The second session of the Plenary Council will take place from June 17-23, 2013. It will begin with two days devoted to prayer and reflection. Joe Chinnici, OFM, President of the Franciscan School of Theology and former Provincial Minister of the St. Barbara Province, will share his reflections on the Franciscan mission in the Church with us. We will then be prepared to discover the mission of our Province.

Between these two sessions, we will try to keep the momentum going as we consider not only the mission of the Province but as we ask ourselves “What will be my role in carrying out that mission?”  There will be monthly reflection aids prepared for individual use. The goals of the Plenary Council will be on the agenda of the Leadership Workshop in September. During the fall, the Plenary Council will be on the agenda of local chapters. Regional meetings will bring together friars in larger groups to continue the discussion of the Province’s mission during the first weeks of Lent.

The topics of our discussions between the two sessions will focus on “mission and vision” as we consider questions such as:  What will we look like? Where will we be located? What is central to our identity? What animates us at our core? What are we going to do and how will we do it? What is my place in all this?

Helping us with this process will be Dominic Perri. Those who attended the last Provincial Chapter will remember Dominic and the contribution he made to making the Chapter such a positive experience.  We are very happy to have Dominic with us again.

If you have any questions about the Plenary Council, feel free to ask any one of the members of the preparatory committee: Tony Janik, Laurian Janicki, Steve Malkiewicz, Leslie Hoppe, and John Puodziunas. Your comments and feedback are essential. We want to hear from you. What do you think? How can we ensure that the Plenary Council achieve its goals? What are your thoughts about the mission of the Province? What are you prepared to do in order to advance the Province’s mission?

The topics covered include Jerusalem in the three Abrahamic religions, Jerusalem in various OT and NT traditions, the archaeology of the city. The final lecture focuses on the contemporary city.

Now You Know Media has has published many audio and video series on biblical, theological and spiritual themes. Bill Short, who spoke to us during the joint APA, has a couple of series on Franciscan spirituality. You can get information on the various series available at www.NowYouKnowMedia.com.

I have had a lot of experience lecturing in classes, in workshops, and retreats. But It was an entirely new experience to lecture to a camera with a timer ticking away in the background. There are twelve lectures in the series. I taped them in two days of marathon taping sessions. It was a bit disconcerting at first–until I got accustomed to the timer.

Again, if you’re interested, I have a few sets to give away. Just send me an email.

It is important that we consider the issue of the Province’s mission in Church and society today carefully. Please know that we will have many opportunities to hear each other so that we can arrive at a consensus about this issue so central to our identity as Christians, ministers of the Gospel and Franciscans.

What follows is a further description of the Plenary Council Session 1:

As the Provincial Chapter of 2011 was drawing closer, I was preparing two “State of the Province” reports. I wrote one in view of the discernment process with the St. John the Baptist Province reaching the point at which a proposal to move forward would be placed before our respective Chapters. A second report anticipated a decision not to continue with the discernment process. I was disappointed when it became clear that I could stop working on the first version of my report.

I was looking forward to the next steps in the discernment process since it would move us beyond the “getting to know you” events to the fundamental questions of charism and mission. How will a new Franciscan Province in the Midwest of the United States respond to Jesus’ call to make disciples, following the pattern set for us by Francis of Assisi? I anticipated exploring that question with our brothers of the St. John the Baptist Province. Our two Provinces has remarkable histories of responding to the needs of God’s People out of our Franciscan charism. But the cultural, social and ecclesiastical scene has changed dramatically since the late 19^th century. The first friars of our Provinces could hardly imagine where we find ourselves today. Moving forward with the discernment process would have given us the opportunity to think, reflect, discern, imagine, create, and pray into existence a new Province with a new focus, new energy, new commitment to carry out Jesus’ great commission with new energy. But that was not to be.

