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VIII
GENERAL CHAPTER
OF THE SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL
"To be St. Paul alive today"
is its theme. A Congregation that "strains forward," the
Society of St. Paul (Pauline Fathers and Brothers), shall celebrate its
8th General Chapter in Ariccia (Rome) from this coming 20 April to 20
May, in order to evaluate the current state of the Congregation, to draw
a new congregational plan of action for the next six years, to choose a
new General Government and to give answers to current questions already
raised or could surface. General Chapters are events of very great
importance in the life of Religious Orders and Congregations due to the
repercussions that the decisions taken can have so much within and
without the institutions themselves.
Founded
on 20 August 1914 by Blessed Giacomo Alberione and definitively approved
by the Holy See on 27 June 1949, the Society of St. Paul has as its
mission the proclamation of the Gospel Message through the means of
social communication. Currently, the Society of St. Paul has 1,057
priest and brother members (the latter are called Disciples of the
Divine Master) with communities and apostolic activities in 28 countries
of five continents.
The
65 Chapter Delegates, having different origins, races, cultures and
sensitivities, yet made one by a single missionary spirit of the Apostle
Paul and fused together by the creative genius of Blessed Alberione –
an apostle and prophet of the social communications, who knew how to
give today’s Church new instruments and new means to proclaim the
Gospel – will bear this complex reality in their hearts and minds to
Ariccia, near Rome. In effect, the General Chapter shall start with
three intense days of reflection on the profound meaning has the Founder’s
expression "being St. Paul alive today," a phrase turned into
rallying point with which he wanted to express the apostolic and
missionary ardor of the Apostle of the Gentiles who ought to re-live in
the hearts of his daughters and sons of all times. The task of
concretizing, at the start of the third millennium, this desire in this
globalized, multicultural world, marked by information technology,
pertains to us.
It
is interesting to note how the concretization and the development of the
Pauline mission continues to follow, during the years of its brief
history, the stages of evolution of the technology of media
communication. In effect, the Founder began making use prevalently of
the press, pamphlets, books and magazines. He himself, however, paved
the way, with pastoral goals, also for movies, radio, television, audio
cassettes and discs. Today, Paulines, in dynamic fidelity to the charism
of the Founder, without renouncing anything of what remains valid till
now, are present in the new communication technologies, thus multiplying
the spread of the Gospel message and contributing to the process of
enculturation in these new means and forms of communication.
The
Society of St. Paul is a part of the Pauline Family, a composite of ten
institutions: five religious congregations (Society of St. Paul,
Daughters of St. Paul, Pious Disciples of the Divine Master, Sisters of
Jesus Good Shepherd, Sisters of Mary,
Queen of the Apostles), four secular institutes (Jesus Priest, St.
Gabriel Archangel, Our Lady of the Annunciation, Holy Family) and an
Association of lay persons (Pauline Cooperators). The 18,000 members
these institutions count, present in 62 countries, are a clear sign of
their vitality and ramified presence in the Church reality of our times.
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