Dear Brother Provincial Ministers and Custodes: we have summoned you here to Fatima because
we would like to join you in considering how to continue living the charism
left to us by Saint Francis and mediated to us through the Capuchin reform,
responsibly and joyfully in the European continent. I am aware that you are
already doing much to renew our lived witness, and doing so in increasingly
difficult conditions, on account of the enduring shortage of vocations, the
ever-advancing age of the brothers, and the fact that you are obliged to close
many houses. We hope this meeting will
enable us to take an overall view of the situation in our continent. No doubt,
your coming together on the occasion of Conference meetings has already led to many fruitful opportunities
to take stock and to consider shared prospects, but this time we want to take
in the whole continent of Europe, and try to identify a number of ways forward,
with the involvement of all.
It is necessary to do this, because when we look at
the European continent from the viewpoint of our presences and of its capacity
to attract and accompany new vocations to our life, we realise that the
situation has become much more difficult in recent times. Precisely in the name of fraternal solidarity
among ourselves, and in the knowledge that the Capuchin reform was born in
Europe some 500 years ago and spread so rapidly in this continent that by the
eighteenth century numbers had risen to over 30,000, I believe it is right for
us to meet together in this Marian shrine, to talk about our concerns,
certainly, but equally about our dreams and about how we can make them a
reality.
I extend a brotherly greeting also to the Presidents
of the various Conferences of the Order, in particular those who have travelled
a long way to be here today. Your presence here is valued, because being
members of one and the same Order it is important that all of us are aware of
what our Order is living through at the present time in one of its regions in
particular, namely the European continent. Also, you will be able to assist us
in proposing solutions aimed at re-launching our life here in Europe. Thank you
for coming, and thank you for your contribution to our meeting.
CENOC and CIC
The life of more than one European province – I refer
in particular to those of CENOC and CIC – has in recent decades been marked by
the painful process of resizing our presences. We have had to close and leave
behind places where we had been present for over four centuries, and the
process shows no sign of ending. The endemic shortage of new vocations –
lasting several decades – has brought with it the progressive ageing of our
ranks. It has become very difficult to find brothers able to act as guardians,
and active manpower in pastoral and other apostolates has become thin on the
ground. The generous efforts made to
ensure that our elderly and sick brothers can receive the care they need and
live out their senior years peacefully has called for a great deal of hard work,
and we know that this will continue to be the case for a long time to
come. For sure, concern for our elderly brothers in
need of care represents a beautiful aspect of the testimony we are called to
give. Furthermore, it is now
practically impossible for us to send new brothers to the missions; in fact the
direction is reversed and we have begun to welcome brothers coming from those
parts of the Order where the number of vocations is constantly growing.
From the point of view of numbers, CENOC in the year
2000 had 1132 brothers, while today there are 855, a drop of 277. 5 provinces
have an average age above 70, while 79.
27% of our brothers in the Netherlands are close to 80
years old. CIC has gone from 539
brothers in 2000 to 359 today, a drop of 180. The province of Spain has an
average age of over 70 years (73.60), with that of Catalonia not far behind
(69.35).
CIMPCAP
Italy deserves special mention, because some
circumscriptions continue to have a fair number of vocations, and face the
future with confidence. Others on the other hand experience the hardship of
increasing age, grappling with the difficult task of resizing. For some, it can
be said that their situation is entirely comparable to that of the two
conferences I have just mentioned. In Italy, forms of collaboration are under
way between various groupings of provinces, both in initial and in ongoing
formation. These are very promising,
because they enable young brothers who embrace our life to make their formation
journey in the company of other young people, and to benefit from a group of
well-trained formation personnel. Also, in the area of ongoing formation, the
brothers enjoy a vast range of possibilities to nourish and enrich their
consecrated life. I am certain that this
co-operation will, in time, also produce new forms of amalgamation among the
provinces of the peninsula.
From the numerical point of view, without counting the
members of the provincial Custodies in Africa, CIMPCAP in the year 2000 had
2607 brothers, and now there are 2027, representing a drop of 580. The majority
of the Italian provinces have an average age of over 60 years, while in 4 of
them it is between 50 and 60.
CECOC
The picture I have tried to paint so far does not
apply to all in the same way. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe are
enjoying a situation that continues to be reassuring and full of promise. In
particular, the two Polish provinces have responded to the needs of a number of
European provinces, and continue to sustain missionary work in Gabon and in
Chad-CRA (Central African Republic). The number of brothers, from the beginning
of the century to today, has remained more or less constant. However, we are no longer seeing a strong rise
in numbers. It will be for you, the brothers of CECOC, to tell us how things
are going in your Conference, and to say something about the joys and the
hardships which, in God’s providence, are part of every human journey.
In 2000, there were 783 brothers in CENCOC, while
today there are 759, a drop of 24. The province with the highest average age is
Slovenia at 56.7, the youngest being Rumania with 34.89.
Destined to disappear?
For a fair number of provinces, should the trend
remain as we have known it for many years - and it seems to me there are no
changes on the horizon – the medium-term prospects are that the Capuchin life
there will simply disappear. I don’t
think this is the moment to throw in the towel and resign ourselves to a slow
but irreversible death. We are invited to consider everything with healthy
realism but nonetheless with a new vision, the vision of faith. The Lord calls
us to live out our consecration at this particular moment in time, spanning the
end of the second and the beginning of the third millennium. This means that we
are called to give witness to our charism today, and thereby to let everyone
share in the gift we have received.
Therefore it is not a question of wanting to reverse the trend, because
that would mean that we want to go back nostalgically to the time when we were
numerous and influential, as we once were. In the last fifty years our
societies, and the lived experiences of our local churches, have changed
radically. We have entered the post-modern,
digital age, leaving behind, once and for all, what is commonly called the "age of Christendom”. Way back in 1969, as
Pope Benedict XVI has said, the Church was already going through a profound
crisis, and destined to become so small that it would no longer be able to
occupy the buildings it had constructed in times of prosperity. In addition, as
the numbers of faithful declined, it also lost many of the social privileges it
once enjoyed[1]. The
closure of so many churches and the search for new uses to which they can be
put is one of the main preoccupations of European bishops. I have witnessed the
dramatic effects of this same phenomenon in Quebec.
Religion without
God
Of course, the phenomenon of secularisation has not
led to the disappearance of religious devotion and the search for spirituality
in large parts of the population. The difference is that people look to other
horizons, not necessarily those proposed by our churches. There is a growing conviction that religion
can perfectly well dispense with God, that religion is in fact something more
profound than God. Such ideas are
typical of the American philosopher Ronald Dworkin in his book Religion without God (2013)[2]. In such a
view, what is paramount is the religious sense itself, and there are no
objective parameters based on centuries of tradition, itself founded upon
revelation. Jesus remains an interesting
personality, in some ways a genius, but he is not the Word par excellence, the cornerstone of everything that has been handed
down. In that case, the good news to be proclaimed is that atheism is the
source of freedom, allowing you finally to see and enjoy all of life’s beauty. We
have moved far beyond the slogan of a few years ago: "Christ yes, the Church, no!". Today the slogan is more a
case of: "Religion yes, God,
no!"
A gift for the
People of God
But once again, what is important above all is what
attitude we intend to adopt as we live through this precise moment. Do we still
believe that the consecrated life, and therefore our own life as Capuchins, is
a gift for the people of God on its pilgrim way? (Pope Francis!). Our task is
to cry aloud to the world that God loves us, that life is beautiful and
deserves to be lived to the full, from beginning to end. Difficulties abound, of course, but these are
part and parcel of the life of every person. If we decide to turn them into
opportunities, then they make us grow. Besides, we cannot be depressed, discouraged
or without hope, because we live on the certainty that comes from a promise: "And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end
of the age." (Mt
28, 20) Rather, we are called to be optimistic people whose joy is infectious,
because we proclaim life, the explosion of life, the life of the Risen Lord: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth" (At 1, 8). We
are called to live out this reality, even as we experience the steep decline in
our numbers and having only a very few vocations. Any careful observer of
nature knows that the colours of a sunset are no less beautiful that the dawn. We can calmly think even of the possible
disappearance of Capuchins from some part of the world, in the full knowledge
that to envisage our possible end is not blasphemy on our part. Let us love our
provinces and our charism, and live in such a way that it may be known and
appreciated. The thought of death,
either as individuals or as provinces, need not concern us. Instead, what we
must take to heart is how to die well, on our feet, leaving behind us a glorious
trail that others will follow.
