Report from the World Secretariat

After nearly seven years of serving the world community as Executive Secretary, I am grateful for this opportunity of sharing with you some insights I gained during this time. Although I have been frequently worried these last months of preparation, I have been eagerly looking forward to this assembly. It is a special grace to participate at such an event and certainly a great pleasure to meet so many friends.

In deep gratitude I look back to seven rich years of my life. I am grateful for many things. First of all, there is all the help and friendship I experienced through the Society of Jesus. For me personally and for CLC much good arose from the fact that the World Secretariat is housed at the Jesuit Curia. Fr Kolvenbach always has had an open ear for me and has shown much interest in my work. I have learned to appreciate deeply his precious advice.

Gratefully I have borne witness to good signs of growth. The awareness in most of our national communities of being part of a world community is developing well. The sense of responsibility for each other and the community as a whole could be seen in the reactions to our mailings and suggestions. The discussion about the Charism document and the comments concerning our structures were lively and showed mature and responsible CLC members. It was encouraging to see how seriously the preparation for Itaici has been taken in most of the national communities. The preparation material from the World ExCo was generally well accepted and used.

Another achievement to be grateful for is the good work of Julian, our Vice-Eccl. Assistant, in creating awareness for CLC among the Society of Jesus and in training Eccl. Assistants around the world. Julian and I always tried our best to talk to any visiting Jesuit about CLC and the need for collaboration with the Society of Jesus. I think that these past years many more Jesuits have become interested in working with CLC.

After a thirty years CLC journey, we praise the Lord for all that has been given to us. There is no better way of praising him than by faithfully continuing to fulfill his will as Jesus teaches us and as Mary, our Mother and companion on the way, has shown us through the example of her life.

But why, then have I also been worried and why do I want to share this with you? Coming from a business background, I was used to a certain efficiency, a well-staffed office and enough financial means to operate. In the Secretariat in Rome I found myself lacking most of these. In addition I felt my own limitations strongly. I did not speak Spanish, French or Italian and English is not my mother tongue. Yet I was responsible for Progressio and Projects in these three languages and had to correspond with national communities around the world. A heartfelt thanks to Julian at this point. Faithfully and efficiently he translated Progressio, Projects and the official mailings to the world community into Spanish.

What I had thought of being a real asset to my work for the world community, namely my sound CLC formation, my formation as a guide of the Spiritual Exercises and the experience in helping others to grow in the CLC way of life, I could not use in the way I would have liked. The lack of finances and the situation in the Secretariat did not allow me to travel more frequently or to get more involved in formation work. Seeing the need for formation in many national communities and not being able to help them better has always been painful for me. Whenever I had a chance to visit national communities or to participate in courses and meetings, I felt it a highlight of my work, even when I had to make up my absence from the secretariat by working late night hours.

Another painful factor I experienced was the lack of continuity in the World community. To give you an example: A few weeks ago I looked by chance at some material from the first International CLC Formation course that took place in Rome, 25 years ago in 1973. One hundred and five CLC participants from 31 countries met for 15 days. Most of them were leaders or formators in their own countries. The criteria for participation were: CLC involvement, human maturity, spiritual maturity and social responsibility. All elements of our CLC way of life were presented in an appealing and experienced way by people who seemingly had much experience in formation and the CLC way of life. When I saw how well balanced all elements of CLC formation were presented, and how well the social and apostolic dimension of our specific charism was developed, I felt we should have built more on this basis and I am wondering how we can learn from this from the future.

The World ExCo and their "executive arm" the Executive Secretary, alone are unable to guarantee continuity and unity of formation in the world community. Therefore, the World ExCo has made a few suggestions as you heard earlier in the report on Structures.

Now a few words to explain the working situation in the Secretariat. Our financial situation and other facts, which I cannot explain here, did not allow me to staff the secretariat in a way that it could function better. In the past six and a half years I spent much time and energy training nine different people each of them staying for a year or two at the most, and then leaving for various reasons. A big exception is dear Van Nguyen, a young woman of Vietnamese origin, who has now been working with me full time for over four years. She is responsible for updating the address files and all the administrative work connected with Progressio. Van took over a huge amount of administrative work and, after my illness last year, I also trained her to do the accounting. She has been extremely faithful and since, I could not offer her any security or social benefits which she would have had when working for an Italian enterprise, I collected money from private donors (outside CLC) to pay into a Social Benefit fund. Van, married to an Italian since one year, gave birth to little Chiara, on July 4th. The money for the five months of maternity leave will be paid out of this account and there should always be a reserve so that we can help Van when needed. I hope that she will be working with us for many years to come.

