(ANS – Lima) – Last Sunday, May 11, 2025, the universal Church celebrated the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, one more opportunity for millions of people around the world, especially young people, to look at their hearts and ask themselves: What is God calling me to? What is the meaning of my life? Where can I best serve? Among the many stories of vocations that were shared for the occasion, there is a special one: the current Rector Major of the Salesians, Fr Fabio Attard, presented by the Salesians in Peru. How did the journey begin that has led him today to be the 11th Successor of Don Bosco? He sums it up in words that are striking for their simplicity: ‘My vocation came about from seeing a priest’.

What was your family like?

My father worked in a hospital pharmacy. Since his salary was not enough, when I was born my mother opened a shop. Then five others. When she died I discovered that many women did not go there to buy clothes but to ask for advice. One told me it was like a confessional. Like my father, she was very cautious and careful and did not tell us anything.

Being elected Rector Major a few weeks ago must have changed your life. What did you think about in those first moments?

A thousand things. On the evening of 24 March I was informed that mine was one of the names in the running to become Rector Major, and on the morning of the 25th I was informed that I had been elected and that I had to take a train from Rome to Turin, where the General Chapter was being held.

Fr Fabio, how did God’s call in your life come about?

I think it all started when I was a child, seeing a priest. He was a totally self-giving person, with an interesting personality, intelligent, very lively, with ideas and the ability to make a critical reading of reality. He is still alive. He was Salesian and became a diocesan, but he continued to embody the Salesian system. He was my first model. But it did not all happen automatically.

And how did your vocation develop and continue to develop?

I was born into a very fine family. There were seven children, and my parents devoted all their energy to us. For me, the family model is very beautiful. I thought about getting married, at least looking forward, when I was 14 or 15 and then again at 21, 22, while I was studying theology. These were not difficult times, but times of discernment. I saw that to abandon myself to the Lord was not to give up, but to choose a way of living the fatherhood that he was asking of me: being a father to so many young people.

Source: Salesians of Peru