Reclaiming the charism and spirituality has to be a top priority if religious congregations in India have to survive, says Montfort Brother Paul Raj. Addressing a gathering of the local unit of the Conference of Religious India (CRI) in Bangalore on July 1, the Brother said that equally important is the creation of new apostolate and promotion of cultural formation in the congregations. Some 500 sisters, priests and brothers attended the gathering and a local CRI general body that followed.
Paul Raj is a former director and principal of Vidya Deep College of Theology in Bangalore. He also served as the Congregation of the Montfort Brothers of St Gabriel’s International executive secretary for the Desk on Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation in Rome.
Quoting French Jesuit Ray-mond Hostie, the Montfort Brother noted that the religious congregations go through different stages, such as foundation, consolidation, expansion, growth, stabilization, dissatisfaction, decline and death. Several congregations in the west are going through difficult transitions and many of them are declining or dying or already dead, he said.