Anticipating the dawn
With over ten thousand Capuchins in the world, it is
certainly possible for us to try new ways to ensure that our charism will
continue to be present, even in those countries of Europe where the Capuchin
presence is under threat of extinction. Roger Schutz, the founder of the
monastic community of Taizé, liked to repeat that the task of the religious
life is to anticipate the dawn. Today, being prophetic means creating
international and inter-cultural fraternities where globalisation is lived in
practice, with all races and colours living together. It will not always be
easy to integrate different cultures, but what unites us, our faith and our
charism, is far stronger than our differences.
People touched by God
These fraternities are called to live in societies
that are living through the eclipse of God[3] in the true
sense of the term. The name of God is often on our lips, we speak of Him in
season and out of season, but we fail to see that all around us a void is being
created. Many people today are no longer able to grasp who this name (God)
refers to, and therefore, for them the word has no meaning. I think it is
worthwhile to recall here a quotation from Pope Benedict, who in 2005 wrote: "These are men and women who, through
enlightened faith lived out in practice, make God credible in this world. Women
and men whose gaze is fixed on God, and who thereby learn what true humanity
is. Only through such persons, touched by God, can God come back among humanity”[4].Indirectly,
Pope Ratzinger states that God needs men and women in order to return among human
beings. And this reminds me of that
subtle and highly perceptive insight of Etty Hillesum, who promised God that,
come what may, she would keep a small place in her heart for God: In the face
of the advancing Nazi horrors, she wrote in 1942: "I will help you, God, not to fall to pieces inside me, but from
now on, I cannot guarantee anything. Still, there is one thing that is becoming
increasingly clear to me: that you cannot help us, but that we are the ones who
have to help you, and in doing this, in the end, we are helping ourselves. And
this is the only thing, in this period, that we can save, the only thing that
really matters: a piece of you, God, inside of us.”[5]
“You are the Holy One, enthroned on the praises of Israel”
So the question for us today is whether we too wish to
commit ourselves, in a renewed way, to keeping alive that place for God, in the
way we are, the way we live and pray. Recently, during the Synod, I was very
struck by the fourth verse of psalm 22, in its Latin version: "Tu autem sanctus es, qui habitas in
laudibus Israel." I don’t think the official Italian translation, and
others, fully reflects the literal meaning of the Hebrew text. In fact, to say:
"You inhabit the praises of Israel"
or "Your throne is set among the
praises of Israel". "You
live in the praises of Israel" opens up a perspective of great beauty
and responsibility for all of us. In a certain sense, however paradoxical it
may seem, this means that when we
pronounce God’s name in praise, our praise not only reaches God but makes Him
live, pulsate with life, appear. It is not only that God has power over us, but
we have a certain power as far as He is concerned. So, it is literally true
that God depends on us. For Pope Benedict, God’s return among men and women
will depend on there being people who have allowed themselves to be touched by
God. In this sense, the invitation Saint Francis makes to all hearers of the
Canticle assumes new light and urgency: "Praise
and bless my Lord, give thanks to Him and serve Him with great humility."
