Genoa, Italy - November 2023 - On 10th and 11th November, the National Team of Missionary Animation met at the Salesian work in Sampierdarena, Genoa. It involved a group of Salesians, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and young people belonging to the various Missionary Animation groups in Italy. They are committed to continuing the community reflection started last year in Valdocco in view of the 150th anniversary since the first expeditions. During the first day, the group visited the premises of the future Museum of Salesian Missionary Expeditions, which will be built inside the Sampierdarena facility, and the Museum of Emigrations: a true experience of so many stories of men and women who found themselves, for various reasons, leaving their homes. It was nice to also find among them some figures from the Salesian Family: Artemides Zatti (SDB), Fr Raffaele Piperni (SDB) and Sister Maddalena Inzaghi (FMA). Then the team members visited the Church of San Sisto, where Don Bosco celebrated his first Mass in Genoa in 1857, for a moment of reflection and prayer. After a visit to the ancient port, from where the first missionaries set sail, in the evening they attended a goodnight by Fr Stefano Aspettati, Superior of the Salesian Circumscription of Central Italy (ICC) and Sister Elide Degiovanni, FMA, ILS Provincial.

(ANS – Rome) – The book “Francesco Scaloni (1861-1926): Son rôle fondateur en plusieurs pays et sa pensée pédagogique et sociale” by Fr Marcel Verhulst, SDB was presented on Wednesday 8 November 2023 at the Pontifical Salesian University (UPS). The volume, part of the ISS - Studi series, 33, published by the Libreria Ateneo Salesiano in 2023, is the result of in-depth research conducted in  Salesian archives in Europe and Africa, as well as in ecclesiastical and civil archives.

(ANS – Rome) – In continuity with the meetings of previous years, the Conference of Salesian Provinces of Italy (CISI) - Formation Sector and the Study Centre of the "Living Tabernacles" Work propose the fourth edition of the in-depth meetings of the series “What kind of Salesians for the youth of today?”, based on the Rector Major’s action guidelines following  General Chapter 28.

Italy - November 2023 - On Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 November, the first meeting of the Leaders Formation School 2023-24 was held at the Salesian houses in Bologna BVSL and Sesto San Giovanni OSDB (MI). The Scuola Formazione Animatori (SFA) is a proposal of the Salesian Youth Movement Lombardy-Emilia which, for several years, has involved hundreds of teenagers, offering them a path of formation in Christian life, in the typically Salesian style of the youth apostolate. This year the course will involve 700 teenagers together with more than 240 young people and adults engaged as accompanying persons and formators divided between the two locations. Fr Edoardo Gnocchini, Delegate for Youth Ministry in the Salesian Province of Italy-Lombardy-Emilia (ILE), says how the SFA is still today an appointment that manages to bring together boys, girls and formators from different places who gather together "to make a family in the style of Don Bosco and to give each other the enthusiasm of learning to be leaders, and the experience and joy that filled their hearts in giving themselves to the little ones." Each formation weekend culminates in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration. During the latter, the ILE Provincial, Fr Roberto Dal Molin, emphasised how "the oil in the lamp of our life is the love that the Lord gives; if you live it you are ready to meet the 'bridegroom'". He also stressed how being leaders means 'learning to love as Christians'.

Rome, Italy - 13th November 2023 - To celebrate the liturgical memory of St. Artemide Zatti, and just over a year after his canonization, the Salesian Headquarters, the Salesian Pontifical University (UPS) and the Salesian Circumscription of Central Italy (ICC) organized an afternoon of festivities in his honour at the Sacred Heart basilica in Rome - a place that Br. Zatti himself visited when he returned to Italy in 1934 for the canonization of Don Bosco. The event was attended by the Director of the Salesian Headquarters, Fr Francesco Marcoccio;dd the Superior of the UPS Vice province, Fr Aníbal Mendonça; the entire community of the Salesian Theological Studentate "Blessed Zeffirino Namuncurà" of the UPS, led by its Director, Fr Silvio Roggia, and many Salesians from the houses in Rome. The event opened with a Rosary animated by the Salesian coadjutors and continued with the Mass presided over by Fr Marcoccio, who, in his homily, recalled Zatti's biography, his youthful illness and his Salesian lay vocation, as well as his spirit of service and serene acceptance of God's will until the end of his life. After the sharing of seven different testimonies on various aspects of Zatti's holiness - through which his being a 'Good Samaritan' to all was recalled - the afternoon celebration concluded with a moment of fraternal agape.

Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Italy - November 2023 - Hundreds of young people from the Middle Schools gathered to take part in the "Savio Club" on 4 and 5 November at Colle Don Bosco. During the two days the youngsters tried to discover, with the guidance of their leaders, the secret of Dominic Savio's holiness through a mixture of ingredients that Don Bosco himself always advocated: play, meeting, formation, fun, the Eucharist and confession.