Interprovincial Novitiate in Tortona

On September 11, 2022, with a solemn reading of an official decree the two new conferences of Europe will be erected: the Mediterranean Conference and the Northeastern European Conference. It is anticipated that this will spark a path toward renewal, creating new opportunities and opening up new possibilities for all the friars involved.

            The first of these opportunities can be found in initial formation, beginning with an August 11, 2023 letter by the General Minister Br. Roberto Genuin, requesting that in the new Mediterranean Conference there be two interprovincial novitiates based in Italy. Subsequently, the Italian provincial ministers were asked for their input on the most suitable places, and the decision was made to utilize two novitiates already in place: the novitiate in Tortona (Province of Piemonte) and in Morano Calabro (Province of Calabria); each being further strengthened with an exchange of personnel.

            With regard to the Tortona novitiate, the circumscriptions that were part of the previous formation collaborations in northern and central Italy (the nine Italian Provinces with Croatia, Slovenia, France) have converged.

            Next year in Tortona there will be fourteen novices from the circumscriptions of the new conference, and two from the other European conference (from the Provinces of Slovakia and Germany) who have asked to join in on the fraternal collaboration.

            The first challenge of the novitiate will be to accompany these brothers as they grow in the life of the Capuchin Friars Minor, with a focus that’s not restricted to their particular provinces, but includes a wider European perspective with an openness to interculturality, where novices can share together their individual cultures.

            The time of novitiate features a kind of daily testing of life imbued with our Capuchin Franciscan charism, marked by fraternity expressed in its different components: prayer (Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist, sharing of the Word, Eucharistic adoration, mental prayer), study and deepening of faith (Franciscan sources, spirituality, values of our charism), work and apostolic life (occasional exercises of charity).

            The fraternity of Tortona, as in past years, will be interprovincial, made up of friars from several Italian provinces: Br. Filippo Betzu (Sardinia-Corsica), Br. Daniele Cavagna (Emilia-Romagna), Br. Manolo Librera and Br. Pierangelo Chiera (Piemonte) and Br. Nicola De Pretto (Venice). Also, Br. Harald Weber, who currently oversees initial formation in his own Province of Germany, will come to help – bringing to the fraternity a more internationally European aspect.