Decisions of the General Council concerning formation

The Chapter of 2009 had asked us to introduce new experiences in the field of Basic Formation and to make an assessment about them during the Intercapitular 2012. Concretely, we have been asked to verify the value of missionary service for our scholastics, the inter-continentality of the scholasticates and the experience of formation for some of our scholastics in an inserted community. After the verification made by the General Secretary for Formation in preparation to the Intercapitular and having heard the opinion of the provincials and delegates, during the October Consulta we have decided that missionary service is an experience that must continue to be part of the formative program offered by the Institute to its candidates. We welcomed the favourable opinion of the Assembly on the inter-continentality of the scholasticates and we will do everything possible to guarantee even the internationality, which has always been one of the values in our formation.

As regards formation in small communities in the context of insertion, we decided to keep open the possibility of offering this experience, even if we are aware of the real difficulties to find formators. The superiors of circumscriptions, the formators of scholastics, the scholasticates and all the confreres will be informed of these decisions by a letter of the GC on these issues. Attached we publish the letter.

In the picture, the Scholasticate Community of Casavatore, Italy, in 2012. From left, seated: James Owino Marcellus (Uganda), Mateusz Dziobkowski (Poland), Rafael Flores Aguilar (Mexico), Justin Ndhlovu (Zambia), Mwinamo Alulu Ignatius (Kenya). Standing: P. Gálvez José de Jesús Villaseñor (formator), Milungo Mangulani Pascal (Congo), Mateo Pedro Salvador (Guatemala), Dofonnou Dodji Emeric Lionel (Togo), Chisha Daniel (Zambia), Ricardo Alberto Leite Gomes (Portugal), Sohouenou Cakpo Edenan Raoul (Togo).