By Fr. Alejandro Rodriguez, SDB

I have had the opportunity to participate three years in a row in our Salesian booth at the annual Religious Education Congress in Anaheim.  I usually make myself available to listen, encourage, and share with those who engage in conversation with us.  Each year has been different; each experience has been enriching. On this occasion, three elements have caught my attention:

1. The participants each year are more and more Spanish-speaking.  This reflects the national trend of the growing number of Spanish speakers in the Catholic Church in North America with all the challenges, richness, novelties and needs of their own.

2. It is worth mentioning the obvious, that the continued key area of interest is education in the faith, mainly linked to the Sacraments of Christian Initiation. Catechists and people in the different parish ministries approach us (the Salesian Booth) asking for simple, helpful materials in an accessible language.

3. There is a growing genuine desire to seek help in working with young people.  The Salesian presence at the Religious Education Congress is appreciated by the attendees’ prayerful encounter with Mary Help of Christians and their hope of attaining some printed resource, some service or strategy to approach young people within family and parish contexts.

The above observations have led me to the following three reflections:

First, it is conveniently necessary for us to recover elements of General Chapter 23 (GC23) where we as Salesians affirmed ourselves as educators in the faith and have considered deeply the importance of responding to a complex youth reality (whose questions and desires to act and live in a way closer to the Gospel), would lead us as Salesians to be in their midst affectively and effectively: presence, spirituality, formation, etc.

Secondly, we have before us a reality that increases every year in the United States (Pew Research Center, Jan 24, 2024): the tendency is that those who are born and grow up in Catholic environments, during their youth decide to consider themselves religiously disaffiliated (3 out of 10 Latinos born or not in the USA). There is no lack of spirituality, there is a perceived indifference to what is institutionally proposed (Pew Research Center, Dec 7, 2023). 

As we recall that we are educators-pastors who are concerned about young people and committed to offer them paths of encounter with Jesus Christ, perhaps we should focus our energies on generating educational-pastoral environments rich in proposals of acceptance, maturation and apostolic commitment.

And my third reflection is that narratives of past glories and great successes inspire, but they fall short because they do not move us to act. Perhaps today we need a common Salesian project that moves us to go out to meet young people, to accompany those who are already involved in ministries in the communities. Perhaps today, we need to offer services from new and flexible structures, with new faces and new strategies—perhaps it is time to speak heart to heart, as St. Francis de Sales used to say, rather than spending time and resources on words that only reach the ears. Our Salesian Spirituality is youthful and also educational, pastoral, sacramental and missionary. By educating we respond to the demands of social justice; by evangelizing we live the social doctrine of the Church. The mission requires accessible resources to form. I see with hope that some projects that seemed like only dreams are becoming more tangible day by day in the province and may they encourage more dreams to benefit our young people and their families in our local presences, our province, in our region and throughout our world.