An indication for Provinces: make a plan for the qualification of confreres

In this period the qualification of personnel must constitute a priority governmental commitment: we seek to govern by forming those who animate and direct, we orientate by giving a better preparation to those working in the different sectors.

An indication in this regard is provided by all organizations. Qualification of top management, of those responsible at intermediate level, and of the workers at shop-floor level has always been given attention by directors. In our case, an action at provincial level which is programmed and constant must therefore be added to the personal and communal responsibility already spoken of.

In this connection we have already taken certain steps. I quote, for example, the preparation and follow-up of Rectors. Some Provinces have set up meetings of provincial teams for formative purposes with a program laid down at the beginning of each year by the Provincial Council; they organize a week of spiritual and pastoral reflection, open to all confreres and with a program covering several years. Others have prepared a plan of qualification for directive personnel, and have committed themselves despite difficulties of finance and personnel to offer to some confreres each year the possibility of specialization. There are also those who make the sacrifice of providing qualified personnel for study centres, and still others who have recognized the fact that they cannot do everything on their own and so have established agreements for inter-provincial collaboration by contributing qualified confreres.

This is just a sample, but it serves to show that the urgent need has been accepted and in part is being met. The panorama of the Congregation is very rich and varied, and consequently there are also some dark spots. It is therefore proper to propose for all a more decisive and organic action at provincial level.

To translate such action into practice implies, among other things:

Making a complete list of the qualifications, even partial ones, of all the confreres for their better evaluation. It often happens that competence acquired in years of study is not exploited in continued or communal form; the same must be done at the level of the Congregation, recalling that the SGC asked us to draw up a program for the exchange of personnel between study centres. Identifying the areas in which cultural and professional competence seem more urgently needed according to the particular contexts, the state of personnel, and the pastoral and educative situation of the Congregation in present and future perspectives. Qualifying the greatest possible number of confreres for the various fields and dimensions of the salesian mission, especially for those considered more significant at the present day. This is recommended to all Provinces but particularly to those which have a consistent number of vocations. They should qualify confreres not only in view of immediate needs and particular projects of the Province, but also in line with the criterion of developing to the maximum the available human resources so as to make them available for the needs and commitments of the entire Congregation. To the examples already given of initiatives of an interprovincial kind, others can be added in virtue of the worldwide and transversal nature of activity in every field. Every day we are driven to looking for confreres prepared for formation communities in emerging areas, for projects or great importance that the Church wants to entrust to us in zones of first evangelization, for our University, for a competent service of reflection and planning at the Generalate. It would be a serious matter to fail to develop evident talents merely because it could not be foreseen that there would be scope for their application in their own restricted setting. Assigning qualified confreres to specific tasks within the project of the Province and the Congregation. The best preparation of which we are speaking tends to be aimed at improving our work and is directed to that end. It sometimes happens that confreres qualified in a particular field find no outlet for their talents except by opening a new and specific field of work or becoming inserted in projects outside the Congregation. Insisting that qualified confreres stay in the sector of their particular competence. Especially in study centres there must be consistence and continuity in the teaching staff and teams, so as to create a tradition of formative reflection and pedagogy.

All this presupposes the elaboration and realization of a provincial plan for the qualification of personnel, verified year by year, and a wise administration of resources. The GC23 asked for this when it stated: "Every province will draw up an organic plan for the ongoing formation of the confreres with a view to their spiritual renewal, their pastoral qualification, and their educational and professional ability". This too is what the program for the present six-year period wanted to make concrete by deciding to: "Ask the provinces for a program for the qualification of personnel, verifying it periodically and fostering its realization".

Dear Provincials, on you lies the responsibility and the hope expressed in this guideline. I know the difficulties many of you are grappling with each year as you try to fill the posts of work and, with you, I feel the reduced number of new vocations. We must, however, not only solve the crises but sow for the future. The request for a program of qualification will prompt a moment of fraternal communication to become aware of the very many resources we have still to exploit, and to help us to develop all the gifts the Lord sends to our beloved Congregation. Choose with wise care the personnel to be prepared and be magnanimous in ensuring for the Province the conditions for a future which will certainly offer other models of work for which we want to be prepared.

In the plan careful thought should also be given to the task of ensuring the memory of salesian history, as the communication of a considered experience expressing in concrete terms our identity as lived in different contexts and cultures, in ordinary times and in exceptional situations.

The Congregation willed the foundation of the Salesian Historical Institute. It is the manifestation of a concern which must be reflected in every Province. Neglect of memories of the past means the loss of roots. Today we are facing the expansion which has taken place over 150 years and reached every continent, and its history has still to be written. We cannot lose a patrimony which is so valuable. Think of the value for us and for the confreres of tomorrow of the story of the implanting and growth of the Congregation in different contexts and in certain countries which have recently recovered their freedom. It is evidently not sufficient to have created a structure or founded an Institute if there were not the men who worked there with love and enthusiasm.

Let every Province feel the responsibility for preserving, studying and communicating its own history in line with criteria that can be suitably indicated. To do this specialized research is indispensable, but equally important is the daily attention shown in keeping the chronicle, in the custody of archives, in the preservation of significant documentation.