5. The principal investment at the present day

The moments of history to which I have referred are different from our own and differ among themselves. I have not recalled them to put the brake on missionary thrust or on apostolic creativity, and still less for the purpose of re-imposing materially the measures indicated at those periods. Our own times call more for renewal and reorganization of life than for pauses and stoppages.

But the various interventions highlight the need to make definite options, to establish priorities, looking to the future as we face the permanent tensions between what is urgent and the demands of the mission, between generosity and quality of service. Moreover they show us that the growth of the Congregation is something continuous in which at certain times expansion prevails, while at other times we must look to consistency and consolidation which may cause suffering but can also provoke enthusiasm. Finally they teach us that we must not only administer well the resources we have inherited, but that we must also be careful to produce them, multiply them and develop them for the future.

The situations in the Congregation vary greatly even from the perspective we are now considering. Some areas are expanding and others reshaping, in some the average age of the of confreres is below 40 years and in others it is over 60; in some zones pastoral work is complex and in others more simple; there are educative contexts very much institutionalized and dictated from outside, and others in which we can work with greater freedom for initiatives; there are provinces with formation communities and qualified teams of confreres, and others taking only the first steps in some of these sectors. For all of them the maximum exploitation of human resources is an obligation!

The salesian mission, as we have already noted, is everywhere entering new geographical and cultural frontiers, and this movement will continue in the immediate future. Indeed the worldwide dimension, urgent pastoral needs, the possibility of an influential presence on a broad scale will still determine our way of working. A wise overall vision enables provision to be made for local requirements, while at the same time giving consideration to the contribution to be given to initiatives which extend beyond provincial horizons and express the salesian mission at regional, national and international level.

For all these reasons the qualification of people, the consolidation of centres and teams, the fostering of a certain cultural sensitivity in the Province, cannot be the result of brief periods, restricted by the deadline of the end of a six-year period or by limited calculations. Continued governmental action and long-term vision are indispensable. A province that launches a plan for the qualification of its personnel knows already that it will reap the benefits in due time. But it would be sad to lose the "capital" of qualifications thus acquired with sacrifice through failing to exploit the investment previously made or to let it lapse.

While the program for the present six-year period was being drawn up, the General Council wondered how to set up an action at Congregational level so that it would be a real priority investment in formation; how to shape a process for recovering the value of our religious consecration in the educative mission and make us bearers of a lived and communicated spirituality; how to enable ourselves to offer an educative proposal reflecting the style and content of the preventive system for present-day culture; how to give emphasis to the process of education to the faith and foster a kind of communication which renders efficacious what we proclaim in the climate of the new evangelization.

The fundamental criterion which emerged was to strengthen the "quality" of the Salesian, of the community and of the mission. It is a task which will have to be taken up in convergent form by the different levels of government. On it depend to a great extent the relationships between SDBs and lay people, the effectiveness of religious experience, the incidence of the SDB community as an animating nucleus. We have condensed this commitment into the expression "governare formando", governing by formation. We are aware that governance includes other specific aspects which cannot be neglected, but we consider that the effort to form and qualify the confreres, and in particular those responsible for the various sectors of activity, is the best formula for orientation and animation because it multiplies results and creates unity.