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Religious Brothers Conference: We are Ministers of Mercy & Compassion

Religious Brothers Conference

Brothers from various religious communities and societies of apostolic life met from July 20-23, 2018 in Washington, DC for the annual Religious Brothers Conference.  From our prayer and discernment, we are compelled to speak.

We are men of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Brothers of the Church, we seek to live and proclaim the goodness and kindness of God by our lives and service. As Brothers gathered in communities of different nations, ethnicities and languages, we together attempt to live and act with unity within diversity.  Today, society in the United States and our Church needs to see and experience the mercy and compassion of God, through the lives of Brothers more than ever. We need to witness that a world living in right relationships is possible. Our ministries as Brothers are an essential element that can heal the woundedness of our world today.[i]-[ii]

We see and experience in our society acrimonious disagreement, intractable positions, unwelcoming attitudes and policies toward immigrants, the marginalized, persons of color, the unwanted, and the most vulnerable people among us who are forced to live in the peripheries of our world.[iii]  We see and experience the divisions within our own Church.  We experience often that our people are unwilling to listen, are polarized, quick to judge, categorize, eager to condemn, avoid dialogue, and refuse to encounter those with views, lifestyles, and ethnicities different than their own.

We join our brothers and sisters in leadership in our Church, particularly the bishops and the leadership organizations of religious women and men in condemning and working to eradicate all policies that militate against the scriptural exhortation to welcome and provide for the strangers and the oppressed, where we like Moses before the burning bush, “see the oppression of his people, who hears their cry, feels their anguish and comes down to liberate them.”[iv]

We pledge to actively embrace our responsibility as radical ministers of the Gospel, to be agents of solidarity, of reconciliation and peace, and to extend hope and welcome the most vulnerable in our midst, our brothers and sisters in Christ, to our common home. We, Brothers of the Church, today fully embrace the urgency to be Brothers to every person - all created in the image of God. We claim that which the Church has told us: “the thread which weaves through the Brother’s life is the experience of being sent as a sign of the maternal tenderness of God and the fraternal love of Christ.”[v]  We will be brother with each other and in our ministries with respect, humility, openness and attentiveness. We will strive to be agents of God by forgiveness, mercy and compassion. May each of us be witnesses and ministers of mercy and compassion. Amen.

 

[i]   Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (2015). Identity and Mission of the

    Religious Brother in the Church: Rome: The Congregation, Par. 30.

[ii]   Pope Francis (2015).  Misericordiae Vultus: Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.  Rome:

    Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Par. 15

[iii]  Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (2015). Identity and Mission of the

     Religious Brother in the Church: Rome: The Congregation, Par. 30

[iv]   Ibid, Par. 6

[v]    Ibid, Par. 40

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The Religious Formation Conference (RFC) is a national Roman Catholic organization serving religious institutes of women and men with programs and services for those in the ministry of initial and lifelong formation, and general congregational membership.

Animated by God’s vivifying presence, the RFC will stand at the forefront of discerning the formative horizon of the emergent in religious life. In concert with members and collaborative partners, the Conference will lead in the areas of initial and ongoing formation and the professional preparation of formators.

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1200 W. 35th St. #414
Chicago IL 60609-1305
Phone: 773.675.8362
Email: rfc@relforcon.org

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About RFC

About RFC

Mission, Vision, Values

Board of Directors

Staff / Contact

Membership

Congregational Members

Member Areas

Partners & Collaborators

Mary Emil Penet, IHM Award

Formators Network

Get news & notes

News Blog

Privacy Policy

Request More Information

Programs

Attend a Program

Request More Information

ForMission

ForMission 2.0

Life Commitment

Compromiso de Vida

Orientation to Formation

Ongoing Formation Circles

Webinars and Workshops

InterCongregational Collaborative Novitiate (ICCN)

Together

Programs and Initiatives Advisory Committee

Member Areas

Scholarship Funds

Cancellation Policies

Congress

Congress 2025

Congress 2023

Congress 2021

Congress 2019

Congress 2017

Congress 2015

Congress 2013

Congress 2011

Resources

Resources Portal

Online Formators Network

Webinar Recordings

Workshops & Presentations

InFormation Bulletins

Annual Reports

Scholarship Funds

News Blog

Online Store

Cancellation Policies

Request More Information

Members

Become a Member

Member Areas

Online Formators Network

Group Supervision

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