Rome, 01 October 2025
Dear Brothers,
May the Lord give you peace.
The General Chapter of 2024 asked us to organize an event involving all the brothers of the Order, to reflect together on Mission, Fraternal Collaboration and the San Lorenzo Fraternities. These are three related topics, although they are not of the same importance, the last one – the San Lorenzo Fraternities – being a particular attempt to integrate the other two, without any claim to be the only one. In any case, the General Council welcomed this proposal and decided to convene a plenary council of the Order (PCO), scheduled for October 2026.
A preparatory commission was appointed in July, which was also entrusted with the task of polling the entire Order in order to collect, in an instrumentum laboris, the reflections on these issues. This document will thus provide experts and delegates at the PCO with a rich and meaningful basis for further study, in tune with the feeling of the Order.
The commission began its work immediately, and I am now pleased to send to all the brothers, fraternities and circumscriptions the texts it has prepared. They are intended to introduce and initiate reflections on the three proposed themes, accompanied by some guiding questions. The intent is for each fraternity, or a joint assembly of the circumscription, to reflect on these insights and gather their contributions, sending a summary by circumscription to the General Curia.
We ask that the summaries include even the most diverse thoughts, without excluding even those that might seem uncomfortable. In addition, brothers who wish to offer a personal reflection, in addition to that already shared in the fraternity or assembly, are strongly encouraged to do so by sending it directly to the General Curia.
Therefore, I ask all conference presidents, provincial ministers, custodes and delegates to commit to promoting participation so that every friar can reflect and respond in the best way possible. Please also make sure that the responses are actually collected and sent out.
Summaries offered by the circumscriptions and personal reflections should be sent, by December 31, 2025, to the following e-mail address: [email protected]
We know that a PCO is a valuable opportunity to promote throughout the Order a strong time of synodal animation and discernment, in which the Spirit of the Lord guides us to discover his will. For this reason, in addition to asking for the commitment of the superiors to animate this process, I invite each friar to freely offer his own ideas and inspirations.
I hope that these preparations for PCO IX, along with many other ongoing initiatives, may “enlighten the mind and inflame the heart” of each of us along this journey that will lead us to the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the presence of the Capuchin charism in the Church.
We have chosen to send this material on the very day of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, patroness of the missions, at the beginning of October, missionary month and the month of our Seraphic Father St. Francis. May their example and intercession accompany us on this journey.
Pace e bene.
Br. Roberto Genuin
General Minister OFMCap
Download the material:
