The Miracle of Salvation Happens in the Family

“The miracle of the salvation of young people does not happen without Jesus but—in general—it does not happen without a family either; it does not happen without a father, a mother, brothers, and sisters. May this Congress help us to make our youth ministry increasingly family-inclusive.”

These are the words pronounced by Father Alexandre Awi Mello, our Dicastery’s Secretary, in his greeting to the participants of the Salesian’s International Congress (https://www.symfamily17.org/) on youth ministry and family, which ended yesterday in Madrid.

“Putting the young person at the center—he added in the homily he gave at Mass on one of these days—means placing the family in the center. It is impossible to separate these two ‘centralities,’ because the family is the source, the path, and the goal of the young.”

The speakers at the Congress included Msgr. Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto; Fr. Fabio Attard, General Councilor for Youth Ministry of the Salesians of Don Bosco; Carmen Peña García, professor of the Faculty of Canon Law of the University Pontifical of Comillas; and Fr. Rossano Sala, lecturer at the Institute of Pastoral Theology of the Faculty of Theology – Pontifical Salesian University.