CHURCH CONGRESS IN ROME

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26319, 13 January 1951, Page 2

CHURCH CONGRESS IN ROME

800 MONKS AND PRIESTS ATTEND

(By ADRIENNE FARRELL, Reuter Correspondent.)

Vatican City.—Some 800 monks and priests representing every Roman Catholic religious order in the world met in Rome from November 6 to December 8 to plan modernisation of their religious Vir?j n keeping with present-day needs. With Latin as its official language, the 12-day congress provided a unique opportunity. to members from the most diverse religious orders to discuss common problems and exchange information and experiences in facing tasks of the modern materialistic world.

Its delegates represented ‘1.200,000 men and women members of orders scattered in thousands of monasteries, convents and religious institutions, ranging from the Contemplative Trappist Monks to the Militant Jesuits and the Teaching Salesians.

Two main results are expected to emerge from the congress; (1) the redirection of manv religious orders towards more active work—social, educational or missionary; (2) a gradual federation of the religious orders to work together, each with its own autonomy and in its own field, towards the common goal of spreading and consolidating Roman Catholicism. The congress is a sequel to a call by the Pope to the Roman Catholic clergy to adapt themselves to modern times with renewed devotion to their ministry in the face of increasing threats to religion. The 1.500,000 Roman Catholic clergy and members of religious orders, who form the church's most devoted and most disciplined members, minister to the world’s 420.000.000 Roman Catholics. Of these, more than half are women, there being an estimated total of 800.000 nuns. The remaining 700.000 are monks, priests and lay members of male religious orders. Among them are about 300.000 secular parish priests and 400.000 monks and other members of religious orders, of whom about half are priests and the other half lay members. The new tendency toward a federation and towards a more active life by members of religious orders is regarded in some circles here as the “eighth stage" in the gradual modification of the Roman Catholic conception of religious life over the centuries in relation to contemporary problems. Each change has brought a greater perception of the church’s social task, bound up with the religious life.