Rome (Italy). On 17 April 2021, the Congress of the Salesian Cooperators Association (ASSCC) of the Italy-Middle East-Malta Region took place with the slogan “A new Spring”. 115 Salesian Cooperators, members of the Provincial Councils and the Regional Council, the Delegates of the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Delegates of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of the Provinces met online.
This meeting, three years after the V World Congress held in Rome in 2018, was aimed at verifying the progress of the Association of the Italy-Middle East-Malta Region and formulating operational guidelines for the future, according to the indications of art. 29 §3 of the Apostolic Life Project.
The Mother General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sr. Yvonne Reungoat, greeted the participants, hoping that the event would mark “A new spring” for the Association, which is looked upon with gratitude for the testimony of life present in the Church, in society, and for its passion for young people, soul of the Salesian educational mission.
The SDB World Delegate, Mr. Nam Nguyen, and the World Delegate of the ASSCC for the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sr. Carmen Lucrecia Uribe, expressed their greetings.
Sr. Lucrecia, considering the current context of the health emergency, spoke of Christian hope, recalling some ‘places’ for learning and exercising hope: prayer, action, and suffering (Spe salvi 32-48). “The difficult time of the pandemic we are experiencing can become a formative opportunity to strengthen hope, to make a believers’ reading of history, and to grasp in the midst of so much suffering, fragility, and death, the signs of God’s passage , which even at this time is ‘making a new spring blossom'”,
In his report, the World Coordinator of ASSCC, Mr. Antonio Boccia, emphasized some aspects of the identity of the Salesian Cooperator on which to focus. “It is time to think about a new profile of the SC who is more attentive to the common good, present, and committed in the social sphere, with particular attention to the poor, families, young people; one who re-appropriates the Salesian characteristic as an educator; who becomes a bearer of enthusiasm and a sign of vitality in the Church, growing in the awareness of belonging to a Charismatic Family. We must not wait for the emergency to end to activate these processes. We must be protagonists in building the “social friendship” that Pope Francis, in the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, indicates as a future prospect, if we want to live in a world that is more attentive to the needs of others”.
The participants took the time to share the answers to the questions on the sense of belonging to the Association, on which the Coordinators of the Provinces had been called to work with the Local Councils, in view of the Congress.
A formative moment followed presented by the Regional Delegates, Fr. Giuseppe Buccellato, SDB and Sr. Elena Cavaliere, FMA, on the style of discernment and on the continuity of the journey in the local realities.
At the conclusion of the ASSCC Regional Congress, the World Councilor, Mr. Carlo Pellegrino, taking into consideration what emerged during the meeting, formulated some proposals and guidelines for the future of the Italy-Middle East-Malta Region. “I propose a slogan, which could serve as a guide for next year and beyond: ‘The Centers at the Center’. That is, we try to put the care of the local centers at the center of our attention and commitment, so that they feel they are not alone, but part of a large family”.
