NEW SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE MARIST BROTHERS

New Zealand Tablet, 23 September 1920, Page 29

NEW SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE MARIST BROTHERS

(Contributed.)

In May last, there assembled at the Mother House of the Marist Brothers at Grugliasco, Italy, delegates from all parts of the world in which the Brothers labor to elect a Superior General, to succeed the Rev. Brother Stratonique, who, owing to age, had retired from the Generalship. The term of office lasts for 12 years, and General Chapters are convoked duodecennially to elect the head Superior and his assistants, as well as make amendments in the Rule and Constitution of the Order, which may be deemed desirable to suit the changing circumstances ;of the times and places in which the Brothers live and labor. The delegates, to the number of 61, hailed from all parts of the world, from China and Chile, from the frozen, regions of Canada down to the llanos of Argentina; from Capetown to Algiers in Africa; from nearly all the European capitals; and from the British Isles to ‘ their antipodes—New Zealand and Fiji. - The date . for the election was fixed for the 24th of May, and on that day all the Capitulars had assembled and the work of the Chapter began on lines prescribed for the proceedings. The choice of the Capitulants fell upon the Rev. Brother Diogene, who was an Assistant General of the Society for the Province of Northern France. The new Superior General. is a mail of about 65 years of agea Frenchman by birth, and hails from the part of the country which was the terrible arena of so many deadly struggles during the world war. He is a man of unassuming mien, sound judgment, great tact, ripe scholarship, and unswerving fidelity to duty. His devotion to his Brothers was forcibly illustrated during the progress of the war that ravaged the fair fields of France for four years; for during all this time, ho chose to live in the very centre of the - gigantic struggle. Scarcely had the Germans proclaimed war than their legions poured through Luxemburg, into the southeastern corner of Belgium, where they seized Arlous, in which was situated a Brothers’ novitiate that immediately became a military hospital. .Brother Diogene hastened "'7 ad speed to give all the encouragement, protection, and direction possible to the novices and postulants that *'\i m his power; but the enemy was in possession, and nothing could be done. He then fell back on Beauchamp, the provincial headquarters of the Society in Northern ranee, where lived a very big community of Brothers, many of whom were old veterans who had retired from scholastic duties and were spending the evening of their clays in well-earned rest and prayerful repose. Here the devoted Assistant decided to remain and share their anxieties dangers, privations, and it may be, , exile and even death Soon the town was within the German lines; for nrn remGml >"e<i, the early stages of the campaign proved little more than forward processions for the marching columns of the invading army.,. For four long, weary, Wo r ?T arS h ? ,ved in the very storm-centre of the u-ice fighting, of the contending combatants, for he and tVato °fl fl T r ? S i Vere alled to share Possession of the novitiate that i had passed into the hands of the enemy. This vrTTT ” + abode Wa dest J n | d at frequent intervals to deuere lllta f veritable inferno when attack and. defence and G the , Ir H ol i XI | <leadl^ . calnest and the air resounded and the earth shook with the bursting of bombs, the roarhissimr cannon, the crashing of shells, and the uncanny Brothers projectiles. Brother Diogene, as head of the the fV™ uor L for them the confidence and friendship of the German officers, who treated them kindly, which lowa was Granted* tTI ‘« an ’*£'"? - E-n permtatan granted to Brother Diogene to visit while the W o r was m pi -og rGSS , the Brother? in the' Belgi a rtmvns w£e they were allowed to- carry on their work; &