INTRODUCTION

Under the protection of Mary Immaculate, the most sublime of all creatures and model for all those who wish to attain the perfection of Christian life, you have wished to gather in Rome, beloved sons and daughters, to study the present problems of the states of perfection.

At the same time you have wished to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ordination to the priesthood of the most worthy and zealous Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. Today there are associations of major Superiors (Superiors General and Provincials), men and women religious, in more than twenty-five countries of all continents. In close collaboration with the Holy See and the ecclesiastical Hierarchy of their countries, they seek to conduct in common the tasks of organization and adaptation that are required by the wide embrace and complexity of the present-day apostolate.

We know that a great number of steps have been taken during the past few years under the enlightened impulse of your associations. It is sufficient to mention the national or regional congresses of states of perfection, the sessions of prayer and study and above all the creation of institutes of superior religious formation and culture meant for members of the states of perfection.

The present Congress, which is in complete compliance with the desire for bringing states of perfection more fully into the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, aims at drawing up the record of progress made in the organization of the states of perfection and in their work of adaptation to the requirements of the Church.

Aims and Activities

It also aims at establishing clearly the ends to be pursued, the limits that must be respected and the principles that must be observed in the action of conferences, unions and committees of major Superiors. Lastly, it strives to draw up a program of activities and projects that will insure its effectiveness in the movement of revision, by tightening the bonds uniting organizations among themselves and with the Holy See.

The reports and exposes of this congress intend to be commentaries on the three Apostolic Constitutions Provida Mater, Sponsa Christi, and Sedes Sapientiae as well as on the decree Salutaris atque, issued by the Sacred Congregation of Religious, which sets forth the rules that must guide the effort at adaptation and revision.

We do not intend to deal with the particular questions that you will examine during your meetings, but rather to underline certain points of a general character concerning the problem of perfection and that of the revision and adaptation of the means through which individuals and communities strive to achieve it.

We shall speak first about the perfection of Christian life in general, then of its realization in those associations that are called "states of perfection" by examining first their relations with their members and later the relations that bind them among themselves and to the Holy See.