Working for a community, I often felt alone in my work and in the decisions to be made. It was hard for me often to neglect important issues because I could do no more. Our NGO status was one of these issues. Every day I receive mountains of publications and correspondence from the various UN departments or other NGOs and I did not even have time to read them all. Sending two CLC delegates to the World Women Conference in Beijing 1995 was quite an achievement. The money for this came from former business associates. Father Dan Fitzpatrick and Father Henry Volken were often left alone and I am ashamed to say, even paid most of their expenses from their own pockets. Thank you, Fr Dan and Fr Henry, for not giving up because you know better than any of us how important your work is. ( cf proposals from a working group on NGO).

I always tried to give enough time to visitors from around the world to make them feel at home in the World Secretariat. Many contacts with visiting CLCers, Jesuits and sisters from Ignatian orders as well as a lively E-mail communication around the world, kept me sane and helped me to realize that giving one’s time and energy for CLC is worthwhile. I have met wonderful people in this community and I am very grateful for my CLC vocation.

Good relationships with the Pontifical Council for the Laity and other movements in the Church were considered important, too. It was a wonderful experience of community this May when eight of us (five of us are present here: José Maria Riera, Agnes Rausch, Michael Mifsud, Gilles Michaud), participated at the World Congress of Ecclesial Movements. In these days together we were able to live community. We all felt that CLC has much to offer in the Church and society. For me, our role in proclaiming Christ in the Third Millennium is taking shape. I hope that by the end of our time here, the Lord’s Spirit will have made clear the next steps to take.

Busy as you all have been in preparing for our assembly, you might not have noticed that no Progressio has yet been published this year. My six weeks of absence last year and the increasing workload in preparation for the assembly had forced me to make this hard decision. It embarrasses me to think that our subscribers have already paid for something they will only get in the last quarter of this year. I always enjoyed preparing Progressio although I am quite aware that I did it amateurishly. One person cannot do well what should be the task of a team.

A most encouraging and heartwarming experience at the beginning of this year was the three-month presence of Agnes Rausch in the World Secretariat. For three months Agnes left her much beloved and important work with refugees in Caritas Luxembourg to help me. The time with Agnes confirmed me in my opinion that a team should be working together in the World Secretariat. Agnes’example inspired my local CLC group. When she left, Antonella from my group came to the rescue. With Van absent I would not have known what to do without this precious help.

I am telling you all this because I strongly feel that, as the governing body of our community, you must have a clear picture of the situation to enable you to give clear recommendations to the new ExCo or to make decisions about our structures. As you know, our friends Gilles Michaud and his wife Leah, will be taking over from me and will start their work in the Secretariat in October. They will need your support, and the ExCo you will be electing will need your recommendations and support, too. A well functioning task force, an apostolic team, a formation team, etc. as proposed in the report on structures will need committed and capable people who can devote much time to the different responsibilities. It will also need organizing minds. Before these teams can function, an additional workload will be put on the World Secretariat.

To set up these teams all at once is not practicable. Do you agree that a FORMATION TEAM should be given priority? When creating this formation team we should ask ourselves "what has made me grow most in CLC?" Are not the living testimonies of others most important and do they not have the greatest impact? Intellectual formation is, of course, important but it is not the essential part of CLC formation. We have to ensure that we pass on our CLC way of life through lived experiences. We have to clarify how the General Principles are to be implemented into the daily lives of the individual and the community. We must not allow them to be interpreted simply by charismatic individuals. Openness and flexibility are a good thing but giving in to the ‘Zeitgeist’ is something else.

In some national communities important elements of our CLC way of life are not or cannot be lived because of a lack of formation or because possibilities are lacking, e.g. to make the Spiritual Exercises or to get appropriate spiritual guidance or group guidance. If we expect newcomers to CLC or national communities to be ready for mission as we understand it, without offering them the necessary basic formation, we should not be surprised if something other than CLC develops.

I have put together two pages with a brief review of our history. Perhaps they may help to reflect our journey and to avoid mishaps of the past. Why did the Marian Congregations lose their Ignatian roots and develop into a mass movement? Perhaps one reason was that for us human beings there will always be the temptation to be too impressed by big numbers and a glamourous visibility. Evangelic visibility grows out of following the humble and suffering Christ. As CLC we must not be afraid to be "radical" when it comes to this essential truth. Jesus Christ is the centre of our spirituality. He is the way and He is the goal. Our apostolates and services as individuals or community will not become mission if not based on our personal relationship with Christ ( . . apart from me you can do nothing .. s. John 15.5.). If we live the CLC way of life in truth we cannot be other than an apostolic community on mission as we follow "Jesus Christ more closely and work with Him for the building of the Kingdom."

Roswitha Cooper