The world has changed rapidly in recent decades, with new structures, new challenges, and new ways of responding to and meeting them. A world with new capabilities and especially with a new way of relating and sharing, a world without borders, globalized and in constant movement with people who collaborate, and who are pursuing study, work and life within many other cultures and in different countries. The Church, and our Order, has sought to join in on these social processes by embracing the opportunities they offer. Today we see our great international fraternity and realize that we cannot continue to exist only within our circumscription knowing that we need each other. More than once, the General Minister, Br. Roberto Genuin, has said that “we must look beyond the limits of our borders, because the future is in collaboration.”
In the past, many brothers from Europe or the United States went out as missionaries to Asia, Africa and South America with the purpose of implanting the Church and the Order. Under the theme of “one province, one mission,” they have given birth to so many new fraternities that now are flourishing with vocations and causing the dynamics to reverse. For more than two decades we have begun to see an influx of friars or groups of friars who are supporting circumscriptions, especially in Europe and North America. Without this fraternal help, our life and mission could not be sustained. Until a few years ago, this movement was known as solidarity of personnel; today we call it fraternal collaboration.
At recent general chapters we have tried to discuss and develop this as a concrete response from the Order to our needs, especially for maintaining our presence in key locations, for responding to the new missions that the Church entrusts to us, and for revitalizing our charism. At the last general chapter, Br. Mauro Jöhri said: “the goal of fraternal collaboration is to strengthen fraternal life in areas of numerical decline, in the hope of enabling the circumscriptions to reform and return to a healthy condition.” Today we see much in terms of impetus for this movement from friars everywhere, and we are blessed to be able to count on so many young friars who embark on various social and cultural situations, bringing new vitality to the fraternities while supporting and promoting new ministries and animating the vocation ministry.
In this last sexennium, the Order has celebrated several international meetings where the theme of fraternal collaboration has been explored more deeply. At the 2022 Pan-American Meeting, Br. Mauro Jöhri said that “one form that, in recent years, is taking on the indispensable missionary dimension of our vocation (cf. Const. 175:5) is that of collaboration between different circumscriptions.” This missionary characteristic has encouraged even more collaboration, with many friars willing to join the effort, and more and more circumscriptions opening up to welcome and fully integrate these friars into their fraternities, both for pastoral works as well as for taking important roles within the local community and the circumscription. During the Chapter of Mats celebrated in the Conference of India (CCMSI) last year, a reflection was made on fraternal collaboration. The Indian friars currently offer the most in terms of this service to the Order and today they are present in all continents. During this meeting they presented Fraternal Collaboration as “an emerging reality within the Order,” one which has become indispensable but at the same time still requires deeper reflection, discipline and implementation.
At the next general chapter, the central theme will be that of collaboration viewed from various perspectives. If the future is in collaboration, then we must welcome the Holy Spirit to breathe upon our Capuchin Order and we must search for the most perfect means for expressing our charism. Truly the Lord has given us brothers!
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