Concluding the Academic Year 2018-2019
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International College ‘San Lorenzo da Brindisi’
Concluding the Academic Year 2018-2019
Our International College ‘San Lorenzo da Brindisi’ in Rome celebrated the end of the academic year 2018-2019 on Saturday, June 22, 2019. At 6:30 p.m. the General Minister, Br. Roberto Genuin, presided at a solemn Mass that saw the participation of the friars of the College and many others invited from the various friaries of Rome. Present also were many guests invited for the special occasion. After the Mass, there was the traditional festive supper on the College piazza, with the chance to taste various dishes prepared by the students themselves according to the culinary traditions of the various parts of the world they all come from. Friars and guests alike enjoyed a wonderful moment of fraternity.
During this academic year, seventy-three students studied at the College. The largest group is the friars from India (24), while students from the various countries of Africa make up the second largest (19). All together, the students represent twenty-six countries and five continents.
During the year there were some changes in the permanent community of the College. At the beginning of the year there were nineteen friars. Then, after the General Chapter and the election of Br. Francesco Neri to the General Council, Br. Andrzej Kiejza from the Province of Warsaw, Poland, was appointed as the new rector, and began this service officially on January 1, 2019. After more than thirty years of service at the College as director of the Central Library of the Order and the Archives, Br. Luigi Martignani left the College. He is now living at the friary on Via Cairoli. After thirty-one years at the College and thirty years of academic work at the Pontifical University ‘Antonianum’, Br. Leonhard Lehmann is returning to his Province of Germany.
Notwithstanding the changes of friars – the students who will now leave Rome at the conclusion of their studies (23) and the new students (25) who have come to begin their journey of special formation – our International College is working at its mission of building an inter-cultural community of friars and thus preparing them for the various tasks they will one day take up for the good of the whole Order.
Video - homily of the General Minister, Br. Roberto Genuin OFMCap
Photos – br. Paweł Teperski OFMCap:
Photos – br. Rodrigues Ricardo Aparecido OFMCap: