4. Restructuring.

What we are considering is not only a reshaping for the reorganization of our diminished forces, but new ways of presence and action which respond to present-day sensitivities and needs and which are, through their very significance, also able to regenerate resources. This requires not a single operation but a whole range of articulated solutions. Moreover, even though the option for poverty be made on the basis of charismatic reference, it still has to come to terms with variables of an organizational kind: time, persons, etc.

The experience of different Institutes shows that the following are possible simultaneously:

the internal restructuring of works through a re-ordering of objectives, attention to new services or groups to which the work is directed, redefinition of the role of the religious so that they become an "animating nucleus" leaving the main responsibility to lay people, changes in the form of management, the elimination of sectors considered less fruitful; the redistribution of forces among the existing works in line with an evaluation of their effectiveness: this will lead to strengthening some and weakening others; the opening of new works in settings judged to be more fruitful and according to conditions more adequate for their effectiveness; the closing of those which, on account of their purpose, demand for personnel or burden of management, no longer meet the present conditions of consecrated life, personnel, and requirements.

What we have said above shows that reshaping our works implies a community process of shared responsibility, a specific procedure of discernment and decision, a preparation of persons for new roles, and a program for the implementation which must necessarily be gradual without on that account having to be slow.

And it may be convenient to profit by some common acquisitions of recent times: the optimum conditions of the communities for a fraternal life, the possibility of working with structures that are less cumbersome, network activity or in relationship with other agencies, the evaluation of works which are not "local", and insertion in the context.