Our Rectors are key figures in the renewal of the Congregation
and of our ministry for young people in the educative and pastoral
community. They are the key to the much desired ongoing formation
that must take place in our religious communities, and by extension
also in our educative and pastoral communities. This Manual is
therefore addressed primarily to them – and to all those who are
involved in their formation, beginning from Provincials and their
Councils.

But this new Manual is also addressed to all Salesians and to all
the members of each Salesian religious community. The Rector
is defined in our Constitutions as a brother among brothers,
and this is how the Church wants it to be, when it calls us to
stress the dynamic of brotherhood while not neglecting the duty
of governance. This is one of the great gifts that Pope Francis is
bringing to the Church: the practice of community discernment
as a way of animating and governing that arises from the deep
conviction that we are brothers, that we are called to communion,
that the Spirit has been given to each and every baptised member of
Christ’s faithful.