We would like to begin this report with a passage from the Holy Father’s letter on the occasion of our centenary. “How can we not thank the Lord for the good your Congregation has accomplished during this first hundred years of its life? It has remained faithful to that missionary charism your Founder received from the Holy Spirit and passed on to his sons. I am so very pleased with your faithfulness and I would urge you from the depth of my heart to continue on this path. Never change the spiritual and apostolic enthusiasm of your beginnings.” The Pope’s good wishes imply three sentiments we share and ask this assembly to adopt at the beginning of this General Chapter: praise and thanksgiving to God for the good the Congregation has accomplished; renewed efforts to be faithful to our origins and to the charismatic spirit we inherited from Blessed Allamano; and a commitment to unflagging missionary zeal in the future that lies before us. The Pope’s words are more than a program of life for the Congregation – they can provide the parameters of the chapter work we are initiating.
This report to the General Chapter will endeavor to draw up a balance sheet of what the General Government has accomplished in the last six years and provide – from its own perspective and in somewhat summary fashion – an overview of the current status of the Congregation (cf. Constitutions 114). This report includes the principal elements of the individual reports of the various General Offices and strives to provide an overview that is simultaneously concise and complete of the activities undertaken or coordinated by the General Government. Reports from the General Offices are available to Chapter members where anyone who so desires can read of those activities in greater detail. At the end of this report we have included evaluations of the principal aspects of our leadership efforts during these last six years. Our thoughts about future prospects are referred to here and there throughout the report but can be found in their entirety in the Instrumentum Laboris.
The necessary point of departure for this report is the Acts of the Tenth General Chapter (XCG) and the “1999-2005 Plan” the General Government drew up at the beginning of its term. We have made frequent reference to the Acts of the XCG in the past. They have inspired our work and the work of the Congregation. The “1999-2005 Plan” helped us determine specific objectives that would translate the Chapter’s inspiration into reality. These specific objects would be the goal of our journey.
Finally it should be noted that this report and the reports of the General Offices complement and complete the Instrumentum Laboris in providing a realistic picture of the Congregation from the General Government’s point of view. Region Directorate reports will supply other elements that will present a more complete and objective picture. May Blessed Allamano assist us in our efforts to understand the complex status of the Congregation and today’s missions. May he support our efforts to recognize the promise of new life and descry those new paths the Spirit of Pentecost is constantly revealing in the Church and in the world.


I. SIX YEARS: 1999-2005

We believe these past six years represent a significant period in the life of our Congregation. It has been a time of intense effort and abundant incident. The Bible tells us that God plants the seeds of salvation in every period of human history but closer examination of this period reveals how much the Holy Spirit has done for our Congregation in the last six years.
Three events in the last six years merit our special attention. They embody that promise we must cultivate and which will bear fruit in future years.

1. Six Years Following the Guidelines of the Tenth General Chapter (XCG)
Undoubtedly the XCG laid out bold new possibilities and abundant working proposals. The Chapter’s impact on Missionaries’ lives and the work of the Regions was strong and meaningful – especially in the areas of planning and celebrating Regional Conferences. We believe that all the Regions emphasized four areas.
- Effort to understand the local situation, as outlined in the Chapter’s “Contexts that challenge the mission.” No Region overlooked the importance of being fully aware of the constantly changing local situation. Interaction with the local situation will effect our lives and our missionary methods. This interaction will become a “sign of the times” and will provide new approaches to our work.
- The expression ad gentes is the very essence of what the XCG had to say. In all our Regions we have become familiar with this expression. It is especially appropriate to describe a return to our essential charism as Consolata Missionaries; it is the heart of Blessed Allamano’s inspiration. Reflection on ad gentes has launched serious examination throughout the Regions of our current activity and the need to re-think our efforts. This reflection may not have caused any great upheavals but it has awakened interest in clarifying our present work and defining any new projects we take on.
- Consolata Missionary spirituality has been revived and reconsidered since the last General Chapter; it has returned to those traditional values linked to our charism and the present-day concerns of the Church and the Missions. All the Regions have studied the principal elements of our spirituality and have made them the object of discussion in Regional meetings and annual retreats. The Regional reports to be read in this assembly will reveal the impact our reflections have had on the life and work of the missionaries (“Dispensatori dei misteri della Salvezza [Dispensers of the Mysteries of Salvation]”, “Povertà, economia e missione [Poverty, Finances and the Missions]”, “Consolazione [Consolation]”).
- Finally, the XCG provided some interesting, fertile insights for the missionary’s personal life and for the communities. To list them would take to much time. We believe that many of these ideas have been incorporated into personal and community life plans; they involve the need for change, for a serious commitment to ongoing formation, a more informed choice of new areas of work in the missions, greater fraternal collaboration with the Consolata Sisters, openness to lay people and their collaboration in our mission work.
- We cannot forget the emphasis on the missionary’s renewal of life that is almost a leitmotiv of the Acts of the XCG. Formation efforts on the General and Region level should have as their goal: the “re-motivation of individuals through the study and absorption of the charism and spirit of the Founder as well as the ideals of consecration, communion and the missions.” This goal has inspired all our efforts in formation on all levels. It calls our missionaries not just to update themselves but to become “new persons.”

