By Fr. Guillermo Basañes, SDB
General Councillor for the Missions

The Sector for the Missions restarts after one year of break already the XX. Missionary Course, started in 1995 by Fr. Luciano Odorico. During past 20 years about 350 Salesians (45% of the total) with the FMA, other religious and diocesan missionary priests.

This 3 month course is not "for missionaries" but for those who animate the missionary apostolate. This implies that the missionary spirit is not something given only to some special confreres but it is an aspect that involves the whole province. The renewal and the vocational fruitfulness of the province depend on it.

In this course, we will pay particular attention to new contexts of the mission: the world of youth, migration, new religious movements and human emergencies.

• Date: The period of 13 weeks from 18 September to 15 December 2016.


• Venue: Salesian Pontifical University UPS + 1 week in Turin and 1 week in Jerusalem


• Intended Participants
1. Salesians who have or will have responsibility for missionary animation
2. Salesians with experience of mission ad gentes, with a desire for ongoing formation


• Aims:
1. To promote understanding of one’s mission experience.
2. To offer insights - updates related to the mission of the Catholic Church
3. To encourage the sharing of experiences.
4. To strengthen communication on missionary apostolate
5. To acquire new elements to revitalize the missionary animation of the Province

The course is not for: Travel, sightseeing, fundraising or visiting friends. Participants are asked to make an intellectual and spiritual commitment to derive the greatest possible benefit, so that they can return to their province able to revitalize the missionary apostolate with better knowledge.

The course will be held in Italian. This requires a sufficient knowledge of the language. Candidates can plan to do an Italian language course in the UPS

Themes and topics – 3 main areas

1. Understanding human reality today.


2. A fresh listening to the Christian message (theological and pastoral reading).


3. Missionary Pastoral Activity of the Church in the concrete aspects of inculturation, the renewed Christian proclamation, spiritual accompaniment, effective preaching, migration, new religious movements, the challenges of the world of youth, human emergencies, social commitment and the use of resources for quality communication.

Contact for registration and organization: Fr Martín LASARTE, SDB mlasarte@sdb.org

From the EAO region in past 20 years only 25 confreres took part in this excellent ongoing missionary formation course:

CIN (2), FIN (4), FIS (2), GIA (6), ITM (1), KOR (2), MYM (6), THA (1) and VIE (1).

Related materials and other details about cost and conditions of this course are available on the BOSCOLINK

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