Letter to our Brethren
Young People Evangelize Us
Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Piarist Schools, Who is evangelizing whom today? Are we accompanying young people, or are they, perhaps unknowingly, showing us the way? Pope Francis offers us a key to understanding this in Christus Vivit: the Church not only has...
What If We Went into the Desert?
What if we went into the desert? Dear brothers and sisters in the Pious Schools, we do not need to go far: it is enough to dare, for a moment, to leave behind the noise that surrounds us, including the noise within ourselves, to enter that space where what is...
The Pious Schools Are Alive (I)
Dear brothers and sisters of the Pious Schools, Does it not happen to you that when you experience something extraordinarily valuable, you spontaneously feel the desire to share it, to let others partake in it, to say with a mixture of emotion and gratitude: If only...
The peace entrusted to us
Dear Piarist brothers and sisters, A word as longed for as it is fragile: Peace. It is one of the most frequently spoken words, yet one of the most wounded of our time. We invoke it at Christmas, we long for it in speeches, and those who suffer cry out for it… yet,...
Your Root
Salutatio 05 - December 2025 Dear Piarist brothers and sisters, We begin this Advent still filled with the joy from the recent celebration of the patronage of Saint Joseph Calasanz in our works and communities. It has been a radiant week, shared with our students and...
The Truth that Cares
On the Safeguarding of Minors and Vulnerable Persons in the Pious Schools Dear brothers and sisters in the Pious Schools, A step forward in Madrid. A few weeks ago, representatives from all the Demarcations of the Order, along with many Provincials, met in Madrid to...
Tibi derelictus est pauper
Dear Piarist brothers and sisters, Allow me to begin this letter with a personal memory. In 2006, I lived in a suburb of Dakar, Sam Sam, where we have a community and very Piarist works. I arrived during the rainy season, and to enter the house I had to cross a small...
Hope sustains us
Dear brothers and sisters, Allow me to begin this Salutatio by sharing a memory that still resonates strongly in the heart. We have recently lived the Jubilee of Young People in Rome, and I believe many of us still feel the emotion of those days: the Eternal City...
Inspired
Dear brothers, With deep respect and a grateful heart, I address you for the first time as General Father of our beloved Order. I do so from Bamè, in Benin (close to the presence of the Province of the Piarist Fathers of West Africa), where we are living the third...
Our Holy Father
Dear Brothers, This is the last Salutatio that I am writing as Father General of the Order, and I have thought of dedicating it, as it could not be otherwise, to Our Holy Father, St. Joseph Calasanz. For sixteen years I have had the undeserved honor – and challenge –...
To expand and to propagate
These are the verbs Calasanz uses when he speaks about the building of the Pious Schools. He refers to them in the conclusion of the Memorandum to Cardinal Tonti[1]. It is clear that in his mentality, the work of building the Pious Schools with the treasure he has...
Prayer
I dedicate this fraternal letter to a simple reflection on prayer, with the desire to invite you to live this essential dimension of our Piarist life with greater intensity: To be people of prayer. I would like to focus especially on the example and teachings of...
