Misiones Salesianas, Noticias Salesianas Mundiales

Goodnight Talk from Fr. Hugo Orozco Sánchez: “Ecuador, a Missionary Province Among Indigenous Peoples”

(ANS – Rome – November 13, 2026) – On the evening of November 12, 2026, during the session of the General Council that began on October 26, Fr. Hugo Orozco Sánchez, General Councilor for the Inter-American Region, bid farewell to the Sacred Heart Community of the Salesian General House. He shared his impressions of the Extraordinary Visitation to the Ecuadorian Province, which will continue after the Council’s sessions.

A Missionary Province

The Councilor explained that the province has had a missionary identity since its inception. It has 117 confreres in 22 communities, engaged in diverse and meaningful works. The laity are actively involved in the administration and management of the works and in responding to young people and families experiencing poverty and exclusion.

A Charismatic Commitment to Indigenous Peoples

Five years after the Salesians arrived in Ecuador, Pope Leo XIII established a Vicariate in the territories of Méndez and Gualaquiza for the benefit of the indigenous populations. Since then, the Congregation has developed a charismatic commitment, especially to vulnerable indigenous children and youth. Some principles remain valid:

  • Presence among populations, in their territories and villages, is a criterion for discerning the establishment of communities, regardless of physical, geographical, or climatic difficulties.
  • The Salesians are present in the East, in the Andean region, and on the coast, where the Afro-Ecuadorian populations live.
  • The educational offering accompanies evangelization through schools, distance learning, university residences, and anthropological and social studies, with a view toward inculturation that values language, culture, and worldview.
  • Social development and human dignity are linked to missionary action, with programs to improve the living conditions of families.

In recent years, the Province has renewed its Missionary Animation Plan, redesigned its presence, renewed the leadership of its directors, and continued to innovate its pastoral responses.

Three Witnesses of Holiness

The Salesian charism has generated expressions of holiness in Ecuador. The confreres hold up as models St. Maria Troncatti (FMA), Fr. Luis Bolla, and Fr. Carlos Crespi: missionaries with a sense of fatherhood and motherhood, a profound spiritual life, and concrete charity. Recognizing their holiness, he said, means confirming that the missionary heart requires a mystical sensitivity, open to Providence and not to a personal agenda.

The Anecdote of Nationality

During a visit to a social center for street children on the coast, which coincided with a Mexican national holiday, the guests had prepared Mexican flags. At the end of the welcome, a 12- to 14-year-old boy, learning that the Councilor was Mexican, told him he didn’t like Mexicans. He claimed it was their fault that Ecuador hadn’t advanced to the World Cup.

Fr. Orozco, who is Mexican himself, smiled and, “for reasons of pastoral prudence,” changed his nationality. He asked the Salesians to simply introduce him as coming from Italy because he was visiting on behalf of Don Bosco, explaining that this broadens the possibilities for empathy.