1. Before and after Vatican II

    As we have seen, the Union of Superiors General took its first steps a few years before the Second Vatican Council. Right from the beginning, the meetings it organized took as themes for reflection the vital aspects and challenges which arose over the course of time. A list of the most important lectures and reports of the decade from 1952 to 1962 shows the nature of the USG: the desire to meet the challenges that appear as time goes on in the areas of the Church, the world and the consecrated life. Forty years on, certain themes may not seem relevant to us, but, in the era before Vatican II, they were. Nor must we forget the USG’s research and studies in connection with, for example, vocations, service to authority, the problems of the brothers, relationships between bishops and religious, etc.

    Amongst the themes that were discussed and dealt with (approximately 40) I would particularly mention the following, arranged in chronological order:

    - Radio and television in the religious Congregations

    - Laicization and positive exclaustration

    - Social circumstances of expelled religious

    - Religious enrolled in military service

    - Apostolic schools for religious

    - Dangerous tendencies often found in some religious

    - Useful psychological and medical factors in the identification and cultivation of religious vocations

    - Reflections on standards to follow in order to adapt religious discipline to young people today

    - Period of pastoral preparation for religious.

    - Lay brothers

    - Lay brothers as educationalists: theoretical and practical aspects

    - Training of novice masters

    - The theological foundations of the religious life

    - Religious obedience according to the Rule of Saint Benedict

    - Religious and the Ecumenical Council

    - Exemption of religious

    A large number of religious took part in the preparation for and sessions of the Second Vatican Council. Between 1960-1965 several meetings of groups of Superiors General designed a clearer system of organization for the Union. Their knowledge of each other and the dialog between them created bonds of fraternity and collaboration. Nor can we forget, in addition to those who were our founders and whom we have already mentioned, the great figures who gave life to the conciliar and postconciliar direction of the consecrated life: Fr. Agostino Sépinski, OFM, who began to bring stability to the organization of the USG Secretariat. Fr. Anastasio Ballestrero, OCD, who led the Union during the proceedings of the Council and in particular Fr. Arrupe, SJ, who was President of the Union for 15 years (1967-1982). The consecrated life owes much to him in these difficult years of transition and great tension at an ecclesial level. Over the past years every President has devoted the best of himself, giving their service practical form in initiatives that responded to the needs of the consecrated life at the time, with positive effects.