In the attached convent seen below there are now just six elderly Capuchin Franciscan friars left. They staff this parish and the chapel of the Verano cemetery. Across the street is the largest university in Europe, La Sapienza. A few other clerics live with the friars to help pay the bills.
If I were the Vicar of Rome I would get the youthful Franciscans of the Immaculate in here to take over the controls and beign to get some serious work done.
Sadly, the Capuchin Order is a dead one in Italy, with less than 20 novices for the whole country. The Order has declined from about 16,500 members before Vatican II, to less than 10,000 today. The Order ispractically wiped out pretty much in most of Austria, France, G.Britian and Ireland, and parts of Germany and Netherlands. It's not even doing well in Latin America.
ReplyDeleteThe Capuchins of Morgon, France, affiliated to the SSPX, are probably the only authentic Capuchins left in the world.
Um, no. If somebody is in formal schism, then that somebody is not the only "authentic" capuchin left in the world.
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