The academic session opened with the greetings and welcome of the University Rector, Prof. Massimo Midiri, which was followed by an institutional presentation video of the Sicilian university and the speech of the Director of the Department of Psychological, Pedagogical, Physical Exercise and Education Sciences, Prof. Gioacchino Lavanco.

The latter, in front of the vast audience of civil, academic, religious and Salesian authorities - just to name a few, there were also Msgr. Rosario Vella, Bishop of Moramanga, Madagascar; Fr. Giuseppe Costa, Co-spokesperson of the Salesian Congregation; and Fr. Giovanni d'Andrea, Provincial of the Sicilian Provincial (ISI) - pointed out three reasons for the gratitude of the city and the Sicilian population to the Sons of Don Bosco: their presence over 100 years, the Degree Course for Community Workers implemented for a decade in its Department and inspired by Salesian pedagogy, and the persistence of the Salesians in remaining among the children and with the population in difficult situations and in their daily work.

Subsequently, Prof. Francesca Pedone, Coordinator of the Master's Degree Program in Pedagogical Sciences, presented the motivation for conferring the degree, in which she stated, among other things: "Making his own the conviction of the educator St. John Bosco that that in every young person there is a possibility of human redemption, Father Ángel Fernández Artime has never doubted this certainty and has always worked to ensure that it is translated into educational and communicative choices, especially during the most acute phase of the pandemic season, with the consequent and persistent crisis in education. "Opening," she wrote to the Salesian movement, "must be the watchword. Open spaces, the environments, the windows of life. Open ourselves to the encounter with the other. Let us abandon everything that closes us, recover a sense of our openness, of the openness of the heart. Let us recover the vision of a broader horizon." All this Fr. Á.F. Artime accomplishes with method and constancy and with a splendid agreement between, on the one hand, the love and interest for culture, humanism in its most beautiful expressions, and on the other hand, the dissemination of all this through media tools, such as video, social and whatnot."

This was followed by the Laudatio of Prof. Alessandra La Marca, Professor of Didactics and Special Pedagogy, who recalled some specific features of Salesian pedagogy since Don Bosco's time - such as the commitment to vocational training, the attention to which educators make themselves loved by the pupils, the vision of education exclusively as a service and never as an instrument of power, an integral vision of young people and their potential... - and then she dwelt on the actualization of Salesian pedagogy carried out by Fr. Á. F. Artime, including in the modern areas of digital and integral ecology. Then, speaking of the Rector Major, she said that he "emerges as an exemplary figure for those who have already graduated or are about to graduate in the degree program in Pedagogical Sciences."

After the actual proclamation, Fr. Á.F. Artime also took the floor and offered some examples of the successes of Salesian pedagogy found around the world: among street children in the Philippines, with young victims of violence in Sierra Leone, or among child soldiers in Colombia.

Finally, he delivered his Lectio Magitralis, titled: "Salesian Pedagogy – Between Now and the Future," briefly reviewing 10 traits that characterize it.

The full text of the Lectio Magistralis is available here.

The video of the ceremony remains available on the University of Palermo's YouTube channel.

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