3. Collaboration among institutes in the area of formation arose from the need to answer the challenges arising from concrete situations and from specific pedagogical needs. At the beginning, it developed mainly in places where religious families had a limited number of candidates either because of a reduced number of vocations or because the vocations were the first fruits of the apostolic work of the young Churches. In addition, there were a lack of formators and a small number of qualified teaching personnel. This situation brought numerous institutes to join forces, aware of the need to offer their members a more complete and deeper formation.

At the same time, in many cases there was a need to carry out initial formation in a setting not alien to the culture of the candidates, so as to promote a positive integration between the life of each institute and the culture of the members received into it. Such a need, encountered in diverse geographical and cultural settings, found an effective answer in “inter-institute(⁷) centers”. These have helped to avoid an exodus of candidates into other cultures during the initial process of religious life.

A more clear understanding of the many demands and difficulties found on the formative journey has also brought institutes to create such centers. A growing number of institutes wishes to offer their young members in formation the most complete educational course possible. In their formative communities, they continue the task of handing on the spiritual patrimony of the institute. But they also feel the need to offer those elements which have always constituted the precious common patrimony of consecrated life, a richness which flows from the centuries long experience of the Church and from the pressing needs and yearnings of our time. A deep and integral synthesis of all these elements is a very complex task that can not always be carried out by the formators and professors of one institute by itself.

The establishment of inter-congregational centers of formation, properly carried out, is positive and helps build an awareness of ecclesial communion in the variety of vocations and charisms and the multiple forms of service in the mission of the Church. His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, has said: “in order to assure the new generations, those responsible for formation, and all men and women religious of an adequate preparation, you have begun many forms of cooperation”.(⁸) In this way, it is possible to “take advantage of the work of the best collaborators of each institute and offer services that not only help to overcome eventual limitations, but that create a valid style of formation to religious life”.(⁹)

In the same message, the Holy Father also emphasizes that these inter-institute initiatives “will at the same time help to make the most of specific charisms, developing communion and the awareness of complementarity in fraternity, and extending the horizons of charity to the universal Church and the entire local Church”.(¹⁰)

In this way, the Holy Father re-affirms the fundamental orientations of Vatican Council II in relation to formation. These have been ratified by the experience which religious life has known in recent years. The doctrine taught by the Council and found in subsequent documents of the Magisterium shows the profound integration which exists among formation, renewal, and the mission of the religious institutes.(¹¹) Even more, he underscores the fact that formation is a primary factor for the renewal of the institutes and for a more vital assimilation of their charismatic identity in view of the continuing evolution of our time. High quality formative programs are indispensable for carrying out the mission of the institutes in a world which poses fundamental questions about faith and consecrated life, in relation to scientific, human, ethical, and religious problems.