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516 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA of superiors. As the execution of the first item on the agenda was already in full swing, the superiors now turned their attention to the next task on the priority list, namely, that ofestablishing the International College in Rome. 3.Establishment of International Seraphic College in Rome (1908-1911) That there was a pressing importance attached to the opening of an interna– tional Capuchin College in Rome is abundantly clear from the report of its inau– guration: "For the sons of St Francis, the wish of the pope is a command: He said, and everything was done" 32 • As a matter of fact, there was a mere five-month gap between the concluding session of the general Chapter on 25 May 1908 and the inauguration of the International College with thirty-odd students on 26 October 1908. The report of the opening ofthe college also underscores the rationale behind the establishment ofsuch an institution in the Eternal City, under the shadow ofthe Church's headquarters: It was the express wish of the Holy See, which has always regarded with the eye ofspe– cial goodwill, that some young Religious from the different Provinces of the Order be chosen and called to Rome, who would with particular commitment attend to the study ofthe sacred sciences, and after drinking the apostolic doctrine at its source itself, return to their provinces well armoured against modern errors, and equipped with a solid method ofteaching, and conforming to the whole Order3 3 • Equipping the friars to combat the errors of Modernism, providing the friars involved in the work of formation in the various provinces with an adequate peda– gogical technique and creating a certain degree of homogeneity in the Order were the principal goals intended to be achieved through the college. It was over a decade since the Holy See had been asking the Capuchin general superiors to have a central formation house in Rome. The outgoing general Minister's reply had always been evasive; he would say that he had neither the money nor the personnel for actualis– ing such a project. In his report to the general Chapter of 1908, Fr Bernard ofAn– dermatt says that in the beginning ofMarch 1904 he had been instructed "to open a college in Rome within the following two years so that the young religious des– tined to be lector or for another service could obtain in it an adequate formation and carry out advanced studies" 34 • But he says that a commission of friars appointed by 32 De Collegio Seraphico Internationali, in Analecta OFMCap 24 (1908) 363. 33 De Collegio Seraphico Internationali, in Analecta OFMCap 24 (1908) 363. 34 Analecta OFMCap 24 (1908) 168.