Year for Consecrated Life to be launched

Vatican officials have confirmed that Pope Francis plans officially to launch a Year for Consecrated Life next autumn, saying its main purpose is to celebrate the renewal that the Second Vatican Council sparked in religious orders. But Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said the year-long celebration would also honestly assess the challenges and problems such orders face today.

He told journalists on 31 January that the Jesuit Pope was likely to celebrate the opening Mass for the Year for Consecrated Life on 21 November, a Vatican-established day to pray for cloistered nuns and monks. He said the closing liturgy would probably take place on the same date in 2015, just a few weeks after the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the Vatican II decree on the renewal of religious life, Perfectae Caritatis.

Francis, the first religious order priest since 1831 to be elected pope, announced plans for the special year for consecrated life in November last year during a long discussion with heads of men’s orders. He said on Sunday he believed the year was “necessary to evaluate with gratitude the experiences of consecrated life and to deepen awareness of the diverse charisms and spiritualities” of the various orders.

Speaking at the Angelus, the Pope said religious life was a “gift of God to the Church” and a “leaven for the growth of a more just and fraternal society”. He especially paid tribute to consecrated women. “Think what the Church would be like without the sisters! It’s not possible,” he said. “What would have happened if there were no sisters in hospitals, in the missions, in schools,” he continued. “Great are these women that consecrate their lives to the Lord, that carry forth the message of Jesus,” he reiterated.

Sunday marked the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, celebrated since 1987 to honour men and women religious. And at Mass earlier in the morning in St Peter’s Basilica, Francis said religious life was an “encounter between young people and the elderly, among observance and prophecy”, both marked by joy.

Cardinal Bráz said his Vatican office planned to issue at least three documents in the course of the Year for Consecrated Life – revised guidelines on the relationship between diocesan bishops and religious communities; recommendations to help religious orders responsibly manage their finances; and a text re-evaluating and promoting the place of non-ordained brothers in men’s orders.