Rome (Italy). The 28th General Chapter of the Salesian Congregation renewed the mandate of the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco and Father of the Salesian Family of Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime for the six-year term 2020-2026.
Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, 59 years old, was born on August 21, 1960 in Gozón-Luanco, in Asturias, Spain. He made his First Religious Profession on September 3, 1978, his perpetual vows on June 17, 1984 in Santiago de Compostela, and he was ordained a priest on July 4, 1987 in León (Spain).
Originally from the Province of Spain-León, he holds a degree in Pastoral Theology and a license in Philosophy and Pedagogy.
He was Delegate for Youth Ministry, Director of the Ourense school, member of the Provincial Council and Provincial Vicar and, from 2000 to 2006, Provincial. He was a member of the technical commission that prepared General Chapter 26.
In 2009, he was appointed Provincial of South Argentina, and thanks to this position, he also got to know and collaborate personally with the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Card. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis.
In December 2013, he was appointed Provincial of Mary Help of Christians, Mediterranean Spain Province – a position he did not carry out because before being installed as Provincial, he was elected by General Chapter 27 as Rector Major of the Salesian Congregation. It was March 25, 2014.
Video-Message of the Rector Major: “Young people need us, our presence, those who know how to communicate the love of God. Here is the commitment for this new six year term: To bring God to young people and especially to the poorest ones. We were born for them.”
Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime is the 10th Successor of Don Bosco. He is ‘Don Bosco alive’ today. He animates and promotes, in continuity with its predecessors, the sense of unity of the different groups of the Family, to develop that Great spiritual and pedagogical Movement dreamed of by Don Bosco. Attentive and open to the news and calls of the Holy Spirit in the Church, he makes himself close to the young, available to the poorest and those who do not know the love of God and the joy of the Gospel.
The Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, with joy and great esteem, welcomes Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, as Don Bosco would have done and, while entrusting him to Mary Help of Christians, assures him of the affection and the sincerest collaboration in the Educommunication and evangelizing mission of service to young people, especially the poorest.
Best wishes Fr. Ángel from all the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and FMA educating communities in the world!
