North American Salesian Network (NASN) was formed at the 2013 meeting of the “Salesian Initiatives”. USA Vice Province has participated in the meetings of the Salesian Initiatives in 2012 and 2013 and became a member of this organization when it was formed in 2013. Fr. Tomy Joseph Puliyanampattayil represented USA Vice Province at the 2016 meeting of NASA, held at the Don Bosco Retreat Center at Stony Point, New York. The following is an unedited report of the meeting sent by Fr. Tomy.
The fifth meeting of North American Salesian Network was held on April 4-6, 2016 at Don Bosco Retreat Center Stoney Point, NY. There were 19 participants representing different religious entities from the United States. The session was coordinated by Fr. Don Heet OSFS. The meeting was very productive with a lot of life and vitality bringing together different ideas and thoughts to work together as a Salesian Family in the United States to bring out the Salesian thoughts in the daily lives of the average Catholics in the United States.
The following are some of the high lights of the meeting: promoting NASN website which is Salesianspirituality.com; working towards publishing an apostolic letter by Holy Father in 2022 commemorating the 400th death anniversary St. Francis de Sales, which is also the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the North American Salesian Network; constituting a four member planning committee for the future direction of NASN; starting Google Drop Box for easy communication; writing blogs on a weekly basis by different religious entities; studying the possibilities of NASN attending different regional conferences in different parts of the United States; exploring the possibilities of vocation promotion in different universities such as De Sales University, etc.
Members of the planning committee: Don Heet, OSFS (Coordinator); Fr. John Graden, OSFS;Fr. Tomy Joseph, MSFS; and Kathy Tierney belonging to De Sales Secular Institute.