I was convinced that, despite the outcome of the first stage of the discernment process, we could not go back to “business as usual.” We brothers of the Assumption Province need to do by ourselves what most of us hoped we’d be doing with our brothers in the St. John the Baptist Province. The Plenary Council, authorized by the Provincial Chapter of 2011, is a vehicle that can harness our energy and stimulate our imagination as we reflect on the mission of the Province. The Plenary Council is not about our ministries. Local and Provincial Chapters are the proper setting to reflect on these. The present moment calls us to reflect on the prior question–the Province’s mission. How are we today, as bearers of the Franciscan charism, to bring the message of Christ’s Gospel to our brothers and sisters? How do the signs of the times–in the Church and in the world–shape our mission? What does the Franciscan charism have to offer to the people of this age? How can we become authentic and effective bearers of that charism?

So far eighty-one friars are coming to the Plenary Council. They will hear from the Brother José Rodriguez-Carballo, our General Minister, from Dominic Monti, our most recent General Visitor, and Sister Margaret Carney, the President of St. Bonaventure University. Each has a unique perspective from which they will to us of their vision of mission and the Franciscan charism. Their reflections will prepare us for the Second Session of the Plenary Council, which will take place next year (tentative dates: June 10-14). We will spend two days in prayer to hear what the Lord has to say to us before we then listen to each other. Our goal during the Second Session will be to identify the Province’s mission in our day.

The first session of the Plenary Council will begin soon. Plan to arrive in Techney any time after 3PM on June 10. Supper will be provided at 6PM and the Plenary Council will open at 7PM. During our Eucharist on June 11,we will thank God for the blessings God has given the Province and the Church through the life and ministry of our brothers, who are celebrating their jubilees of profession and presbyteral ordination. We will conclude with luncheon on June 12.

If you need transportation to Techney Towers, please contact Bert Pepowski at San Damiano Friary in Cedar Lake. (219-374-5741; 219-743-5551 [c]; bertpepo@yahoo.com). Bert will coordinate transportation.

See you on June 10 at Techney Towers.

Brother Jose Rodriguez-Carball

Margaret Carney

Dominic Monti

With the upcoming Plenary Council approaching, I and my fellow friars here at St. Francis Mission in Greenwood have been pondering, lately, as to how to best plan and prepare for this event. Perhaps the Provincial Blog could be a place to begin to exchange ideas or topics, etc., for the Plenary Council. With that possibility in mind, here is a point we discussed in Greenwood. Feedback is welcome.

The consideration or point we discussed here at the Mission was the rather “short” time we will be together for discernment and discussion. We understand that there will be a certain number of speakers “addressing” us with various input so that we might refine or re-define our Provincial mission and ministerial direction and service.  This is all well and good.   However… how much time will be left for us to actually discuss and grapple with our future possibilities as a Provincial entity in collaboration with the Order’s priorities and the inevitable OFM re-constitution in the US ?   And… how much of our input and discussion at the Plenary Council will be dedicated to, and leading us to, something concretely discerned and decisively actionable ?   Are there any ideas for our Plenary Council planners as to how to schedule for this possibility ?  Finally, what ongoing discernment and communication tools will we possibly be taking with us from the Plenary Council so that we can continue to discuss and move decisively to some kind of consensus and actionable new direction and mission?

Blessings and all Good to you, Brothers!

Bill Stout

surrounding the crucifixion. Amid conflicting reports, only the Qur’an can serve as an adequate guide, and the Qur’an provides no details of the events. If the circumstances ofJesus’ death were crucially important for believers, God would have revealed them in the Qur’an, but they are not.”

Obviously, Christians can never accept this diminishment of the cross’ significance in the divine plan, but they can look anew upon the Qur’anic data. The Qur’an’s theological agenda shines much more clearly than any assertions about history. The Qur’an consistently emphasizes Jesus’ humanity before God’s sovereignty and thus implicitly denies any potential salvific significance to Jesus’ death. However, the grammatical ambiguities of 4:157-8 and the spectrum of interpretations surrounding it suggest that one cannot confidently define the Qur’an’s understanding of the concrete historical facts regarding Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus may have died on the cross. He may have died at a later date. Perhaps he never died at all. The Qur’an provides clear answers about Jesus’ significance in the divine plan, but it does not clearly answer these historical questions.

