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2424 DECEMBER 2007 MARIST NOTEBOOKS information studies • Concerning the secularisation of the • Jean-Claude Courveille “The lost leader” Marist Fathers (1st part) Fr. Bernard BOURTOT, sm Br. Frederick Mc MAHON, fms • Account of the defence of Richard Hemeryck’s thesis s FFBr. André LANFREY, fms s actsmm documents • Acts of the Marist inter-branch symposium • Letter 40 by Brother François to a master on the 24th June 2006 of novices – Patrimony Research Br. Eduardo GATTI, fms – Formation in Marist patrimony Institute of the Marist Brothers SUMMARY information FMS MARIST NOTEBOOKS No. 24 – Year XVIII – December 2007 • Concerning the secularisation of the Marist Fathers Editor-in-chief: Fr. Bernard BOURTOT, sm 3 International Patrimony Commission Publishing Director: • Account of the defence Br AMEstaún of Richard Hemeryck’s thesis Contributors to this edition: Br. André LANFREY, fms 5 Brs André Lanfrey Frederick Mc Mahon Eduardo Gatti acts Translators: • Acts of the Marist inter-branch Brs Ross Murrin th Frederick Mc Mahon symposium on the 24 June 2006 7 – Patrimony Research 8 Formatting & Photolithography by: – Formation in Marist patrimony 35 TIPOCROM Srl - Guidonia (Roma) Editing and Administrative Centre: studies Piazzale Marcellino Champagnat, 2 C.P. 10250 – 00144 ROMA • Jean-Claude Courveille Tel.: (39) 06 54 51 71 st Fax: (39) 06 54 517 217 “The lost leader” (1 part) 51 E-mail: [email protected] Br. Frederick Mc MAHON, fms Website: www.champagnat.org Editing by: documents Institute of the Marist Brothers General House – Rome • Letter 40 by Brother François Printing by: to a master of novices 99 CSC GRAFICA Srl - Guidonia (Roma) Br. Eduardo GATTI, fms INFORMATIONINFORMATION AA newnew publicationpublication Br. André LANFREY, fms Father Bernard Bourtot SM has recently finished a study on the seculari- sation of the Marist Fathers in France at the start of the twentieth century. The work, 295 pages in length, is entitled: The Wounded Memory of the Society of Mary in France. The civil dissolution in 1903; the liquidation of goods; the life of the congregation 1897 – 1922 To obtain a copy of the work (€15, postage not included) contact the author directly: 29 Montée de la croix blanche, 38080, Saint Alban de Roche, France. E-mail: [email protected] The expression “wounded memory of religious congregations” used by the political expert and historian René Rémond is used by Bernard Boutot in its two-fold meaning of both a memory of a painful ordeal and of a mem- ory overlooked by the congregation itself. He thus endeavours to open to history a phase of his congregation that is not well known. For that he does not content himself with internal sources but his research refers unceasingly to general history and uses public sources extensively, especially the jus- tice documents conserved in many public archives. His conclusion appears to me all the more remarkable because it can be applied largely to other congregations, including the Marist Brothers. At first he presents a dispersed congregation, losing lawsuit upon law- 3 suit, seeing its members scatter and often experiencing a profound crisis of personal identity, having trouble to recruit, managing from day to day an avalanche of disagreeable or disastrous events. In short the Society of Mary was forced to live its motto: “ignoti et occulti” in an unforeseen and painful manner. But this calamitous time was also one of a resistance which was to bear fruit: transfer to Rome of the General House; creation of new Provinces; a more profound entrenchment in the Society by an increased stability of its personnel; and considered formation of young people. I was particularly interested in a small table (page 226) which compares the membership of 1903 and 1920: 763 professed priests in the first case; 766 in the second. Behind this overall stability, which is a healthy situation in itself, one finds a significant trend by the congregation towards interna- tionalisation: in 1903 there were 209 priests in England, Ireland, USA, Mex- ico and New Zealand, but in 1920 these countries totalled 292. At the same time the Provinces of Lyon and Paris passed from 346 priests to 209. It is important nevertheless to point out that, contrary to a myth well an- chored in congregations, it was not French secularisation that caused this expansion for that had started well before. Secularisation, rather, unsettled it, made the more spectacular by the fact that the membership of France di- minished so quickly. Thus the spread of the religious congregations across the world occurred essentially from their own dynamism and in spite of sec- ularisation, even if one cannot deny some positive effects from it. 4 DefenceDefence ofof aa thesisthesis Br. André LANFREY, fms In 2005, Brother Richard Hemeryck from the community of Beaucamps defended a history thesis entitled Congregational Schools in the Department of the North under the Second Empire (1852 – 1870). It is an extremely well researched work, fruit of thirty years of research. It is arranged in