#555
Note: not only Chapter members have trouble getting their numbers right! Sorry for the three numbers #552! We are really up to #555 (I hope I don't similarly get stuck on #666!).
One final note - there's so much coming in at the moment that even back here it's getting difficult to process. Many of the readers of 'austraLasia' want a precis. I'll do my best.
INTERVENTIONS ON 'EVANGELICAL WITNESS'
A wide range of interventions as one can imagine. Here is a sample:
* Salesian spirituality must be based on a spirituality of the young (GC23).
* The lay dimension of our life needs thorough study or we become too clericalized. The 'problem' of the Brother vocation...is it more a problem of Religious Life itself?
* We are world-wide protagonists for the virtue of chastity. How then to tackle the problem of sexual abuse - can there be a Congregation-wide policy on this matter?
* Community self-evaluation on days like monthly recollections, retreats - maybe the evaluation needs to come from those outside the immediate community!
The difficulty is that there were many interventions on this topic/document: there is a real danger of something too long under the guise of 'depth'! As Tom Dunne puts it: "It took all day (five hours) to hear the interventions on two documents! The
irony of all this is that the intention of most speakers was to encourage the commission to make the document SHORTER!! How a group like this can come up with a short document is beyond me.... The good news is that the assembly is beginning to run out of steam. We may have had our fill of speeches in the aula. In the same way as a bagpipe gradually empties of its air after a while, we seem to have lost our enthusiasm for five-minute speeches.
INTERVENTIONS ON ANIMATING PRESENCE AMONGST THE YOUNG
Following the discussions reported above, interventions on this topic were fewer - such matters as the responses we can make to vocations, e.g. inviting young people into our communities, working with the Volunteer movement, having communities that will transform the young, preparing experts in working with the young, having Salesians in positions of responsiblity where they could be effective....
