Rome (Italy). After the announcement by Pope Francis at the Angelus of 9 July 2023, of the name of Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, Rector Major of the Salesian Congregation, among the 21 people who will be created Cardinals at the consistory of 30 September, the Rector Major himself wrote a letter to all the Salesian confreres and to the Salesian Family, to share what will be the future of the government of the Congregation.
Fr. Ángel begins by underlining that the news was completely “unexpected” for him, and that he welcomed it as a “gift that Pope Francis has given us as a Salesian Congregation and as Don Bosco’s Family.” He also underlines, “What great affection the Pope has for us !!!”.
The 10th Successor of Don Bosco recounts that on 11 July, Pope Francis summoned him to the Vatican to agree on the time necessary for his service as Rector Major, “above all for the good of the Congregation”:
“As always, the Pope showed himself to be attentive, cordial, a profound admirer of Don Bosco’s charism and particularly affectionate. Feelings that, in my own name and that of the whole Salesian Family, I reciprocated”.
The Holy Father has established that Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime will continue to serve as Rector Major and at the same time as Cardinal for one year. He will then convoke a General Chapter, the 29th of the Congregation, to be held in February 2025, at which a new Rector Major will be elected, and he will present his resignation from the government of the Congregation on 31 July 2024. From that moment on, it will be the Vicar, Fr. Stefano Martoglio, who will assume the government of the Congregation ad interim, and he will be the one to preside over the GC29.
In his writing, the Rector Major states that when his resignation becomes effective, he will take on the task entrusted to him by the Holy Father, of which he does not yet know. In the meantime, he asks the Salesians and the Salesian Family to intensify their prayers for the Pope and also for him, “faced with the prospect of a new service in the Church which, as a son of Don Bosco, I accept in filial obedience, without having sought it nor wanted it.”
“Let us place everything in the hands of the Lord and His Mother,” he says at the end of the letter, available in the integral version, in different languages, on the website infoANS.
