News

6/7/2025

6/7/2025

PGC - Highlight of the day n.5 - Friday, June 6, 2025

Between economic issues and a look at the history of Latin America...

When addressing economic issues, it is good to refer to the title of this topic in the acts of the General Chapter: “The economy at the service of charism and mission.” This provides perspective and meaning to the work accomplished.

It is therefore the preliminary work of the CEC (Congregation Economic Council), a council made up of the General Treasurer and the Provincial Treasurers, that allows these issues to be addressed in the PGC. Two significant elements should be noted concerning the CEC. At the last PGC, we decided to move to a new annual work schedule, namely a face-to-face CEC in Rome every November and a CEC by videoconference every May. The CEC therefore inaugurated this new formula in May 2025. Another significant element is that only one Provincial Treasurer is in his second term, while all the others have been in office for less than two years. This creates a new dynamism and a significant internal training component.

The general treasurer presented four major topics: 1-The consolidated balance sheet for 2024 of the Generalate, which also includes the costs of animation of the Congregation at the general level (sessions, commissions, councils, visits to communities, publications, etc.); 2-The current state of our financial investments, including the impact of the current market volatility; 3-The 2023 and 2024 solidarity campaigns; 4-The cost of formation in the congregation, bearing in mind that we currently have 386 young people in formation (123 postulants or novices and 263 religious in initial formation, specialized studies, or diaconal internship). You can imagine the costs that this can represent! It should be noted that with 263 religious in formation out of a total of 923 religious in the congregation, 28.5% of the religious in the congregation are in formation—to which must be added the postulants and novices. In fact, next week we will have a discussion on our policy for welcoming vocations.

The afternoon was of a completely different nature. Fr. Luis Ramón took the time—after telling us last Wednesday about the events related to our kidnaped brothers—to give us an overview of the social, political, ecclesial, and Assumptionist reality in Latin America, and especially in Argentina, since 1955. We were able to better understand the decisive divisions that have marked society and the Church throughout these years and up to the present day: Anti-Peronism (capitalist movement) / Peronism (social justice movement); Military regimes / Popular guerrillas (Communist or Trotskyist); Dictatorship, autocratic regime and, more recently, populist regimes/Democracy; Christian society/secularized society; classical theology on the one hand, liberation theology or theology of the people on the other; pre-conciliar and clerical Church/post-conciliar Church, communion of Christian communities; Episcopate supporting dictatorship / Episcopate close to the people-CELAM, etc. The Assumptionists, present in Argentina since 1910, have of course been marked by all this history and have sought to embody the Gospel in this complicated context, often finding themselves on the side of the people and the victims of repression.