Fourth day of the Marist Symposium
December 7, the penultimate day of the Marist Symposium, was marked by the presentation of topics related to Marist leadership, Safeguarding and the mixed Marist community. At the end of the afternoon, participants had a choice of three seminars related to the General Administration archives, the Marist Memorial of Curitiba and the Founder of Celtic Football Club.
The first talk was given by Brother João Carlos do Prado, General Councilor. Coming from the Province of Brasil Centro-Sul, Br. João defended his doctorate in Education at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London, last year. His presentation dealt with the reflections and results of the study on the essential elements for the formation of prophetic and collaborative global leaders committed to the future of the Marist charism. It was an occasion to present a portrait of the current strengths, challenges and opportunities in Marist leadership formation processes. There was also time to highlight the main elements that influenced the leadership and charism of Marcellin Champagnat and the foundation of the Marist Institute; the Marist charism in today’s context; the main concepts of global prophetic and collaborative leadership and the key elements to consider in their formation.
The morning’s work was completed with a presentation by Br. Brendan Geary of the District of West Central Europe, entitled “‘I don’t like teachers who are executioners’ – Safeguarding in Marist origins and recent developments. He is a psychotherapist, and clinical and counselling psychologist. Br. Brendan studied for a Doctorate in Pastoral Counselling at Loyola College in Maryland (1997 – 2003) where he worked with a range of groups. He specialised in work with sex offenders and victims of sexual abuse. He is a member of the Care and Protection Commission of the International Union of Superiors General. He is also involved in leading workshops and training programmes and is currently involved in research on Australian Marist Brothers who abused children.
In his presentation, Br. Brendan looked at the safeguarding of children as reported in the life of St. Marcellin. He then looked at ways that the Marist Institute and some individual Brothers have not always been faithful to the tradition we inherited from the Founder. He highlighted also the ways that the leaders of the Institute have responded to the abuse crisis in recent years, and the way that safeguarding is now dealt with in the Marist Constitutions and safeguarding policies.
The afternoon began with a talk on the essence of the mixed community of Brothers and Lay Marists. Brother Vincent de Paul Kouassi N’Guessan was the speaker. He defended the need to create this type of community not because there is a lack of brothers, a widespread opinion in Africa, but because of the necessity of the Marist mission. These communities should have the following characteristics: Christocentric, oriented to the Marist mission, with a program of joint formation and accompaniment.
Brother Vincent is a native of Ivory Coast and is currently the Director of Marist International University College (MIUC) in Nairobi, Kenya. He holds a doctorate in Philosophy (Ivory Coast) and in Higher Education (Walden University).
The last working session proposed three talks at the same time, from which each participant could choose one:
- Patrimônio espiritual marista e identidade institucional: narrativas visuais, digitais e experiências multissensoriais (Dyogenes Philippsen Araujo)
- Opening the treasures of the Marist Archives (Dorotea Cinanni & Br. Colin Chalmers)
- Walfrid: a life of faith, community, and football – Brother Walfrid, Founder of Celtic Football Club (Michael Connolly)
The Eucharistic celebration closed the penultimate day of the Symposium.