Salesian Forum - Forum Salesiano

Italiano

Setting the Scene

The contemporary European context presents a profound challenge to educational and pastoral communities. Young people grow up in a landscape marked by rapid technological change such as AI-generated content and deepfake technologies. Information overload leads to decision paralysis, increasing polarisation fuelled by organised misinformation campaigns, and a decline in trust in institutions including schools, churches, government, and media. Digital platforms fragment attention, manipulate emotions, and shape opinions long before young people develop the capacity to evaluate what they encounter. In this environment, adolescents and young adults desire freedom and authenticity, yet often lack the tools needed to think critically, make informed choices, and discern truth from illusion. The urgency of forming reflective, responsible thinkers has rarely been greater. Here, the Salesian tradition has a decisive contribution to offer.

Critical thinking is not simply a technique for logical argumentation or a skill for academic performance. It is a purposeful, reasoned, and goal-oriented way of thinking that enables individuals to make decisions, solve problems, and form judgments grounded in evidence and clarity. It is a way of inhabiting reality with depth, responsibility, and interior freedom.

As a habit of mind, it allows young people to confront complexity without fear, to question without cynicism, to argue without aggression, and to commit to the good with conviction.

Don Bosco read the social reality of vulnerable youth with clarity, challenged the social and political attitudes as well as the dominant, repressive educational methods of his time, and chose a preventive, humane, and future-oriented approach. He spoke of “reason” as one of the foundational pillars of his pedagogy - understood not as cold rationalism, but as a form of reasonableness that educates to dialogue, persuasion and trust.

Young people today risk being formed more by algorithms than by educators, more by impulse than by reflection, more by reaction than by discernment. The Salesian educator cannot be satisfied with merely transmitting information or enforcing rules. They must become a companion capable of awakening thought, encouraging questions, cultivating interiority, and offering criteria for judgment.

This Salesian Forum therefore proposes to explore how the Salesian educational tradition can cultivate genuine critical reflection in schools, oratories, youth centres, vocational training settings, and formation communities.

By gathering SDB, FMA, and lay educators from across Europe, the Forum aims to make a concrete contribution to the Salesian educational-pastoral project for the years ahead. Critical thinking is essential not only for the formation of young people but also for the credibility and vitality of the Salesian mission today.

The programme

This year’s Salesian Forum will take place from  the 25th to 28th August 2026 at the UPS in Rome. By means of study and mutual exchange, we aim to explore more deeply the formation of young people to think critically and its relationship with the Salesian Preventive System.

The program begins by clarifying what we mean by critical thinking and by revisiting Don Bosco’s preventive vision. It then moves through key themes such as core cognitive skills, digital culture, and misinformation. The journey concludes with practical experiences and contextual readings, enriched by historical insights. At the same time, we will consider ecclesial perspectives and how our own institutions must grow in this area: critical thinking must be lived, not merely explained.

To present the different dimensions of the theme, we will invite speakers from various study centres who will deal with the topic from their respective points of view, related to their field of work.

In addition to these inputs there will be a range of opportunities to share different perspectives in order to assimilate the theme more fully. English and Italian languages will both be used.