Letter from Coordinator 05 2011

Dear Confreres,
Letter from Coordinator, No 5 (2011)
On the occasion of the Christmas letter, I would like to inform you about some of the issues of our Conference which have occurred since our last Assembly in Dublin (24th – 27th of October, 2011).
The Council of our Conference met in Rome from 13th to 15th of December. Fr. Pedro Lopez, Fr. Johannes Römelt, Fr. Zdzisław Stanula, Secretary of the Conference and I, were trying to plan our work for 2012 and to deal with the most urgent issues.
Most of the time of our Consulta was devoted to implementing the decisions taken at the Assembly in Dublin concerning the establishment of the Secretariats and the Commission on the level of the Conference. As you know, the Assembly voted unanimously that at this stage of our activity we will create three secretariats: Formation, Evangelization, Brothers, and also a Financial Commission. The will of the Assembly was that the Secretariat of Evangelization will take into account the issues related to the four apostolic priorities of our Conference and also youth ministry and cooperation with the laity.
I would like to say thanks to everyone who sent us the names of candidates for each group. As the result of our discussions we decided that in addition to the listed Secretariats and the Commission within the Secretariat of Evangelization, we will create also a few “working groups” connected with our apostolic priorities.
Let me briefly introduce certain plans about these groups.
1. Secretariat for Formation
After many discussions, which also took place during the last Assemblies, we want to create structures of formation, which will help all of us – both seminarians and Redemptorists after perpetual vows – to prepare well for the common challenges in Europe. So it will be necessary to prepare the “Ratio Formationis” for our Conference. We think of common meetings of our formandee and our formators from all of Europe. Using the richness of different cultures and mentalities in Europe, we plan to have the “Pastoral Year” for our students in the different contexts of Europe and also a common preparation for perpetual vows. The Conference wants also to ensure a good formation for formators and to give the possibility of formation for those who want to join Units in which we do not already have our own first formation structures.
With regard to ongoing formation, we wish to enter into cooperation with the Centre for Redemptorist Spirituality and the Alphonsian Academy. One of the challenges in formation is also better preparation for cooperation with the laity.
2. Secretariat for Evangelization
This Secretariat will also try to accomplish certain tasks around our “Apostolic Priorities” approved by our Assembly in Dublin. These priorities speak of the four groups of people to whom in a special way we want to address our mission in Europe, namely, to people affected by increased secularization and contemporary human issues; to young people; to ‘migrants’ and to ‘those left behind’; to people abandoned in some way by, or distanced from, ordinary pastoral care. Because of these priorities, we want to create a few “working groups” which will help us to better discern the situation and to suggest new methods of evangelization.
A) New Missionary Initiatives
This group would reflect on: new ways of evangelization, new opportunities for parish missions and retreats, a new vision for our communities in order to give witness of God’s presence
among us; the new evangelization through inter-provincial communities; our participation in the New Evangelization of Europe (in the work and the proposals of the Synod for the New Evangelization); our participation in the “Year of Faith” in the Church; to gather the new evangelization initiatives, to promote them in the Redemptorist spirit, to inspire us for more radical choices in our community and personal life.
B) Youth Ministry
Its purposes among other things would be: to search for new forms of pastoral work among youth; to collect experiences that would help us in the whole of Europe; to promote the integration of this ministry on the level of the Conference; to continue previous meetings of Redemptorist Youth (This group will care also for the organization of the next meeting in San Sperate in Sardinia in 2013); to look for different possibilities of working with young people in new inter-provincial communities.
C) Partnership in Mission
This group will reflect on: greater participation of the laity in our work of evangelization; different forms of cooperation with Lay Missionaries of the Most Holy Redeemer and our partners in Mission; collecting experiences and promoting them;(a) reflecting on new possibilities of cooperation at the level of our Conference; creating new pastoral projects with the participation of the laity, the formation of the laity for our charism, how to collaborate with lay people in evangelization through our new inter-provincial communities; organising meetings for lay people at the level of the Conference; possible ways of collaboration with Laity about the implementation of the apostolic priorities of our Conference.
D) Social Ministry
This group will reflect on how we can make effective, the pastoral care of migrants and those from the margins of society who are often deprived of any pastoral help. Therefore the work of this group will be devoted to: searching for the pastoral care of these people in different parts of Europe, using the European Conference’s structures and the networks between the Conferences for this purpose, finding new ways of preaching Plentiful Redemption to migrants in Europe, collecting the experiences from this work; making the task of “Justice and Peace”; to help establish cooperation with non-governmental organizations; to organize “Colloquia” on migrants, (a) to reflect on the possibilities of working with migrants in new inter-provincial communities.
