Pastoral Musings . . .
By Fr. William Spencer, OFM

         NEWS FROM ASSISI

          “General Chapter” is a phrase which you’ve heard a number of times during the last few weeks.  It’s certainly a meeting we’ve mentioned in these Pastoral Musings.  It was also a gathering that got noticed in our public prayer here at St. Peter’s.  Some of you joined the members of our local Franciscan community at a Mass of the Holy Spirit to pray for God’s guidance on the election of new leadership for the Order of Friars Minor.  More of you had regular opportunities to pray for our General Chapter during the daily General Intercessions at our Masses.  The legislation of our Order leaves no doubt about the importance of the General Chapter; but if there were any question about that, the fact that 150 very busy Franciscans take a month out of their lives every six years and often have to travel thousands of miles to be present only underscores just how significant this meeting is.

          The delegates to a General Chapter are the Provincial Ministers of each Franciscan province throughout the world.  Friars who have been entrusted with certain offices in the Order are also members ex officio of the General Chapter.  Since current Canon Law requires that Provincial Ministers be ordained friars, there is also provision made in the General Statutes of the Order that a number of lay friars be present as capitulars.  All of these friars are certainly charged with the review and passage of any proposed changes in the Order’s legislation; but their two main responsibilities are the election of leadership for the entire Order of Friars Minor and an assessment of our faithfulness to our Franciscan vocation in the previous six years.  As you might suspect, that’s always a matter of commendations and recommendations.  What the General Chapter has to say charts not only the course of the General Administration of the Order, but also how we live our Franciscan lives throughout the world.

          This year, the incumbent Minister General, Fr. Jose Carballo, O.F.M., a Spaniard, was re-elected for a second and final term as successor to St. Francis.  While his re-election was not a foregone conclusion, it did not come as a surprise.  What was surprising was the election of the Provincial Minister of our own Sacred Heart Province as Vicar General of the entire Order of Friars Minor.  Fr. Michael Perry, O.F.M. was, perhaps, the most stunned member of the General Chapter when that happened.  When he left for the General Chapter at the end of May, he was traveling on a round-trip ticket.  Two weeks later, he had a new home and a new job.  He and we are still sorting it all out and will probably need to do so for some time to come.  There’s also a General Council to advise the Minister General and the Vicar General.  The English-speaking Council member elected at this General Chapter is a friar from Immaculate Conception Province, one of two United States provinces headquartered in New York City.  He joins eight other friars from the various geographical areas of the world in forming this General Council.

          “What laws do we need?”  “Who needs to lead us?”  “What about the way we’re living our Franciscan vocation needs to be encouraged, and what needs to be challenged and changed?”  Those are all questions which the delegates to a General Chapter must address.  “What do we need to say to our world as Franciscans?” is also a question that can’t be overlooked by the delegates to a Franciscan General Chapter.  One of the ways in which this year’s General Chapter answered that question is a press released entitled “Cry of the Poor, Cry of Human Societies in Conflict and Ill, Cry of the Planet: A Franciscan Response.”  Hopefully, its thoughtfulness will not only challenge all of us to become more faithful followers of Jesus, but also will provide a context in which we can understand the convictions that guide many of the decisions made here at St. Peter’s.  Here’s what the General Chapter has to say:

We have learned this past week from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization that more than one billion human beings in our world are hungry and seriously malnourished.  One in every six human beings goes to bed hungry each day.  One in six children in the world suffers the horrible consequences of malnutrition, robbing them of future possibilities for a healthy development and locking them into the vicious cycle of poverty.  One in six human beings are part of what development specialists call the “Bottom Billion,” human beings who are locked into a series of traps that condemn them to a life of grinding poverty, hunger, increased vulnerability to violence and conflict, HIV and AIDS and other diseases, and to the consequences of environmental degradation and the warming of the planet.

We Friars Minor, Franciscans, cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of our brothers and sisters who have a fundamental right given by God to each and every human person: the right to adequate food, shelter, proper health care, security, and freedom of movement and freedom of ideas and association.  We Franciscans are committed to link our lives and our energies, through the work of our justice and peace offices in the more than 110 countries where we live and work, to defend the rights of people, to promote just economic, political and social structures which respect the needs of all people and not just the interests of the few, to encourage greater care for the environment, most especially in those regions of the world where uncontrolled exploitation has led to the destruction of the world’s rain forests, the “lungs” of the planet.

During our 2009 General Chapter focusing on the Evangelizing Mission of the Church, we discussed the relationship between the demands of our faith and those of human beings and the fundamental human rights which we as men of the Gospel and as “brothers to the poor and to all people” must proclaim and defend.  For this reason, we took up the cause of the poor during out meetings and addressed a letter to the G8 Ministers.  In our letter, we called attention to the plight of the poor and hungry of our world, the need for greater regulation and management of economic systems to ensure that the production of goods and wealth are not to enrich a small group of people but must be used for the well being of all people.  We called on the G8 leaders – and we call on all world leaders – to promote peace and reconciliation among their people and to take immediate steps to end the illicit and immoral sale of arms, which leads to unparalleled human suffering and to failing and failed states.  We also called on the G8 Ministers to commit greater resources to the creation of alternative and sustainable forms of development that do not lead to further environmental degradation and which are within the reach of the poor and those most in need.  We shared this message with the G8 Ministers because we see on a daily basis in the more than 110 countries where we live and care for those most in need the consequences of poverty, hunger, poor health care, violence and war, environmental degradation, and the abuse of human rights and the dignity of human beings.

We Franciscans will continue to attend to the poor and most vulnerable through our work in health care and education, our care for those living with HIV, our programs of trauma healing and the creation of micro-industries for women, girls, and other vulnerable groups, and our outreach to those starving in the developed world who number more than 15 million.  We will also continue to promote peace and reconciliation through our presence in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin and South America, Europe and North America.

Through the work of our Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Office in Rome and the work of similar offices throughout the world, we raise the voice of those who are most affected and defend their fundamental human rights.  Through our work with Franciscans International at the United Nations, a work that involves all branches of the Franciscan movement worldwide and with a collective voice of more than 800,0000, we work with the international community in order to promote economic, political, cultural, and social systems that respond to the needs of human beings and contribute to world peace and greater care for the environment.  We are not silent when human rights are violated anywhere in the world.  We do not stand by when governments or corporations engage in unethical use of natural resources.  Nor are we silent in the face of the more than 600,000 human beings, primarily women, girls and children, who are bought and sold– trafficked– for commercial sex or degrading labor.  We are not silent because the Gospel and the invitation of St. Francis of Assisi and that of the Church require this of us as “brothers” to all of humanity and to creation.

          St. Peter’s Church in the Loop is consciously and intentionally a Franciscan community.  The brown habits which its priests and brothers wear are one expression of that Franciscan identity.  The way we pray and the feasts we celebrate are another.  The focus of our programming and the content of our programs would be a third.  The hospitality which we hope everyone experiences here is another dimension of that Franciscan identity, as is our collaboration with the Franciscan Outreach Association in an effort to respond to the special needs of some of those who come to us with their cares and concerns.  Hopefully, the commitments reflected in the statement by our General Chapter are some of the “Franciscan Spirituality” which you experience when you’re at St. Peter’s and, even more importantly, that they’re reflected in your own lives because you’ve come to this holy place.          

Peace and everything good,
                    Fr. Bill

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