Vatican – Fr Sala and Sr Smerilli among Consultors of General Secretariat of Synod of Bishops

28 May 2019
Photos: © Servizio Fotografico Vatican Media

(ANS - Vatican City) - On 24 May last, feast of Mary Help of Christians, Pope Francis gave a new signal of the consideration he nurtures for the Salesian Family by appointing among the Consultors of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops both Fr Rossano Sala, SDB, Professor of Youth Ministry at the Salesian Pontifical University, who also served as Special Secretary to the Synod of Bishops on Young People; and Sr. Alessandra Smerilli, of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Professor of Economics at the Pontifical Faculty of Education "Auxilium", recently also appointed as Councilor of the Vatican City State.

For Fr Sala - appointed Consultor together with the other Special Secretary at the Synod on Youth, Jesuit Fr Giacomo Costa - the appointment represents an indication that Holy Father Francis and the General Secretariat of the Synod have considered the last synod a useful experience for the future journey of the Church, which has expressed approaches and methods to be maintained and developed even in the Synods of Bishops to come.  

In this sense, the appointment, for the first time, of four women among the Consultors of the General Secretariat of the Synod - three nuns and a lay person should also be viewed. "The greater presence of women in the permanent bodies of the Synod of Bishops is also linked to the experience of the Synod on Youth, which both in its work and in the final Document, required an enhancement of the female role within the Church," said the Salesian. This choice, therefore, "is a sign of the Holy Father's desire to make use of the feminine genius not only in the implementation or celebratory phase of a synod, but already in the process of preparation, in order to carry out a richer and wider discernment".

At the operational level, Fr Sala made it clear that the appointment means "to be available to the Synod Secretariat" to offer one's own consulting contribution. A contribution which, in its specific situation as a Salesian and as an expert in Youth Ministry, will mean first and foremost "helping to bring youth dynamisms into the ordinary paths of the Church, because, as Pope Francis said many times in the post-synod apostolic exhortation Christus Vivit, the presence of young people can really rejuvenate the face of the Church."

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