LIVING AND WORKING TOGETHER: DISCUSSION ON COMMISSION #5 CLOSES
It is interesting to follow the discussions (centring on just a few major points) as commission #5 goes into 'final draft' mode.
In what sense is the Salesian community the 'animating nucleus' and how might this term be understood wherever the Chapter document is received? For example, in a context where fundamentalist Hindus were on staff (no prizes for guessing where....except that where this correspondent lives we have them too!) the possibility of being involved in something like that (if the term were to be widened in any sense to include them) could be an invitation to self-serving purposes. So is the community the 'animating nucleus' of the EPC or 'part of' the animating nucleus? In a response ultimately endorsed by the RM, the answer is that the SDB community is it....but it can include others. Fr. Chavez went on to point out the paradigm shift we are involved in globally - a fragmented world to which our response is the EPC (Educative, pastoral community). There were other comments relating to other aspects of the proposed document, including some on the quantitative aspect of community (cf. art. 20 and 150 of the Regs, for example).
Discussion on #5 is now closed and the final document, along with those of other commissions, will be presneted next week one assumes.
