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| The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life Inter-Institute collaboration for Formation IntraText CT - Text |
a) Chapters and Major Superiors
Through their Chapters and Major Superiors, institutes are responsible for determining in their own Ratio the principles and norms of formation,(35) for assigning the mission to the formators and teachers, and for taking care that the formative process be carried out in conformity with the character and mission of the institute and according to law. When Superiors decide to send their members to an inter-institute center of formation, they do not cede to others the responsibility that is theirs, but they continue to exercise it (cf. nn. 11, 17, and 22) with “their full responsibility as guardians and teachers”.(36)
In all forms of inter-institute collaboration, it is necessary to apply the necessary distinction between the formation community and an inter-institute center of studies.(37) The formation community is a primary point of reference for which no center can substitute. It is the setting in which personal identity and response to the vocation received grow and develop, in the spirit of the respective founders or foundresses.(38) Deepening in charismatic identity is achieved, in the first place, by living contact with the formators and with the brothers and sisters with whom are shared the same experiences of life, the same challenges posed by society, and the traditions of the institute.(39) This community is always the place where the vital synthesis of the formation experience is lived.(40) “Fidelity to one's own charism needs to be deepened through an ever increasing knowledge of the history of the institute, of its particular mission and the spirit of the founder, at the same time making the corresponding effort to incarnate it in one's personal and community life”.(41)
Should it happen that circumstances not allow religious to live in their own formation community while enrolled in an inter-institute center, Superiors are to provide regular and intense periods of formation and community life in their own institute.(42)