In writing this, Francis grasps fully the primacy of praise, which Paul
Beauchamp calls the elementary grammar of prayer, the first rule of which is: "Praise is the beginning and end of all
prayer. The second is that praise and supplication are the two elements which,
by themselves, are sufficient to describe the totality of prayer."[6]
Intent upon God
In his book
"Nuovi orizzonti per la vita religiosa" (New Horizons for the
Religious Life), Rino Cozza writes: "The
chief difficulty for religious life today is to answer the God-question....The
point of departure, but also of arrival, is to be recognised not for the number
of prayers, but for the experience of prayer".[7] Saint
Francis in the Rule invites his brothers to "desire
above everything else to have the Spirit of the Lord and Huis holy activity"[8] . And
our Constitutions, in n. 45,8, read: " Desiring above all things the Spirit of the Lord and his holy activity and praying to God always
with a pure heart, may we offer people the witness of genuine prayer, so
that all may see on our faces and experience in the life of our fraternities
the reflection of God’s goodness and kindness present in the world."
This is a very beautiful
exhortation; however, I am bold enough to place alongside it another statement
that Cozza makes: "The religious
life has lost the capacity to give meaning to its existence in the world, and
that meaning should come principally from making the idea credible that human
beings have a capacity for God"[9]. Where this inclination
towards God is lacking, everything becomes
dull and dead! Being children of this age it is more likely than ever that we
ourselves do not realise the different transitions that are under way at the
present time. I am referring in particular to the transition from a regime of
Christianity, where references to God were frequent and present everywhere and,
for that very reason, were in danger of becoming obsolete, to a world that
simply ignores God. All of this is not without its consequences, and so we are
living in an age when increasing numbers of people have no reference to God or do
not know Him at all. It may be that these changes have caught us unprepared,
and that as a result we simply end up deploring this state of affairs, without
realising that our contemporaries need something else entirely. They need people
who will help them to desire His presence, to come close to Him and let Him
come close to them. I believe that those who speak to Him, sing to Him and wait
on Him with a passion, are more needed today than those who preach about Him.
Witnesses to
the primacy of God
Francis first allowed himself to be evangelised in the
depths of his being, and this led him to be acutely aware of the greatness and
goodness of God: "You are good, all
good, the highest good!" His love for all creatures arose from the
profound conviction that all things, animate and inanimate, have their origin
in God. All things have been given to us by Him, and are to be welcomed and
cared for with gratitude. What we need most in Europe today are fraternities
that live and witness to the primacy of God in our life. Fraternities that make
a home for God in their praises: "yours
is the praise, glory and honour and all blessing!"
Our way of evangelizing
In this sense I believe that it is a matter of placing
all our endeavours for renewal into a process of a new evangelisation, where
positive proclamation prevails, rather than condemnation[10]. We must do
this together. We need brothers who are not afraid to try something new, who
are able to step aside from the safe and well-trodden paths of former times,
and to set out on paths that do not yet exist, to open up new ways. I have no
problem with parishes and with so many traditional types of pastoral work, but
today we are in greater need of something else: fraternities who give witness to
the simplicity and beauty of standing before the Lord to praise and to serve
Him, and who are not afraid to reach out to the poor and to those on the edges
of our comfortable societies. If instead we intend to concentrate first and
foremost on pastoral activities of a traditional kind, we risk closing
ourselves into a ghetto, serving only those who are left inside. In the parable
of the lost sheep, Jesus does not invite us to wait there until it returns, but
to go out in search of the lost sheep, to become active. The same applies to
the lost coin: the woman lights her lamp, sweeps the house and searches
carefully until she finds it again. (Luke 15).
