Salesians without youth...

I came across this very interesting news bit titled Beggars banned from churches in Assisi, Italy. It begins thus: "BEGGARS have been banned within 500m of churches in Assisi, Italy. And it's now illegal to feed the pigeons in the town square. You wonder what Francis of Assisi would have thought of that..." It really sounds so jarring! After all that St Francis stood for, we hear of this right in his hometown. I suppose authorities have a valid reason for it; but is it good enough reason to 'ban'? Sometimes I fear this may get replicated in our Salesian houses too. Comments and instructions which sometime term our collaborators as "those people" and youngsters as "nuisance" are quite disparaging. That some places/times we do not make the first move to interact with the young is bad enough; worse is when young people run away from us (either because we always find fault with them or because we are too out of sync with their ideas, opinions and values).