The members of the fraternity have been busy with their respective ministries. Randy is chief of chaplains at the Jesse Brown Veterans Administration Hospital, which is just a few blocks from our residence. His work week goes from Sunday to Thursday. Most of his time is spent in administrative duties, supervising a staff of six chaplains. Of course, he does spend some time visiting patients and administering sacraments to Catholic patients. He offers Mass at the hospital three times per week.

Randy’s favorite recreational activity is playing bridge. Actually it is more than a pastime; it is his passion. He plays a few times each week locally and has participated in tournaments in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and Memphis, Tennessee. Randy serves the fraternity as our local minister. It is a challenging ministry since this is a new fraternity living in a new residence.

Michael Surufka is the Province’s Director of Vocations and also serves on the Provincial Definitorium. Michael is new in both positions. He has tackled the vocation ministry with energy and enthusiasm and if enthusiasm alone could attract young men to our way of life, the Province would have many postulants. Michael has brought men inquiring about religious life to the house as part of his “see the Province” approach to his interaction with prospective candidates.

Michael does most of the cooking of our evening meals. He not only enjoys performing this service for the fraternity but he also is quite the accomplished cook. During our unusually warm early spring, he planted a few perennials along our front entrance. He has contributed a lot to making the house our home. His current project is painting Leslie’s room. He has also developed plans for finishing the basement.

Leslie has returned to full-time teaching at Catholic Theological Union. During the spring and summer terms, he has adjunct status. In the fall, he will again have full faculty status as Professor of Old Testament Studies. In the spring semester, he is teaching courses on Intertestamental Literature and the Book of Genesis and tutoring a student in biblical Hebrew. Immediately following the end of the semester, he will direct CTU’s Israel retreat. Upon his return to the States, he will lecture in Mundelein Seminary’s Summer Scripture Institute and then offer a course on archaeology during CTU’s summer term.

Leslie continues his weekend ministry at St. Rosalie Parish in Harwood Heights, Illinois–a ministry he began in 1979. He serves the fraternity by doing the grocery shopping. He is eagerly awaiting the beginning of the major league baseball season because he is confident that the Cubs will make it to the World Series this year.

We still are not completely settled in our residence. A major project that remains is the house’s basement. It needs some finishing work and we have to carve out spaces for storage, the vocation office and the chapel. We do have a temporary chapel set up in our basement but we cannot reserve the Sacrament until we have a permanent worship space prepared. It must be inspected and approved by the Archdiocese before we can reserve the Sacrament.

We have had several visitors in the last three months. Friends of Michael and Randy have come to visit them. We have a couple of guest rooms and welcome our brothers to stay with us any time.

Our neighborhood was the scene of a tragedy last month. A young man was fatally stabbed outside the liquor store around the corner from our residence. Men tend to congregate around that store and apparently there was some disagreement that led to the stabbing. The presence of the liquor store is not appreciated by most folks in the neighborhood and this may be the impetus for having it closed down. It certainly will not be missed by most people.

The Illinois primary took place on March 20, 2012. It was the first election to take place since we moved in. Our polling place is at Crane Technical High School, located two blocks from our house. Our Congressman is Danny Davis (D), who was nominated for reelection. Our front lawn was littered by campaign literature. One candidate even asked us to place one of his placards in our window. Of course, as a tax-exempt entity we cannot engage in partisan politics.

Dr. Joseph Gebis, the very generous benefactor of our fraternity, had a bad fall just outside of the independent living facility where he resides. He suffered a hairline fracture of the tibia. Please remember him in prayer along with all the benefactors of our Province.

The fraternity at Adams Street wishes you all a blessed Easter.

As President of Aquinas Institute, Fr. O’Rourke welcomed seventeen theologians, two professors (Benjamin Baran and Bosco Piskula), and Cajetan Bogdanski, master of clerics, from the Province to AI for the fall semester of 1970. Christ the King Seminary in West Chicago had closed the previous May. Aquinas served as the Province’s school of theology until May 1980 when the Province chose to become a participating member of Catholic Theological Union. The change in schools of theology was precipitated by the decision of the St. Albert the Great Province of the Order of Preachers to relocated Aquinas Institute to St. Louis, Missouri.

