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CIRCULAR LETTER ON INTERCULTURALITY

Introduction.

This particular topic is not important to the today civil society only, but also to the Church and Religious Life. There are around many publications on this subject giving us some help for reflection, especially, on how to put it into practice. It asks from us to be open to listen, ‘to be open-minded’ (Fr. Guanella), and open to conversion.

I offer to your reading the Enclosed n. 1, “Journeying towards internationality” by Fr. Rinaldo Paganelli (Dehonian Father) from which you can find good observations and applications to our reality.

Some confrere, in his answering to the First Circular Letter, offered some of his reflections. I recommend to read Enclosed n. 2, the reflection of Bro. Franco Laini on his own experience of over twenty years of living inside an intercultural community life, and some reflections from ‘Agenda di Famiglia’, the monthly bulletin of the Sacred Heart Province.

The subject of interculturality was already taken in consideration in different documents of our Congregation. Enclosed n. 3 offers a great synthesis of the Congregation Documents regarding the subject. Among them, you can find also the modified or even new numbers of the Regulations that were approved during the past years.

The same subject has been discussed during the last Meeting of the Superior General held in Rome on May 2017.

In the web-site ‘Vidimus Dominum’, we can find more material in different languages, like the Report of the General Superior of the Jesuits (Interculturality, Catholicity, and Consecrated Life), and some reflections of General Superiors on “Discernment in our contemporary world.”

Click: http://vd.pcn.net/it/index.php?option=com_docman&Itemid=11

PROPOSALS FOR OUR REFLECTION ON THE SUBJECT.

First Track:

Starting from the proposed texts, or from others you know, you should apply

to our Congregation what you think it is more important in helping out our human and spiritual journey toward an interculturality founded upon the evangelical values and our charism.

Because your reflection regards the future General Chapter, it should be important to review what the previous General Chapters have said and show what has not yet been completed.

The Provincial Superiors are free to replace the proposed texts with other useful documents.

Second Track

Thinking about personal experiences and those of our local communities, you should interpret the signs of the times that the Holy Spirit offers in guiding us into the next years in regard to the subject in question that is becoming more and more relevant in the life and development of the Institute.

It is not a work reserved only to those confreres who are inserted into a new culture, but also – and especially – to those who welcome confreres from other cultures, to foresee and prepare a future of grace for the mission entrusted to us by the Lord.

1. Transcultural values of the Guanellian charism fundamentally valid in every cultures in which we are present.

As the Gospel, lived with radical conviction, has the force to give life to every culture, so also our charismatic values, founded on the same Gospel, can be valid and carried out inside every culture by transforming it and making it richer.

Questions requesting and answer

• List the transcultural Guanellian values that are ‘inalienable’ and ‘non-negotiable’ that are to be lived in every culture and make easier to live fraternal communion among us.

• List what of our tradition is contingent (accidental) and open to changes according to the different cultures without damaging our fraternal communion.

• List the elements of your own culture that you think may offer richer innovations to a better commitment in living the Guanellian charism and mission inside our broadened presence in the world.

• As a religious family open to the whole world (all the world is your homeland), explain how we are concretely collaborating with the mission of the Church in building bridges of peace and reconciliation to all, in healing wounds, mending rips, overcoming prejudices, and deep divisions both inside the civil society and the Church.

2. Unity in diversity is a great ideal! How can we reach it and express it?

Not when a culture superimposes itself to another one perceived as weaker. Not when a cultural integration is limited to a mere living together with other confreres who co-exist, one near the other, apparently equal but separated, running the risk of creating groups…

Not when, in front of the challenge and commitment in reaching a good community integration, confreres hide themselves behind the alibi of their ‘cultural difference’, defending personal immaturities or refusing the hard work of living their own vocation in a radical way.

The result is that those, who have to insert themselves into a new community, don’t make sufficient efforts to ‘enculturate’ themselves, and those who are supposed to welcome them into the new community don’t understand and respect the different culture of the new member of the community.

Questions:

• What can we do so that the presence in the community of confreres coming from other cultures may bring real advantages to our spiritual life, fraternity and mission?

• Can you mention some positive experience of community enrichment from different cultures?

• Can you detail some major difficulties regarding fraternal life originating from the different cultures present among the confreres of the same community? (Cultural diversity not only regarding to nationality, but also regarding to particular sub-cultures).

• Can you say something on the major difficulties which have prevented a more visible interculturality in the Congregation? On which aspects should we insist more in order to overcome such difficulties? On which paths should we walk together and faster?

3. International Communities

In the recent past, the Congregation pressed a lot on the formation of international communities. We read in n. 5 of our last General Chapter, “In the perspective of the communion of goods, which identifies the confreres themselves as the greatest treasure to be shared, and with a view to more effective cultural exchanges of the charism, the General Chapter requests the General Council, in dialogue with the Superiors and Councils, both Provincial and of the Delegation, to establish international communities throughout the entire Congregation. This should be done, where appropriate, as early as the initial formation period.”

Questions

• What’s the main reason on which this insistence stands? Is it the necessity to keep open the Houses...or something else?

• List some positive steps and difficulties you have met in carrying out this objective.

• How can we raise generosity and availability among the confreres to leave their country and be sent to particular missions of the Congregation?

On different occasions, we have underlined the necessity both of preparing confreres to be sent to other Provinces and of preparing the communities to welcome the new confreres.

• What is missing in carrying out these two conditions,

1. in regard to the preparation to the mission ‘ad extra?

2. in regard to welcoming the ‘missionary’ confreres?

4. Formation to interculturality

On one hand, there are valid reasons to say that the initial formation, especially during the first years, should be carried out in the cultural context of the formandi, with formators belonging to their own culture. On the other hand, there are valid motives for offering to the young confreres periods of formation spent in different places than their own. Often it has been underlined the problem of having few formators or even the lack of an adequate preparation of formators among the young people in formation during the first years of our presence in new countries and contexts.

Question

• Can you list some experiences, suggestions and reflections which may help us in preparing and carrying out more positively the vocation discernment and initial formation according to the intercultural categories?

It is always possible to offer many other reflections you think are useful to deepen this subject.

Thank you.

Rome, June 25, 2017

Fr. Alfonso

Attachments:

Enclosed n.1

Enclosed n.2

Enclosed n.3