(ANS – Rome) – Once again this year, the Salesian Youth Movement (SYM) and the Salesian Family in Italy have jointly drawn up the Pastoral Proposal, confirming a shared journey that brings to a close a three-year program inspired by the three theological virtues. The central theme of the new 2026–2027 pastoral year will therefore be: “Signs of His Love: Active in Charity.”

The 2024–2025 pastoral proposal, entitled “Awaited by His Love,” accompanied the preparation for and celebration of the Holy Year, inviting people to live the Jubilee experience as true pilgrims of hope.

The 2025–2026 program, “Arise and Go,” on the other hand, placed faith at its center, understood as a living relationship with the Lord that translates into missionary zeal and the proclamation of the Gospel.

Both programs offered clear and converging guidelines: to recognize in Jesus the source of life and hope; to renew our closeness to the little ones, the poor, and the abandoned; to grow in the art of accompaniment; and to develop our apostolic co-responsibility ever further.

The new Pastoral Proposal is fully in line with this journey and represents its natural fulfillment, inviting the whole Salesian Family to be active in charity. Love, in fact, is at the heart of Christian life: it encapsulates every virtue and calls for it to be expressed in concrete gestures of service, self-giving, and closeness to others. It is from this perspective that we also understand the distinctive nature of the Salesian charism, called within the Church and in the world to be, according to Don Bosco’s insight, “a sign and bearer of God’s love for young people,” especially the poorest and most needy.

The entire proposal is underpinned by three major sources of inspiration.

The first is the encyclical Deus Caritas Est by Benedict XVI, which provides the theological foundation for reflection on charity. At a time when the term “love” often risks being misunderstood or stripped of its authentic meaning, the document helps us to rediscover its Christian meaning and to interpret it with critical intelligence and educational wisdom.

The second reference concerns the educational dimension of charity. The year 2027 will mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Preventive System in the Education of Youth” (1877), a fundamental text of the Salesian pedagogical heritage. The pastoral proposal thus highlights the urgency of living out charity first and foremost through quality education, in the conviction that educational action itself represents the privileged form of Salesian love.

The third point of reference is the First Letter of St. John, which will guide the year’s orientations by offering an interpretative framework capable of uniting love for God and love for one’s neighbor, faith and life, contemplation and action. It is here that one of the New Testament’s most profound statements resounds: “God is love.”

It is from this certainty that the entire journey of the pastoral proposal begins, calling upon every educational community to bear witness to a concrete, credible, and life-giving charity.

The Pastoral Proposal comprises a total of four interconnected elements. With these and other resources and ideas, Salesian Italy is preparing for a new year to be lived and shared together, as true sons and daughters of Don Bosco and, following in his footsteps, in authentic discipleship of Jesus.

• Workbook: This is not intended as a practical, ready-to-use resource, but as a source of ecclesial, biblical, and charismatic inspiration on the chosen themes.
• QR code materials: There will be a section serving as a sort of archive of material that will gradually be made available as a useful tool for the planning and development of provincial, regional, and local programs. These will mainly consist of links to in-depth pages on the website of the journal Note di Pastorale Giovanile:
  • Key texts from magisterial or Salesian documents;
  • Thematic bibliography for further study.
• NPG Special Issue: This is intended, on the one hand, as an in-depth exploration of certain themes from the pastoral year and, on the other, as a proposal for putting the working method into practice at the local level, structured around the three stages already tried and tested: recognizing, interpreting, and choosing. Thus, while the Workbook provides inspiration, the special issue of NPG will offer a methodology.
• Formation resource for SDB/FMA communities: A tool that takes up the pastoral proposal for the spiritual journey of Salesian communities and certain groups within the Salesian Family.

For further information, visit the dedicated page on the MGS Italia website.