Fraternal collaboration among circumscriptions
Before hearing the testimonies of how the
international dimension is being lived by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary,
the Franciscan Friars of Palestrina and our own Capuchin brothers in Clermont Ferrand,
the time has come to go into more detail about these proposals and to start to
define them more precisely. Some years
ago we started what was initially called “Solidarity
of personnel”, which the General Chapter two years ago preferred to call “Fraternal collaboration among
circumscriptions”[11]. Several circumscriptions, particularly within CENOC,
are experiencing this reality: I am thinking in particular of Austria,
Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and Great Britain. Similar collaboration
is also beginning in CIMPCAP. How
is the experience going? Quite well, but it is also clear that there have been
some difficulties, due first of all to differences of mentality and pastoral
practice. It must also be said that the expectations of brothers arriving in
Europe to become part of a new reality are more often than not different from
those of the receiving provinces. Nor should one underestimate the generation
gap, in the sense that the receiving provinces are mostly marked by increasing
age, while those coming from other continents are very young. Brothers coming
from outside are expected to learn a new language well, to become familiar with
new ways of thinking as well as different ways of Capuchin life and pastoral
practice. In general we are much more
demanding of those who come, expecting them to have this spirit of adaptation,
while not expecting the same of those who receive them. It has often been said
that brothers who come to Europe in the context of fraternal collaboration
should not be seen as stop-gaps. This is certainly true, but it is not always
interpreted correctly. Behind this
affirmation there is a hidden expectation that that these brothers should be
able to propose and promote new projects, projects that even we are unable to
formulate, much less to fulfil. To me it
seems natural that these brothers, once they have learned the language well
enough, should initially be incorporated into some kind of fairly traditional
pastoral work, such as the celebration of the sacraments, the pastoral care of
the sick and of other groups. I also
think it is desirable that, as needs require, they should minister to their own
nationals, who may not be adequately looked after by the local churches. Whatever
the case, our brothers coming from abroad soon realise that the pastoral
practice that is appropriate in their own home countries does not meet with the
same response in the places they are called to work in today. While much
clearly remains to be done to improve the aspect of mutual integration, I
believe I am right to say that these first attempts are full of hope.
Requests to take
on the care of parishes
Faced with the difficulties so far experienced in the
area of collaboration between circumscriptions, and in an attempt to find new
possibilities to make their own circumscriptions financially independent, there
have been insistent requests from many places, especially from India and
Madagascar, to be allowed to assume the care of parishes in Europe. Until now, my response and that of the General
Council has been negative, but we are well aware that we are called upon to
find solutions that will enable our Indian and Malagasy brothers to have this
experience, and that this requires a juridical framework jointly agreed by all
parties concerned, in particular also by those circumscriptions in whose
territory our brothers would come to settle. In practice this means looking at whether we
intend to include them under the heading of “collaboration between
circumscriptions”, or to consider them as “houses of presence” directly subject
to the sending provincial Minister.
It is of interest, I believe, to report a concrete
case at this point. A brother of St.
Joseph Province, India, told the authorities of the archdiocese of Friburg in
Breisgau (Southern Germany) that his Province was ready to take responsibility for
parishes in the diocese. At this, a letter was sent in the name of the
Archbishop to the provincial Minister, stating that the diocese was interested
in the first place in having a group of brothers to take charge of one of the
places previously left by the Capuchins or other religious, in order to ensure
a continuity of religious presences considered to be of particular importance
in the life of the diocese. It seems to
me interesting that in this case the diocesan bishop is putting forward a
proposal aimed at maintaining the presence of religious communities, to ensure
a particular type of presence, and in fact he alludes to the possibility of
assuming responsibility for one or more parishes.
Intercultural fraternities
As far as I am concerned, fraternal collaboration
between circumscriptions must continue, and must be strengthened. However, I am
convinced that we are also called to try out other ways. It is not sufficient to involve our Indian
brothers simply to give a new lease of life and new hope to our Capuchin
presence in Europe. Rather, what I believe is that Europe itself should be the
first to mobilise its own forces. It is
true that, even among ourselves, there are many differences from one country to
another, one province to another, and yet I believe that at this moment in time
we are called to identify resolutely a joint evangelisation project, involving
brothers from all the European circumscriptions, in addition to brothers from
continents with abundant vocations. Today it is easier to motivate a young
Italian brother (but I could just as well speak of other countries) to commit
himself to a joint project for the new evangelisation of Europe, than to
suggest that he goes and works as a missionary in China or in some African
country. We need to take full advantage of such readiness in order to do
something new for Europe. Tomorrow we
will hear something about what is happening in Clermont Ferrand, and you will
hear that it is possible for French brothers of different ages to live together
with brothers from Italy, in all simplicity.
