After the appointments with Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, Apostolic Prefect of Ulan Bator,  Mongolia, on "The Pope's prophetic journey to Mongolia", on 25 September; and with Sergio Durando, Head of the diocese's Pastoral work for migrants, on the theme "Migrants, what should we do?", on the evening of 6 November; on the first Monday of December, it was the Rector Major's turn to weave an active and fruitful dialogue with the Church and the city of Turin, addressing in this case, as already mentioned, the theme of education.

The Rector Major spoke in front of a large audience of interested people: a large group of Salesians, a dozen priests from the Turin diocesan clergy, accompanied by the Auxiliary Bishop of Turin, Mons. Alessandro Giraudo, and the Rector of the Basilica, Mons. Giacomo Maria Martinacci; and above all, many lay men and women engaged with young people in educational service.

The starting point for the evening was some delicate educational situations that the Rector Major illustrated with reference to the Italian youth situation. The Cardinal listed statistics and official reports that showed an undeniable educational emergency, ranging from the unaccompanied use of digital tools by minors from a very early age, to the ascertainment of the inability of schools and the education system in general to perform their role as a 'social lift'.

Precisely on the basis of these challenges and problematic issues, the Tenth Successor of Don Bosco indicated six lines of work for the future, drawn up in dialogue with Prof. Fr. Michal Vojtáš, Vice-Rector of the Salesian Pontifical University (UPS), which concern the main current educational challenges:

–     education of young people in the relationship between the digital and the real;

–     commitment to bridging the generation gap between young people and adults;

–     critical thinking and the ability to independently formulate coherent thoughts, using reasoned and personal use of words;

–     affective and sexual education, in the face of the liquidity of roles and models;

–     the loneliness that marks so many young people, growing up in numerically small families and sometimes with only one or no reference adult figure;

–     Finally, given this set of challenges, the training of educators becomes crucial.

This rich formative moment, however, was only the prologue to the subsequent and central phase of the evening, which developed entirely in the form of a frank and open dialogue between the large assembly that crowded the Basilica of the Consolata for the occasion and the illustrious guest.

Thus, for about an hour and a quarter, Card. Fernández Artime responded with sincerity and frankness to a dozen questions concerning the peculiarities of education today, offering answers that were the fruit of his personal Salesian experience, of his global vision matured through some 10 years as Rector, as well as of the evergreen wealth of educational wisdom contained in Don Bosco's Preventive System.

Ultimately, in the words of the Rector Major himself, it was indeed a fruitful and productive moment of discussion between people interested in working for the good of young people through the service of education.

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