Friday, January 9, 2015

TOWARDS FATIMA: EUROPEAN MINISTERS’ MEETING - Br. General Minister, Mauro


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.

No comments: