17. MESSAGE OF THE GC24 TO THE PAST-PUPILS, MEN AND WOMEN, OF DON BOSCO

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Dear Past-pupils of Don Bosco,

1. We send to all of you our most cordial greetings and our thanks for the contributions which many of your Federations, and in particular the World Confederation, sent to us in preparation for our General Chapter. We also listened attentively to the message which your representatives offered us at the beginning of the Chapter and in the course of the week which saw Salesians and laity working together. Your contribution has highlighted the vitality of the Past-pupils movement within world cultures; the organizing ability of the Federations, the good they do in daily life and the projects to which they intend to commit themselves in the future. Difficulties are not lacking, but we are sure of the good will of the Salesians and the Past-pupils in overcoming them.

2. We appreciated the tranquil approach, the objective nature and the frankness of the analysis made by the Confederation of the Past-pupils of Don Bosco. It helped us to understand more deeply our own share in the responsibility for relations with committed Past-pupils: assiduous attention to the rapport between the past-pupils and the local Salesian community, the help asked of Salesians in the formation of leaders and directive personnel, especially of the young; greater stability for the Salesian delegates; greater and more significant space for the past-pupils in the CEP (the educative and pastoral community) in Salesian works, the particular animation of young past-pupils (GEX), the authentic hope for continuity and deep renewal.

3. We thank the Lord for your presence in the Salesian Family, and with you we want to renew our fidelity to Don Bosco. Full of trust in Providence and under the guidance of Mary Help of Christians, he gathered lay people around him - adults and younger persons, men and women, and lots of people of good will - in the task of saving poor and abandoned youngsters. We are convinced that, in fidelity to your religious and confessional identity and in dialogue and tolerance with those who profess other faiths and religions, you can make your valid contribution to the educative work of the SDBs, your own educators.

We reconfirm and wish to share with you our commitment to:

1. ensure an integral education for young people in our works: this, in fact, is the principal and fundamental criterion for the future of the Don Bosco Past-pupils Association, which takes up the values of the preventive system as a humanistic point of reference in the midst of other secular commitments in social life (culture, politics, employment, economy, and the life of faith itself);
2. foster the animation and formation of other past-pupils, striving to share responsibility and work for the ongoing formation of leaders;
3. create and develop together opportunities for the presence and witness of past-pupils in our works through the programming and activities of the CEP, and in society through the defence of life values, of the family, of the woman, of human rights, of social justice, of peace and solidarity, and the service of those most in need.
   

4. We ask you to work for the development of your own life as an association. At the same time we suggest that you accept involvement and shared responsibility, according to your possibilities, in the work which from now on the Salesians want to offer to the Salesian mission, working with the laity. At local and provincial level your Association should promote convocation and collaboration, expanding the Salesian charism in this way into a vast movement, and creating a network of friendship and empathy with so many 'friends' of the Salesian work and of Don Bosco.

Our Father and Teacher continues to call you and invite you to live with us in the communion and sharing of his spirit and his mission, and thanks you for the good that has already been done.

May Mary most holy continue to be your Helper, that you may be always and everywhere diffusers of joy, optimism and kindness.

The Members of the GC24