Fr. O’Rourke was born in 1927 and entered the Dominican Order in 1947 after service in the Navy. He was ordained in 1954. He received a doctorate in canon law from the Angelicum in Rome in 1958. After completing his service at Aquinas Institute, he worked for the Catholic Hospital Association. He was one of the founders of the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at St. Louis University and became a leading Catholic voice in the field of bioethics. He was the author of more than 100 scholarly articles and co-authored with Benedict Ashley, O.P. Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Perspective. This book is now in its 5th edition and has become a standard text in the field.

Fr. O’Rourke was an important scholar in his field, a committed Dominican, a fine priest, and a real gentlemen. He helped make our transition from West Chicago to Dubuque very easy. His steady leadership during a period of dramatic change in theological education helped ensure that the theologians from our Province received an excellent preparation for the ordained ministry.

I attended from O’Rourke’s funeral at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in River Forest, Illinois and had the opportunity to renew acquaintances with several of our Dominican brothers from our Dubuque days. Charlie Bouchard is now the Prior Provincial. Benedict Ashley is 95. Though he is frail, his mind is as sharp as it ever was. He will miss Fr. O’Rourke, who was his best friend and collaborator. I also spoke with Tom McGonigle, Tom McDermott and John Gerlach. It was a bittersweet day. Fr. O’Rourke’s passing is a loss for the Church and the Dominican Order. Still, catching up with the Dominicans from AI brought back happy memories.

This past November 2011 I had the privilege of representing our province’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) office by traveling to the “Third Continental Encounter of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation” sponsored by the Franciscan friars in Quito, Ecuador. “Environmental Justice and the Challenge of Amazonia” was the theme of the conference.

At the risk of doing injustice to the people and all the topics that were presented, I would like to summarize what I learned.

Amazonia is the region in South America which serves as the various sources for the Amazon River and basin. This includes all the tributaries from the Andes Mountains flowing eastward from Ecuador, Peru and Chile and the various highlands and lowlands in Venezuela, Colombia and Guyana — all these feeding into the largest river of the Americas, the Amazon, which flows through Brazil.

This geographical area is the major oxygen producer for Earth! Winds flow westerly from the Atlantic Ocean, from Africa, and meet the Andes Mountains. From there, they disperse northward and southward, carrying moisture across the continent. The amazing flow of winds is fueled by the oxygen which the largest rainforest on earth produces.

However, the various Amazonian ecosystems are endangered due to human intervention by logging, gold mining, cattle herding on lands that were formerly jungle and petroleum extraction. All these adversely affect many indigenous peoples who dwell in the jungles as well as peoples of African, indigenous and European descent who live along the rivers, including the Amazon River itself.

This has, sadly, resulted in exploitation of the native peoples, the spread of disease and the deaths of several indigenous communities through disease and violence apparently sponsored (indirectly, perhaps) by businesses which seek profit at human expense.

Other subsidiary people-related issues include human trafficking of women and children into the sex slave trade and the navigation of the rivers by narco-traffickers who seek to avoid detection and arrest for their nefarious purposes.

In effect, though, the environment itself is threatened with diminished jungles, and so oxygen production, with the pollution of water which is devastating to flora and fauna alike, with whole ecosystems at stake.

The Franciscan friars, together with Franciscan Sisters and Secular Franciscans, seek to collaborate with other Catholic institutions and secular organizations to advocate on behalf of the people who are abused and adversely affected by the wanton destruction of the environment for monetary profit and on behalf of the environment which sustains human life.

The Catholic Church has a more recent history of standing in solidarity with and among the poor on behalf of justice.

This is the current call within our Order of Friars Minor, among other Catholic congregations of men and women, who are involved in Amazonia — to preach the Gospel and advocate justice for all, which is constitutive of the Gospel (Synod of Bishops, 1971). And, in this case — environmental justice.