Madrid, Spain, May 8, 2007 / 09:16 am
The secretary for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Archbishop Agostino Gardin, OFM Conv., said this week religious life in Europe “is currently facing unprepared for difficulties.”
In an interview published in the latest issue of CONFER and summarized by the IVICON news agency, Archbishop Gardin said, “In the search for what is essential, we religious should discover what it means to be truly Christian.”
Archbishop Gardin, who was also Superior General of the Conventual Franciscans, pointed out as well that the problem of “de-Christianization” that is plaguing the European continent is having grave repercussions for religious life, with “a strong decline in the number of vocations, together with the increasing aging of religious.”
He noted the danger that these problems “monopolize all of the energies of religious institutes, making it more difficult to carry out a renewal and adaptation to the signs of the times.”