Collaboration with the school is the commitment that the Salesian community in Lithuania has assumed so that the presence of the parish, which includes more than 35,000 faithful, lives within the everyday context of the local schools - also in light of the fact that in the Baltic country, teaching religion is entrusted solely to lay people.
"Don Bosco has a lot to give to young Lithuanians as well as to Italians in guidance,” says Mr. Manzo . “For example: cordiality and questions about why you walk like pilgrims on the streets of life, why you sometimes fall, how to get up and find the way to benefit yourself and others ... "
Challenges are many, and the Salesian's task is also to help counteract common issues such as alcohol abuse, smoking and gambling. Even spirituality is still very much marked by the recent past and, therefore, the Salesian underscores, it has "the characteristics of one who suffers forcing one to stop, to wonder, to question, to take up one's life again - walking calmly."
Younger generations are a question mark on Lithuania's future: thirsting for culture, they speak English and live Europe openly as a form of defense from the Russian presence, and showing the great desire for human relations that characterizes them. "Relationships are more detached and cold compared to those that one establishes in Italy, but when the paper wall breaks and the person opens up, you see a beautiful and sunny heart, into which one can quietly enter."
Source: ICP Circumscription
