Daniel Comboni
Comboni Missionaries
Institutional area
Other links
Newsletter
Rome, Thursday, November 22, 2012
During the Intercapitular Assembly the document containing the general norms of the Total Common Fund was presented and, after hearing the favourable opinion of the provincials and delegates, in Consulta of the General Council (GC) of October 2012 these norms were approved and the GC has promulgated them by a decree which will be annexed to the booklet containing these Norms. "We hope that these will become a qualified help to organize a better management and service to the finances of the Institute for the good of the mission" writes P. Enrique Sánchez González (photo), Superior General.
General Norms for the Provincial Total Common Fund
Decree of Application
Rome, 1 November, 2012
To the Superiors of circumscriptions and their Councils
To all confreres
Dear Confreres,
I am pleased to wind up with the publication of the “General Rules – Provincial Total Common Fund” the process that gave effect to the mandate of the XVII General Chapter n. 150.3 on the need to establish “general norms so that the Total Common Fund (TCF) might include every activity in the budget of the Circumscriptions: projects, sectors, pastoral and community activity and expenses”.
Immediately after the conclusion of the Chapter, having consulted the General Council, I entrusted the General Secretariat for Finances with the task of drafting these norms, aware that without this work of clarification and legislation, it would have been difficult to achieve the ambitious goal of extending to all the circumscriptions the implementation of the Total Common Fund by the beginning of the XVIII Chapter (second half of 2015). The request made to the General Secretary for Finances selected the date of the Intercapitular 2012 as the last opportunity to assess the consensus reached by the draft of the Norms.
I am grateful to the General Secretariat for Finances and to all the confreres who have collaborated, in particular to the General Treasurer’s Office, for the valuable work of drafting the norms and for the widespread consultation and verification during the document’s elaboration. The widespread consultation leads me to believe that this document meets, in addition to the intrinsic need to further clarify and standardize, the need to be a shared product and, therefore, to be swiftly implemented. The Intercapitular Assembly held in September has welcomed the 5th Draft of the above Document, pledging to provide any further suggestions by September 30, 2012: in the absence of any communication on this issue, the draft would become the final document. This is what happened.
The document, as the Superiors of the circumscriptions and many treasurers consulted have had the opportunity to see, is limited to the essential legislation, leaving its implementation to the concrete situation of each circumscription and to the work of revising the Directory, which is to be undertaken as soon as possible. Everything that must be specified in the Directory is explained in summary diagrams, which are found in each chapter of the document and make the consultation very easy. I wish to point out also the section on the new tasks under the responsibility of the Secretariat for Finances of each circumscription, to be adequately reflected by the extension of the mandate of each Secretariat that the Circumscription Councils will have to implement.
With this decree I make, then, mandatory, on this date, the norms and the instructions here contained, asking all the circumscriptions to acquiesce in this as soon as possible and not later than the date of the starting of the next Chapter.
I entrust to St. Joseph and to St. Daniel Comboni the wish that this step will bring us much closer the achievement of that ideal in sharing, community life and fidelity to the vow of poverty that has driven the recent Chapters to complete this major reform concerning our way of dealing with material goods.
Fraternally,
P. Enrique Sánchez González
Superior General