These four working groups would work within the Secretariat of Evangelization.
3) Secretariat for the Brothers
Aware of our history in which Religious Life is very strongly associated with the life and the work of Redemptorist Brothers, and aware of the signs of times, when for the first time we have a Brother as Consultor General, the Secretariat for the Brothers would take care of: the integration of Brothers in the various Units and also at the level of the whole Conference (different formation meetings, fraternal and so on); creating a new vision of Brothers because of the social, cultural changes which are taking place in Europe; vocations’ ministry related to the promotion of the Brothers in the various Units of the Conference; reflection on the role of Brothers in inter-provincial communities, as well as their ways of evangelization.
In addition to these Secretariats at the Conference level, there are also the “Financial Commission” and the “Communication Group”. The task of the “Financial Commission” would be to reflect on: the different possibilities of economic solidarity in the Conference, as well as in the whole Congregation; the possibilities of financial support for common pastoral, formation, or
missionary projects in the Conference; different possibilities of “Fund-raising”; to make an audit of financial affairs in the Conference.
In accordance to our discussions at the Assembly in Dublin, we would like to create a greater opportunity to exchange information among ourselves. This will be the task of the “Communications Group”. This group will deal with: information policy and how to implement it at the Conference level, so that we may learn more about each other and about our work; preparation of a website with all the necessary information for us all; gathering information from different Units about various pastoral projects, common initiatives; creating a space to exchange ideas, experiences, proposals.
The Consulta spoke also about inter-provincial communities, about the meeting of young French-speaking Redemptorists in Luxemburg in April 2012; about the Redemptorist Youth Meeting in San Sperate (Sardinia) in 2013; about the work of the Secretariat of the Conference in Rome, about new missionary initiatives and the signs of hope for us.
Different information
“A Meeting of Formators and Formandees” from the former Region of South Europe will be held from 10th to 13th of April 2012 in Colle S. Alfonso (Italy), and the “Meeting for Formators” from the former North Europe Region will be held from 11th to 14th of June 2012 in Lubaszowa (Poland).
I suggest that we get to know each other better and also share what we do best. For example; most of our Units arrange retreats for their members. It would be good if we share the opportunity of participating in these retreats with Redemptorists from other units. Of course the different languages can be a problem; but not for everyone. So if any Unit has this opportunity and would like to invite other Redemptorists, please send the information about the retreats, places, people who will lead the retreat and costs. Certainly it will help us to know each other in a better way and to better prepare us for more common work.
This request relates also to a variety of courses, workshops, pastoral sessions organized across Europe.
As I mentioned above when I was writing about the working groups – we want to have our own website. Please give us your suggestions.
The address of the Secretariat of the Conference of Redemptorists of Europe, (also the residence of the Coordinator and the Secretary of the Conference) is:
Piazza dei Quiriti, 17 I-00192 Roma
Italy
ph. – (0039) 06 989 33 857
coordinator@cssr-europe.com o secretariat@cssr-europe.com Meetings of Coordinator (after the Assembly in Dublin)
I would like to thank Fr. Lorenz Voith the Provincial of Vienna, as well as Fr. Jozef Dudek, Superior of Copenhagen Region, for the opportunity of participating in the meeting of the Redemptorists in Copenhagen on November 4th. Members of the Ordinary Council from the Province of Vienna, Redemptorists who are working in Denmark and the Provincial from the Province of Liguori (India) Fr. Joy Poonoly, (two Indian confreres are working in Denmark) all met together. There was the discussion about the Pastoral Plan and our future in this Region.
The Coordinator attended the meeting of Major Superiors of our Congregation in Rome and Materdomini from 11th to 19th of November. During this meeting there were also talks with Father

General and Fr. Josef Michalčik about the next steps of the restructuring process in the Province of Prague, and a meeting with Fr. Vaclav Hypius, V-Provincial from Bratislava about the possibility of creating a new inter-provincial community in the Balkans.
The Coordinator took part in the meeting of the General Secretariat for Formation, which was held from 22nd to 25th of November in Rome.
Our next Consulta will be held from 16th to 18th February 2012 in Rome. If you have any suggestion about the issues, please inform the Conference Secretariat.
in the Redeemer
Jacek Zdrzałek CSsR Coordinator of CRE
Rome, December 21, 2011