(ANS – Turin) – There has been a change in the presidency of Missioni Don Bosco, the Salesian Missionary Procuratorate Office based in Turin: Fr. Luca Barone, SDB, is the new person in charge of this service, following on from Fr. Daniel Antúnez, who accompanied him in recent months.

Since September 2023, Fr. Barone has been at Salesian Headquarters in Rome, where he has taken on some responsibilities in the management and institutional area, which he will continue to follow. Coming from the Special Circumscription of Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta, and Lithuania (ICP), he had responsibilities for Youth Ministry, Vocational and Missionary Animation, and International Volunteering. At the time of his call to  Salesian Headquarters, he was Rector of the Rebaudengo Institute, dedicated to vocational and university education and historically the place where many missionary vocations matured.

Missioni Don Bosco – Valdocco Onlus is the body that, since 1991, has taken on, in a form appropriate to the times, the role of the Mission Office desired by the Founder from the origins of the Congregation. New statutory changes are planned for the new year to complete the framework of this entity, which falls within the third sector.

The handover takes place at the turn of the anniversary of the first departure of Salesians on their way out of Italy, to Argentina, 150 years ago. Just as the season that is now drawing to a close was characterised by a President, Fr. Antúnez, who came from the first Salesian missionary land, and a close witness to the experience of Cardinal Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, the new season of Missioni Don Bosco is expected to further develop the service to the missionary work of Pope Leo XIV’s Church. Through the indications and perspectives of the new Rector Major elected this year, Fr. Fabio Attard, Missioni Don Bosco will continue to realise the missionary dream of the Founder, strongly experienced in this one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, with the invitation to ‘thank, rethink and relaunch’.

Fr. Barone is originally from Piedmont, and this led him to take his steps in an ecclesial and civil fabric that breathes Salesian air. ‘I lived in Valdocco, a holy place where saints flourished in 19th-century Turin,’ he says. Of Don Bosco’s charism, he has intensely embraced the missionary passion which, among other things, has led him to be a member of the International Volunteers for Development (VIS), to the point of recently assuming the role of Vice-President. His other skills and responsibilities in the Congregation form an effective cluster to foster synergies for the commitment to evangelization in the peripheries of the world among the poorest children.

At Missioni Don Bosco, he works closely with Marco Faggioli, Director of this non-profit organization. ‘Together with him and with the entire Missioni Don Bosco team,’ Fr. Barone says, ‘I am certain that we will be able to continue this valuable service to the missions, but above all to the Salesian Mission, which is the care, evangelization and education, and training of young people throughout the world.

Missioni Don Bosco has come to support almost 200 missionary projects every year, in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Europe. ‘Wherever there is a young person, that is our place,’ Fr. Barone concludes.