four volumes: 1745 pages of the thesis itself in three vol- umes, and a volume of notes and sources in 763 pages. Unfortunately, such a wealth of information is not easily mastered by the non initiated and we hope that Brother Richard will extract a more accessible work from all his research, or at least a summary article. In fact the thesis offers a chronology a little larger than that suggested by the title: it concerns rather the years 1850 to 1880. Let us remember that the Department of the North, bordering Belgium, was affected by an intense in- dustrialisation and a powerful effort of popular schooling in which the con- gregations, and among them the Marist Brothers, played a major part. It was a time of hesitation between two worlds: in 1850 the Falloux Law encouraged congregational expansion for ten years, while the more liberal Empire of Napoleon III (1852 – 1870) curbed the congregations that ap- peared to it to be invading. A little before 1880, as the Republicans came to power, they brought with them a decidedly anti-congregational policy. The interest of the work is thus in its offering a synthesis of the action of twenty-four congregations of sisters and six congregations of brothers, in a 5 transition period, across a relatively large territory and a large population (close to 1.5 million inhabitants). In the conclusion (from page 1735) the author develops a few lines of reflection: First, the congregations knew how to respond to needs that were not be- ing entirely satisfied by civil society, and provided pedagogical models for this. But “two paths opened in front of the progress of lay institutions. The first was one of quality: to continue their mission as pioneers, forerunners, animators, in a Christian spirit. They chose, rather, the second option, that of competition” […] “In a struggle that became more and more unequal, the increase in the number of works exhausted the energies of the religious and drew them onto a terrain that was more human than supernatural …” Second, highlighting the hostility of a lay and republican France towards priests and religious it considered as “citizens different from the others” – in other words inferior – Brother Richard recalls: “In 1870-1871, the separation was less pronounced in the Department of the North. The majority of its inhabitants did not ask for much. The con- gregational school was accepted there. It was more a national debate than a local one. The Republic was going to partially take over from the Church, often with lively force.” 6 MaristMarist InterbranchInterbranch MeetingMeeting onon PatrimonyPatrimony During the annual meeting of the Marist Brothers’ International Patri- mony Commission in Rome earlier this year, Brother Pedro Herreros CG and the members of the Commission invited the superiors of the other Marist branches to gather on the 24th June 2007 at the General House of the Marist Brothers for a seminar on topics of mutual interest. During the morning, various participants presented summaries of the state of research in their own Institutes: the people who are involved in it, the relationships between them, and the formation of future researchers. A time was taken to make a succinct account of the results obtained and new pathways of research concerning each of the Marist congregations. The final presentation of the morning was made by Brother André Lan- frey who gave a paper which discussed the validity of understanding the Marist Brothers as “The Society of Mary of the Hermitage”. The afternoon was given to some information sharing on initial and on- going formation in patrimony as well as the resources that were being used for that. 7 MORNING: THE DEVELOPMENTS IN RESEARCH AND FORMATION IN MARIST PATRIMONY 1.THE MARIST FATHERS Fr. Kevin MOWBRAY, sm October 2003 At the initiative of the Superior General, a workshop brought together about twenty Marist Fathers engaged in one way or another in Marist stud- ies. The theme of the workshop was to conserve, reinterpret, communicate our Marist heritage in a changing context. (cf. Forum Novum, December 2005) It had the objective of developing lines of action for the years ahead. Outcomes of the workshop: – A decision to centre Marist studies on the period of the generalate of Colin, with a special accent on what constitutes Colin as man and founder, and, besides, what he lived and did as Superior General. – A decision to organise a symposium on “Colin and Oceania: the Su- perior General of the Marist Fathers and his role in the history of the Catholic Church in Western Oceania”, • at Suva, Fiji, five full days, in August 2007 • with a double dimension (academic and formative) • with representatives from FMS and from SMSM – The continuation of the publication of sources • Letters from missionaries to the General Administration of the Marist Fathers during the Generalate of Colin (published by Charles Girard in hard copy and digital formats, from 2003 until the symposium) • Colin’s letters during his Generalate: “Colin sup”, Documents for the study of the generalate of Jean-Claude Colin (1836-1854).