Processes Required for Change

In order to face up to the requirements of the call and the challenges which arise from the situation, and in order to carry out the following guidelines, we need to change our mentality and modify our structures, moving from:

• a superficial knowledge of Don Bosco to a serious and committed study
• a ministry focused on activities to be carried out to a ministry more attentive to encountering the young where they are to be found;
• a routine practice in our spiritual life and pastoral work to living the “da mihi animas cetera tolle” as daily prayer and passion.

• a mentality that favours roles of direct management to one that favours an evangelising presence among the young;
• an evangelisation made up of events lacking continuity to a systematic and integrated evangelisation programme; 
• an individualist mentality to a communal style which involves the young, families and lay people in proclaiming Jesus Christ; 
• an attitude of pastoral self-sufficiency to one of sharing in planning by local Churches;
• considering the effectiveness of our presence in terms of the esteem of others, to understanding it in terms of fidelity to the Gospel;
• a mentality of cultural superiority to one of positive acceptance of cultures different from our own;
• considering the Salesian Family only as a chance to meet, get to know, and exchange experiences, to a commitment to making it a true apostolic movement on behalf of the young;
• a model of evangelisation aimed only at transformation of the person to an evangelisation which also looks to transforming social and political structures.

• thinking that we are the ones who take the lead in vocation ministry to humbly recognising that we are but mediators of God's action in this regard;
• a vague and occasional vocational invitation to one of focused and attentive planning that creates a vocational culture; 
• a vocation ministry which we conduct alone, to projects shared with groups in the Salesian Family and with the local Church;
• setting up vocation ministry as a response to the problem of a lack of vocations to one where we rediscover the joy of helping young people find out God's plan for them;
• a mentality where we delegate vocation ministry to a few people, to one where we involve every confrère, community and the laity;
• a vocation ministry which is separate from youth ministry to one understood and experienced as the very crowning of youth ministry.

• a half-hearted apostolic commitment, to the unconditional gift of ourselves for the needs of the mission; 
• a theoretical esteem and formal observance of poverty, to effective practice and true inner freedom in the spirit of the Beatitudes; 
• a vague understanding detached from the circumstances of poverty, to one of concrete solidarity with the poor and a greater commitment to social justice;
• a local mindset which is closed in on itself, to a provincial and global spirit of solidarity;
• inadequate skills, to a more professional approach in administration;
• management of resources from a proprietary mindset, to an awareness that we are stewards of the goods entrusted to us. 

• occasional attention to poor young people, to lasting and focused projects in their service; 
• a welfare mentality, to involving poor young people in being active agents of their own development and active in the social and political field;
• intervention directed to the victims of injustice, to networking to combat the causes of injustice;
• a youth ministry insufficiently attentive to family contexts, to one of greater investment of energies on behalf of the family;
• a timid attitude and sporadic presence in media, to one of responsible use and a more incisive educative and evangelising animation;
• a situation of progressive weakening of our works in some countries in Europe, to a re-launching of the charism;
• a tendency to focus on management of works already consolidated, to one of courageous and creative flexibility;
• educative activity which is too self-sufficient, to networking with whoever has the needs of the young at heart.