Dear friars,
At the close of the 203rd General Chapter of our Order, we wish to reach out to you with this brief letter. We do so feeling grateful to the Lord for the days we spent together in Rome at the Seraphicum, a community that welcomed us and made us all feel at home. There were about 120 friars present, including those who worked in secretarial and logistical roles. Together, we shared, discussed, and voted on topics that were important and meaningful for our lives as Conventual Franciscan friars.
Through the Order’s website, you were able to follow our work day by day, and some grace-filled events such as the pilgrimage to Assisi for the election of the Minister General on the Vigil of Pentecost, June 7, 2025. Friar Carlos was reconfirmed in this service with broad support. We offer him and his Definitory our encouragement. May they animate the fraternity of the entire Order with dedication and wisdom over the coming six years.
At the conclusion of the Chapter, we had the joy of an audience with Pope Leo. Mentioning the 800th anniversary of the composition of the Canticle of the Creatures, the pontiff said: “I urge each of you personally, and in each of your fraternities, to be a living reminder of the primacy of the praise of God in Christian life.”
We would like to leave you with a portion of the greeting the Minister General to Cardinal TAGLE who presided over the Mass we celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica, just prior to our audience with the Holy Father. We think it captures the overall character of the Chapter.
“We have rediscovered, with renewed awareness, a few words that serve as a compass for our present time: hope, mission, and charismatic quality. Hope urges us to look beyond, to not be overcome by weariness or defeated by the difficulties of the present. It is the hope of the Gospel, which comes from the risen Crucified One and makes us men capable of the future. Mission is the beating heart of our Franciscan vocation: to go forth, with nothing of our own, to proclaim peace, to serve the least, to share in humanity’s questions about meaning, and to encounter Christ in the existential peripheries.
Finally, charismatic quality calls us to recognize the beauty of our specific gift: to live the Gospel radically through fraternity, minority, and praise, offering credible and attractive witness to the world.
Within this perspective lies our humble service of fostering peace and fraternity, which we wish to strengthen: being a gentle yet steadfast presence in places where conflict reigns, speaking kind words in places where violence prevails, and working toward reconciliation in places where communion seems impossible.”
Dear friars, we know that we do not yet fully live all of this. Still, let us embrace these words as a healthy challenge. We offer them to you so that they may mark the steps of our common journey.
The Capitular friars
Rome, June 21, 2025
