“Forty years in prison or five years of forced labour”

It should be said from the outset that although the Provincial Assembly is a consultative body, and the resolutions that come out of it do not have the force of law, it is still very important because it enables the Provincial Administration to be given clear observations and guidelines with a view to the synodal management of the Province. 

Sixty-one confreres from the Province’s eighteen communities and two new missions took an active part in this provincial event. Also present were Father Stéphane Nzuengi, a missionary in South Africa, and Father David Szatkowski, from the United States Province. This Provincial Assembly, the tenth after the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary, had a very special resonance. Indeed, after the celebration of the 11th Provincial Chapter in February 2024 and the installation of the new Provincial Administration, it highlighted the broad outlines and perspectives of the life of the Province for the next three years.

“Forty years in prison or five years of forced labour”

The theme that guided the discussions at this conference is more than telling: ‘Forty years in prison or five years of forced labour: Appropriation of the 2024-2027 Programmatic Letter’. An allegory, to be sure, but more than that, it’s a state of mind, an inspiration with concrete implications for real life. This is the new dynamic under the impetus of the new Administration, a dynamic that puts everyone on the train to take charge of the Province. 

As part of this process of taking charge of the Province the work consisted of a detailed analysis of the four pillars that make up the new Provincial Administration’s Programmatic Letter, namely: the Economy, Formation, Community Life and Social Works. In addition to the benchmarks already set by the preparatory committee, the exchanges and discussions enabled the objectives and strategies proposed for each pillar to be evaluated and enriched to achieve self-management. Each of these pillars has its own challenges, and this requires sacrifice and personal commitment from each member – in short, hard but liberating work. That’s the whole point of choosing five years of forced labour instead of spending forty years, and therefore most of one’s life, indulging in a life of dependency. Is this not the meaning of the ‘today of God’ (cfr. Cst. 147) which would like the Kingdom to be built hic et nunc? 

All the participants understood that time is now, and if we are to be proud of our autonomy in the future, it will depend mostly on the way in which each of us has taken on board and internalized today’s ‘five years of forced labour’. In this way, everyone will be able to count on each other’s contribution. Today, lived with optimism, determination and a great deal of faith and hope: that’s all we can say about this Provincial Assembly.