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ESTABLISHMENT OF CAPUCHIN ORDER IN INDIA - II 549 good candidates for substituting him as Comrnissary 146 . The Memorandum with its Annesso was intended to brief the general superiors on the Order's Novitiate and Study in India and to help them to take the right decisions 147 • The feedback from the missionaries came in handy for identifying the various problems plaguing the Novitiate and the Study. The Regular Superiors were faulted for their reluctance to spare hands for the joint venture. The unwillingness, or in some cases, the inability to follow a life of regular observance disqualified many a good missionary from being placed in a house of forma– tion 148. It was underscored that adequate attention was not being paid to the religious formation of the Lay Brothers. The Regular Superiors had decided in their meeting on 5-7 February 1923 that "it will be optional for the Regular Superiors to leave their Lay Brothers in the house of the Novitiate after simple profession". It was their preoccupation to cut down on the expenses that had led them to this conclusion 1 49 . Since keeping the friars in the formation house cost the Missions in terms of money, the Superiors were prone to recall them as soon as they had the skeletal training. This was true especially in the case of the Lay Brothers, whose training was at times limited to their one-year Novitiate. And thereafter they would be left to fend for themselves as they would get caught up in the hectic activities of the Mission 1 50 . In order to make the formation of the Lay Brothers 146 AGCap G 68, II, Novizjato e Stud.to, Fr Callixtus, "Damao - Mussoorie: Memorandum, Lettere..." - "Annesso". 147 AGCap G 68, II, Noviziato e Stud.to, Fr Callixtus, "Damao - Mussoorie: Memorandum, Lettere..." - "Annesso", Rome 8 October 1926: "Ecco i punti che nella mia opinione sarebbero necessarii per l'andamento e ii progresso delle nostre Missioni in India. Li sottometto tutti humilmente al giudizio dei Reverendissimi Superiori Generali". 148 Cf. AGCap G 68, II, Novizjato eStud.to, Fr Callixtus, "Damao - Mussoorie: Memoran– dum, Lettere...": Fr Commissary to Fr General, Mussoorie 26 August 1926. 149 APCapTusc, Missione Indostan, "Minutes of Meeting of Regular Superiors", 19. 150 AGCap G 68, II, Novizjato eStud.to, Fr Ferdinand of Paris to Fr General, Sardhana 14 August 1926: ''Une question que je considere comme tres-importante concerne les freres lais. Nos clercs one, apres leur noviciat, sept longues annees d'etude, une sorte de prolongation du noviciat, pendant lesquelles leur formation religieuse peut se continuer et se perfectionner. Nos freres lais restent, il est vrai, tertiaires six mois avant d'etre rei;:us comme novices; mais, leur profession faite, ils sone trop facilement envoyes immediatement clans la mission qui Jes a adoptres. Ils sont alors bien souvent abandonnes a eux-menies parceque les Peres dont its sone les compagnos n'ont pas le temps de s'occuper d'eux ou n'en prennent pas la peine". Fr Albert of Borgo San Lorenzo to Fr General, Sardhana 19 August 1926, speaks of the future of the novices: "Il Sacerdote sara disperso in qualche stazione a far la vita da Parrocco; il Laico sara

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