As I was saying earlier, these fraternities will need to focus on living
a simple lifestyle, centred on the essentials, and to be places where, first
and foremost, the brothers live and witness to their striving for God in a
simple and joyful way. We need fraternities that give witness to the fact that
it is possible to live together, even when people come from very diverse
cultural contexts, and I believe that Europe is urgently in need of such
witness. I say this against the background of the growth of xenophobic
political parties in many of our countries. Today we know how to store endless data on a
single microchip, but we are unable to ensure peace and justice for everyone,
everywhere. This fact should mobilise us
to give testimony in the name of Jesus Christ and of St Francis of Assisi that
this is possible, first of all among ourselves, and then in the areas and
communities in which we live.
Prerequisites
In order to implement this type of evangelising
project, a number of fundamental conditions must be assured:
1.
The first requirement is a sense of fraternal
responsibility in everyone and for everyone as Capuchin brothers.
2.
Circumscriptions must be open to this type of project
and commit to it with conviction. They must indicate to us possible locations
for these fraternities, if possible in city centres.
3.
There must be a readiness on the part of all to
overcome provincialism and adopt a wider vision, in the awareness that all of
us are called to contribute to the realisation of this project of
evangelisation as Capuchins.
4. Furthermore,
the realisation of this project will depend on each person’s ability to let go
of his own plans. In practice this will translate into a speeding up of the
resizing processes under way in the various circumscriptions.
5.
In some places there will need to be a readiness to
die as a province and to accept that something new will be born in its place,
because it is no longer a question of saving institutions, but of starting from
the beginning, without thereby entering into competition with any existing
reality.
6.
We must be prepared to make our best brothers
available, people who are capable of living mature relationships and are not
afraid to commit to a demanding project.
7. In
addition, we foresee, if necessary, a special statute for these fraternities,
by which they would be directly dependent on the General Minister and his
Council.
8.
We should appoint a team to accompany these
fraternities and to establish close relationships among them.
9.
Furthermore, we foresee the need for new formation
itineraries for those who may ask to embrace our life after meeting one of
these fraternities.
Conclusion
I believe the time has well and truly come for us to
dare to try something new, and to go ahead with great confidence. I am glad to
be able to say that tomorrow we will spend the whole day becoming acquainted
with projects that are already moving in this direction. We will also have an
opportunity to go more deeply into the topic of how secularisation has strongly
marked our European continent. It may be
that we feel like the three little shepherd children of Fatima at the moment
Our Lady appeared to them and entrusted a mission to them. How afraid they must
have been, and yet they did it, and we are here today thanks to the courage
they showed.
Let our inspiration be the icon of the young woman
from Nazareth who, having heard from the angel that her kinswoman Elizabeth had,
in her old age, herself conceived a son, set out in haste to the hill country
of Judea, and stayed with her for about three months. In our case, it will mean leaving with the
same enthusiasm, but our stay will last well beyond three months!
Fatima, 2 December 2014
Br. Mauro
Jöhri,
General
Minister OFMCap.
[1] Cfr. COZZA RINO, La custodia dell’umano! Nuovi orizzonti per la vita religiosa. Edizioni
Dehoniane Bologna, 2014, pag. 37
[2] Traduzione italiana: RONALD
DWORKIN, Religione senza Dio, il
Mulino 2014.
[3] Se ne era parlato diffusamente
durante l’incontro sulla secolarizzazione tenuto a Madrid nel 2008. Cfr. a proposito: DIENBERG, EGGENSPERGER,
ENGEL, Woran glaubt Europa? Rückkehr des
Religiösen, Aschendorff Verlag, 2010.
[4] Citato secondo COZZA, La custodia dell’umano, 26.
[5] HILLESUM ETTY, Il bene quotidiano. Breviario degli scritti (1941-1942), San Paolo
Edizioni, 2014, 84s.
[6] Psaumes nuit et jour, Paris, 1969, 92
[7] La custodia dell’umano, 24
[8] FF 104
[9] La custodia dell’umano, 28.
[10] FRANCESCO, Evangelii Gaudium, Esortazione apostolica, Ancora Milano, 2013
[11] Atti dell’ 84° Capitolo generale, Vol.
II, pag. 441-446.
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