Bethlehem, Palestine - May 2016 - On 7 May, 91 students from the Salesian Technical School in Bethlehem received their diplomas in the presence of friends, parents and relatives, and members of VIS (International Voluntary Service for Development). The ceremony was chaired by the Rector of the school, Fr Daniel Basali, SDB, who had accompanied the students throughout their time in the school right up to graduation, sharing with them the burden and pain of living in Palestine at a time of war, intifada, death and arrests. Founded 123 years ago by Fr Antonio Belloni, SDB, and officially recognized 50 years ago by the Palestinian Authority, the Salesian Technical School in Bethlehem celebrates the graduation of its students every year.

(ANS - Barcelona) - "I feel very close to Spain even now when the whole world is my horizon," said the Rector Major, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, speaking to the director of the Spanish Salesian Bulletin, Fr Leonardo Sánchez. The Rector Major noted that the Salesian Congregation in Spain is going through a period of great vitality and intense work with the youth, and he called on the Salesians to be, in sporting terms, “vocationally fit" so as to bring all to Jesus, which is the reason of their being.

(ANS – Rome) – Although in his lifetime Don Bosco accepted 7 parishes, he was always considered the parish priest of poor and abandoned boys who were parishless. In fact, the Oratory in Valdocco was “a parish which evangelises”. It is no surprise that in not too distant past the parish apostolate was not seen as a typical Salesian apostolate. It was the 19th General Chapter which acknowledged the parish as the place for “an exemplary care for the youth community” (GC19, IX, 3).