ROME, JULY 1, 2005 (Zenit.org).- An additional eight priests and nine deacons joined the ranks of the priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, in an ordination ceremony in Rome.
Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, ordained the largest group of candidates in the short history of the congregation last week in the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
The eight priests have been assigned as missionaries to Kenya, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Paraguay, Portugal and Canada.
The nine deacons will carry out their ministry in Spain, Italy, Mexico, Chile, the United States and Hungary.
The priestly fraternity, founded in 1985 by Father Massimo Camisasca, was inspired by the Monsignor Luigi Giussani, founder of the Communion and Liberation movement. The latter died in February.
The priestly fraternity was recognized March 19 as a society of apostolic life of pontifical right by Pope John Paul II.
It has 70 priests and 40 seminarians, in 20 countries. They are dedicated to the mission of the Church according to the charism of Communion and Liberation.
Charity
Speaking to ZENIT about the charism, Father Camisasca said: «Charity is the original event, written in the life of every man. There is nothing prior to love. The great event of Christianity is, precisely, the manifestation of love.»
In face of the moral and religious relativism that seems to prevail in society, Father Camisasca said that a problem arises when «Christianity fails to propose the truth from within what it lives, accepting on the contrary the description made of it from outside.»
«From this point of view, the priesthood of women, or topics such as sexuality and procreation, are no more than secondary aspects of this phenomenon,» he said.
«The drama the Church is living today is the destruction of the historical character of Christ and of the Church, the cancellation of Christ’s permanence in the midst of men, the idea of Christ as word and, finally, the very idea of God,» he said.
«The Christian event is no longer at the center, as an event that is contemporary to us, but has fallen prey to the infinite series of interpretations of the event offered little by little, in the ultimate term, by power.»
Given this danger, the fraternity’s charism consists in inviting human beings «to look at Christ as the original point of who we are.»
