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510 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA find it opportune to approve the constitutions. And it will be nearly a decade before the same general Minister would begin to act on the instructions of the Holy See, just as the general Chapter would be round the corner. On 30 October 1907, the commission of six experts was appointed and on the same day the general Chapter was convoked to be held on 18 May 1908 1 3. Accordingly preparations were afoot for the Chapter. The work of the six-member commission for the revision the constitu– tions too were underway. lt had its meetings from 27 January to 26 February 1908. In the minutes, Fr Paulinus of Palma, the secretary of the commission for the revision of the constitutions, without mincing any words, outlines the palpable tension within the commission because the general Minister kept on insisting on having his brainchild accepted as the basic text for the drafting of the revised con– stitutions14. Contrary to the express wish of the general Minister, the commission decided by a majority vote to have as the basic text for the revision the constitutions then in force and not the one prepared by the general Minister. Of the 12 members of the commission, that included the 6 members, the 5 general Definitors and the general Minister, 9 voted to have the existing constitutions as the basic text to work on. The secretary of the commission comments on the position taken by the apos– tolic preacher and general definitor Fr Pacificus Carletti ofSeggiano: "Very Revd Fr Pacificus of Seggiano, Apostolic preacher 15 , wants the absolute preservation of the 13 A close reading of the chronological reconstruction that Felder and Criscuolo make of the various events inducing the Holy See not to put its seal of approval on the revised constitu– tions brings out the procedural lacunae in the drafting ofthe revised text. It was more the question of the unity of the Order than the one of the majority-minority divide that prompted the Holy See to direct the Capuchin superiors to redo the revision ofthe constitutions. With the benefit of hindsight one may say today that right from its inception the project ofrevising the constitutions had been condemned to fail precisely because it did not have the patronage of the leadership on the provincial level. Even though the house had voted in favour of the project, it had its own de– tractors right from the start. Theirs was, in fact, a principled stand. The case ofthe creation ofthe office ofthe mission procurator is a case in point. It went against the in-built capitular-democracy of the Order. 14 General Archives ofCapuchins, Rome ( = AGC), EB 1908-1909, Litt. Apost. "Vicarium Pastoris aeterni" etc., contains the Verbale of the various sessions of the Commission. On 29 Jan– uary the general Minister opened the discussion and the secretary writes: "Il Rmo. P. Generale esprime il suo parere di compilare doe lo schema delle nuove Costituzioni sulle norme date dalla Congregazione dei Vescovi e Regolari giacche nelle nostre attuali non vi e ordine, molte cose sono ripetute, moltissime mancano''. 15 Pacificus ofSeggiano was appointed apostolic preacher on 5 October 1904; he held the office till 1914, despite his being elected general Minister of the Capuchin Order in 1908. His confrere Luke Pasetto of Padua (1871-1954), the future Latin Patriarch of Alexandria, as then