The General Chapter 2017 (1)

Why have a chapter in Latin America?

Is it to allow the religious from the regions of St Michael Garicoits and St Mariam to do some tourism? Or to reduce travel for the religious of the “Fr Auguste Etchecopar” region? Without a doubt, it is not. Who presided over this choice?

The start of the missionary adventure of the community of the eight Betharramites chosen by Father Garicoits in response to calls from the Bishops of Bayonne and Buenos Aires. We would like to remember the month of August 1856 when a group of religious left their family framework of the Pyrenees to travel to the fringes of “The New World” which thousands of Basque and Bearnese people had emigrated to, no longer able to survive in large families in the Pyrenees. Betharram, in a unanimous voice, responded to this great missionary adventure to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. And in 1904, amid all the uncertainty, lifted by the expulsion of the religious from France, it was the opening towards Asuncion. But “you have not only a glorious history to remember and to recount…”

“...[you have] also a great history to accomplish”. (Consecrated Life, nr. 110) This journey towards new horizons supported our missionary boldness when we could have been tempted to curl back up into our shells, to deal with what we have, at least within our “old Europe”. We have to dare to live our choices in the face of new challenges, in the place we are in of course, but also by coming up with new people who would be capable of strengthening our hope, without leaving us crippled by our shortcomings. To think that Fr Guimon was 63 years old when he left Betharram in tears for America, conscious indeed of the sacrifice of his life that constituted this departure: “Betharram, Betharram, so I have to leave you then.”

We would wish for this crossing of the Atlantic for the Chapter to increase the availability - wanted by our founder - in all of us who make up the religious of Betharram: “The object of the Society is then to train and form these ministers so perfectly that at the first signal of the will of their bishop or superior they can be worthily chosen to work for the salvation of souls”. (RdV. 15). If the General Council has taken the decision for Paraguay to be the place for the Chapter, it’s good to continue to live out the mission in “Betharramite Community” in the new places that the Spirit may put to the discernment of the Congregation.

Laurent Bacho scj
General Councillor