community values. Also important for our educational work is cultivating the dimension of the misterium peculiar to Orthodox spirituality which endures in the young, in spite of the diffusion of a Western materialist mentality”. ENGLAND. More English than European: according to MICHEAL WINSTANLEY, inspector for England, that’s how English youth feel, in spite of the fact that they have a positive view of the European Union. The difficulties of Catholic youth in England are mainly linked to the family context, increasingly fragmented due to the breakdown of marriages, the separation of spouses, and the pressure of society and families for children to achieve “success” at school and in life. On the other hand, “there’s great generosity towards those in their own age group and also a widespread hunger for spirituality”. In England, too, the Salesians run schools that form an integral part of the school system, because they are subsidized by the government and must therefore follow the rules. But “there is freedom to pray, teach the catechism and evangelise, and for children who don’t go to church, the school is really the parish where we try to promote the values of the Gospel”. A particular experience of “European integration” is the “Savio House Bullinghton” community, near Manchester, which accepts young adults from the age of 18 to 25 and where volunteers of various nationalities rotate for periods of 1-2 years. The members “live totally in the religious community: they eat together, pray together, play football, go for walks or to the theatre together. It’s an experience that brings together various cultures and languages and enables English youngsters to learn about mentalities different from their own”. FrancE. French youth too “are happy to be in Europe and even happier to be in France because it guarantees many opportunities in a context of prosperity, security and liberty that other countries do not provide”, says JOSEPH INISAN, inspector for France. The needs of the young are once again linked to the family or the lack of it, as in the case of young immigrants from abroad. “They are all seeking success in life – continued Inisan – but their chances are very different. Even those who succeed in completing higher studies do not always find work. A fundamental problem is what sense to give to life, a question that is often answered by drug addiction, alcoholism or even suicide”. There are many Salesian structures in France that try to address these problems. They include educational and social programmes, to which many youths are entrusted by the Ministry of Justice or by the social services. The main challenge for these Salesian structures is “to be in the midst of youth, and introduce them to the discovery and knowledge of the values in which we ourselves believe. Attention needs to be paid not only to their material and professional, but also their human and especially spiritual needs: a great hunger for spirituality can be sensed among the young in France”. SpaIN. The task of education is the main commitment of the Salesian inspectorates in Spain, Belgium and Portugal, as well as in France, says FILIBERTO RODRIGUEZ, general counsellor for the Western European area. In Spain “there’s a real divorce between the institutional church and youth in general, even though there are groups that are committed to practising their faith in social work and volunteer service. The current Socialist government is pressing towards a secular society and the confinement of religion to the private sphere: that’s dangerous, because it introduces a split in the life of the young who don’t know how to separate faith and life as can adults who are far more capable of hypocrisy and saying things in public that are at variance with what they practice in their private life; the young are more coherent and secularism strips from them the meaning of life”. Spanish youth are “European youth who seek the truth: that’s why education is a prophetic role for us Salesians”. “Salesian schools in Spain comprise some 80,000 male pupils; if we add the Salesian girl pupils, we arrive at a total of 130,000. There is, in addition “a very strong organization of youth centres. There are some 10,000 lay animators in Spain and Portugal; they are our strength for the future”. ItalY. According to EUGENIO RIVA, head of the inspectorate of Milan which includes Italian-speaking Switzerland, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and San Marino, Italian youth “are going through a period of major cultural transformation, also in terms of their feeling of belonging to society and to the Church. There’s a great hunger to discover the meaning of life and a longing for hope, to which confused responses are often given. They need to be given intelligent proposals, rich in values, the only ones able to draw their attention”. In recent years “the European consciousness of the young has grown a lot, also thanks to some events of international character such as the World Youth Days promoted by the Pope and the many events linked to civil life”. Two, in particular, are the challenges for the Salesian educational project: first, the provision of a supplement of formation by “widespread responses in schools, in professional training, in youth clubs and in catechesis”, and second, “attention to the “forms of poverty of Italian and European youth, which need to be compared with those experienced in other strongly disadvantaged parts of the world”.