Dear Brothers, 

This morning the delegates of Asia celebrated the morning praise and Eucharist together at the cell of St. Dominic. It was a prayerful experience for all of us. Usually, our liturgical celebration is multi-lingual. This time we prayed together in just one language (English) and for the special intentions of the Asian continent.

The text of the commission on Dominican Family was voted on yesterday and that of the commission on Government today. Here are some of the highlights of the last two days:

On the Dominican Family. One concern of the capitulars is to come up with a distinction between the titles of Order of Preachers and Dominican Family. The proposal of the commission is to leave it to the Dominican Family General Assembly by the year 2000. Evidently, this is not the expectation of the majority. So a special comission is formed to work on this distinction and also to come up with the criteria for the aggregation of entities to the Order. I think there are two texts of the commission which would give vitality to the life and mission of the Order. One is concerning the International Dominican Youth Movement. (IDYM) It is a movement of mainly young lay people "who are committed to be disciples of Jesus Christ and they assume in their lives the basic Dominican values of prayer, study, community, and preraching." What is heartening is that this Chapter acknowledges them "to be members of the Dominican Family" and encourages all the branches to support this movement. Another, is the recommendation to establish an International Dominican Volunteer Movement. This is meant to provide opportunities to lay people to share in our mission. 

On Government. The thrust of the commission's work is on collaboration. It legislated on regional structures and interprovincial collaboration. Regarding the latter, it asks for contracts for specific collaborative projects. The commission proposed to change the interval between chapters into every 4 years , lenghtening the Master's term into 12 years. The chapter voted it down. To my recollection, this is the first proposal on the floor to be voted out! Good news! The chapters in the future will be shorter. It is approved that a chapter's duration shall not exceed 20 days, and 28 days for an elective one.

We shall debate and vote tommorow on the proposals of the commission on Formation and Community. The text is long but hopefully also very substantial.
 
By the way , our brother, Fr. Winston who studies at Bari, will come to Bologna tommorow to pay me a visit.

My fraternal and best wishes to all.

Fr. QUIRICO PEDREGOSA, O.P.
 

© 1998 Order of Preachers  General Chapter, 1998  Internet site by Scott Steinkerchner OP  email: steinkerchner@op.org