84. General Curia
Tempo Forte. The General Council held a Tempo Forte session from 3-7 October. It began with a formation program given by Fr. Marco Gnavi, of the Community of Sant’Egidio, who spoke on the “Humanization of prisons and the liberation of prisoners.” All the members of the General Curia participated in this. Some of the agenda points were:
1.- Study of the Postulate of the General Assembly on the “Vincentian places.”
2.- Study of the letter presented by Fr. Giuseppe Guerra, Postulator General, on a petition to the Holy See to include two confreres in the list of the Blessed on 2 September.
3.- Naming of the Commission for the study of the Statutes of the Congregation of the Mission. The commission will be composed of Frs. Paul Golden (Midwest, United States), Giuseppe Turati (Turin), Juan Julián Díaz Catalán (Zaragoza), Eli Chaves dos Santos (Rio de Janeiro), and Alberto Vernaschi (Rome).
4.- Decision on the International Visitors’ Meeting, which will be held from 4-15 June 2007 in Mexico City.
5.- Presentation by the Superior General of the first draft of the Project of the General Council 2005-2010.
6.- Beginning study of the possibility of establishing a “Development Office” for the Congregation at the international level.
7.- Approval of the “Program for Systemic Change” which has as its primary objective to help the confreres in their apostolates. This “Think Tank” program will be coordinated by Fr. Robert Maloney, helped by a team composed of Joseph Foley, (NGO representative at the United Nations), Pedro Opeka, (Madagascar), Norberto Carcellar, (Philippines), Mrs. Patricia de Nava (AIC), Sr. Ellen Flynn, DC (Great Britain), and a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
8.- Establishment of two awards to support projects in favor of the poor: the “Systemic Change Award” and the “Mission Award.” The projects will seek to stimulate the missionary creativity of all members of the Con-gregation and help to maintain missionary zeal in the evangelization of the poor.
9.- Dialogue on the “Patrimonial Funds” of the provinces project.
10.- Discussion on the organization of the New Visitors’ Meeting which will be held from 18-24 January 2006 in Rome. Fr. Corpus Delgado, Visitor of Zaragoza, will coordinate the meeting.
11.- Approval of the project, presented by Fr. Sylvester Peterka (Philadelphia), which will help the different provinces of COVIAM in the formation of formators and in the ongoing formation of the confreres. The program will begin in 2006.
12.- Establishment of a provisional agreement between the General Curia and the Visitors of the Asia-Pacific Conference (APVC), which will assume the responsibility of the mission in the Solomon Islands.
13.- Analysis of the topic of reconfiguration of some provinces. The General Council will continue dialoguing on this issue with the provinces.
14.- Examination of various reports of different commissions linked with the General Curia: from SIEV (International Secretariat for Vincentian Studies); from the administrator of the Vincentian Family website, Fr. John Freund; from Fr. Manuel Ginete, Delegate for the Vincentian Family.
15.- Discussion about the candidates for the missions of the entire Congregation.
16.- Study of the agreement among the Supe-rior General, the Province of Chile and the missionaries of El Alto, Bolivia, on the forma-tion of the students who come from the inter-national mission of El Alto, Bolivia.
17.- Listening to the report of Fr. José Antonio Ubillús, Assistant General for the Missions, on the visit he made to the international missions of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
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