2. Six Years that have witnessed jubilee and centenary celebrations
The beginning of this six-year period almost coincided with the opening of the Great Jubilee of Redemption of 2000. The XCG urged us to be mindful of the three jubilees that came one after another. They provided an excellent occasion for internal renewal and mission promotion.
For the Great Jubilee of 2000 we called upon the Congregation (cf. BU 88) to join the Church in the three stages of its “ideal pilgrimage”:
- Called to stand with Jesus and then sent out by Him (cf. XCG 24). This concept was especially emphasized by the Chapter – but it was taught even earlier by the Founder as a part of our life plan: “first saints then missionaries.” This was the Pope’s point of departure for the Church in the year of Jubilee. This is something with which we, Consolata Missionaries, are in full agreement. Communion with Christ and then proclamation to the people: these were the coordinates of our own Jubilee!
- Invited to purify our memory: intimacy with Christ increases our need for purification and conversion. Along with the Pope, the Congregation felt the need to ask for forgiveness. Our history is full of lights but unfortunately there are shadows too that undermine the efficacy of our message and the goals our Founder set for his missionary family. The two General Governments joined together to make amends for our past; many Region Directorates have done likewise.
- Urged to pass through the Holy Door: This eloquent symbol of the Jubilee Pilgrimage marks the end of a journey and the believer’s initiation of a new life – a life renewed in Christ and nourished by the Gospel. While the Church was crossing the threshold of a new millennium the Congregation was entering the second century of its life. The call was clear: we had to become new persons, becoming once more authentic sons of Allamano. We had to pursue what was extra in holiness, missionary zeal, courage to face the present and future of the missions; we had to fill the new wineskin of our second century of life with the new wine that comes from authenticity and purity of charism.

“One hundred years of consolation” was the motto that marked the celebration of our two anniversaries: the founding of the Congregation (2001) and the anniversary of our work in Africa (2002). We celebrated these two birthdays with a threefold effort (cf. BU 89):
- To remember, to recover those values found in a biblical exercise of remembering. Remembering makes us wise and allows greater penetration of those elements that are integral to our life and our vocation. Memory becomes a source of life; it opens us up to the creative work of God in us and in the world in which we work. Finally, memory gives us strength to overcome difficulty and unites us more closely to God.
- To celebrate what God has accomplished in our Congregation and in each of us. Celebrating anniversaries was something Blessed Allamano cherished and he wanted it to be a strong tradition in the Congregation. It helps us to recognize the work of God, to thank Him for what he has already accomplished and to ask Him to continue to work His wonders. It opens us up to the gift; it gives us a chance to review our own faithfulness to Him and to renew our efforts at conversion.
- To undertake a celebratory pilgrimage that involves our whole family and the People of God who are close to us. We describe this pilgrimage in the following words:
* “To feel that we today are heirs of a charism and a history that are rich in holiness and missionary zeal;”
* “To move beyond nostalgia for the past to fruitful remembering;”
* “To rediscover our family spirit;”
* “All the while being faithful to our mission ad gentes.”
It would be difficult just to list the many projects that marked those two years we celebrated the jubilee of our Congregation. But we cannot fail to name some of those projects in which the General Government was somehow involved: the celebration with Cardinal Sepe at the Sanctuary of Our Lady, the Consolata; the translation of the remains of Canon Camisassa to the Founder’s shrine in the Motherhouse; Youth Meetings for young people; the unforgettable celebration in Tuthu (Kenya) in the presence of many bishops and thousands of lay people; the study conference on the Congregation, its charism and mission; the study conference on the missions for Italian seminarians at the Motherhouse; publication of the photographic work, “The Kikuyu;” publication of a history of the Congregation (“La missione racconta”) and a biography of the founder (“La mia vita per la missione”) by the dearly departed Father Giovanni Tebaldi.
Along with all these spiritual and educational projects all the Regions were invited to take part in building two “commemorative monuments:” a small ecumenical chapel dedicated to Our Lady, the Consolata at Guder in Ethiopia and a chapel at Tuthu (Kenya) where our missionaries celebrated Mass for the first time in Africa. We were unable to complete the first project – problems and bureaucracy – but the second project was brought to a successful conclusion. Various Regions and individual missionaries contributed to the building of a chapel at Tuthu.

3. …marked by profound social change
The events of September 11, 2001 have had an enormous impact on our times and continue to be a symbol of the era in which we live at the beginning of this third millennium. It is a time of enormous tension. Undoubtedly this era is marked by many paradoxes. On the one hand globalization is creating a “global village” and on the other hand there are dramatic manifestations of division and conflict. We might almost say that the proximity brought about by globalization is the very cause of this violence. Other causes of social dysfunction persist and seem almost exacerbated by recent events.
We would call attention to several phenomena in today’s world that have a profound effect on our religious and missionary life, our Congregation and even on this Chapter. This list is by no means exhaustive; these “phenomena” are cited more as examples.
- A loss of critical conscience when confronted by history and the ethical choices individuals and society are constantly forced to make.
- Fear of making permanent choices especially when it comes to definitive life commitments.
- We live in a neo-liberal political and economic world that is strongly influenced by the media. The media dictate law in our world.
- Institutions are losing their authority and credibility. This is even true of the Church.
- The phenomenon of post-modernism reflects a spirit of dissent vis-à-vis the dogmas and absolute values embraced by modernism; it proposes alternatives, e.g. a relativist or approximate understanding of truth; in the area of social relations there is emphasis on fragmentation, heterogeneity and different forms of family life …
- Consecrated life that has been affected by post-modernism tends to emphasize the surface and not the essence, appearances rather than genuine values. It concentrates on symbols or external forms. It spares not effort to erect defensive barriers; it slips easily into fanaticism or Manichaeism. It has nothing against consumerism nor does it embrace radicalism. It falls into the rut of routine spiritual exercises and prefers works over authentic witness.
This is but a sketchy description of the problems we face; it is surely not an exhaustive list of what we may encounter. At the same time there are many hopeful signs both in the Congregation and in the Church at large. Awareness of the problems, though, ought to make us more vigilant and critical in confronting the world that surrounds us. We must be both humble, engaged and eager to change the pluralist world in which we live.