On June 10, 2024, the third annual course for Franciscan Missionaries began with Mass presided over by the Vicar General of the Capuchin Franciscans, Friar José Ángel TORRES RIVERA. The course is held on a different continent each year.

For twenty years, this formation course for Franciscan missionaries of the First Order had been conducted in Europe, in Brussels. However, after the recent pandemic, and after a careful evaluation of the course itself, the Ministers General and the Delegates General for Mission Animation decided to have the course taught directly where the friars would be doing missionary work. Therefore, two years ago, the course was held in Uganda. Last year, it took place in the Philippines. This year it is being conducted in Brazil. Unlike previous years, last year’s course included, for the first time, a friar from the Third Order Regular (TOR). The TOR is expected to participate again this year.
After the opening Mass, a ritual was carried out in which the participants symbolically blessed their senses with holy water to ask for God’s help and to devote themselves more deeply to the coursework that lay ahead.
This year’s course is being held in the Amazon, in Benjamin Constant, Brazil, a place where the borders of Peru, Colombia and Brazil converge. The Capuchin friars are hosting this year’s participants, who, along with the team of leaders and facilitators, come from Bolivia, Poland, Costa Rica, Brazil, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico, India and Colombia.
There are some Conventual Franciscans among them, namely, Friar Erick MARÍN CARBALLO, as a leader; Friar Roberto TOMICHÁ CHARUPÁ, as a facilitator; and Friars Julio Cesar Gonçalves COSTA and Mariusz PRUSZAK, as participants.
This year’s course is focused on forming missionaries to work in various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The course is designed for missionaries who currently work there. It is also designed for friars coming from other continents who want to become missionaries there and for friars from Latin America who will be working in a different country other than their own.

Friar Dariusz MAZUREK
General Delegate for Mission Animation