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530 BENEDICTVADAKKEKARA The letter of the general Minister to the pope also casts light on the high ten– sion that had got unwittingly built up between the general Minister Bernard of Andermatt and a significant part of the capitulars, though a minority, concerning the manner of renewing the constitutions. The tension would later explode in the commission and become so gross and glaring that a majority of nine out of twelve members of the commission, including Fr Pacificus of Seggiano, expressed them– selves against the general Minister's headstrong position. In his letter to the pope, Fr Pacificus continues: Such constitutions from the primordial times and especially since their last renewal and approval, have constantly regulated wisely our Order until today, creating those great characters meek and humble, those celebrated men in every kind ofvirtue, so deserving of the Church and the society, those blessed Saints and Blesseds who constitute our reputation and dignity, honour and pride, our greatest glory. They were the same con– stitutions that, maintaining alive the spirit of the Seraphic Father in our early Fathers and brothers, were handing it down to us; for this we deserved a special protection from heaven, the blessing ofGod; we won the esteem, it enabled us to receive the affection of every class ofpeople, the goodwill and respect of peoples, the trust and admiration of the learned and the great, the highest commendations ofpopes, who in accordance with the nature of things and of the historical truth itself have always recognised, as time and time again have officially declared our Order as a legitimate Minorite successor... 73 • The general Minister then went on to explain further the sentimental attach- ment of the average friar to the constitutions of his Order. "All this has greatly con– tributed towards making the constitutions sacred for everyone". He then pointed out that such a quality ofhallowedness attributed to the Order's constitutions finds its confirmation in the words ascribed to Pius V7 4 • It was, moreover, the same pre– sumed mystical air surrounding their constitutions that created the disinclination in some of the Capuchins to have their constitutions in anyway modified 75 • It is note- 73 Paciflcus ofSeggiano,Epistola de Constitutionum revisione, 191-192. 74 Paciflcus of Seggiano, Epistola de Constitutionum revisione, 192: "Haec omnia maxime contulerunt ut quisque nostrum Constitutiones sibi sacras haberet atque intueretur, quae longe venerabiliores habitae sum, cum praeter Papae Urbani VIII authenticam approbationem, laudem plane singularem a S. Pio V meruerunt, qui, postquam eas legerit, memorandam dixit sententiam: En Constitutiones a Spiritu Sancto dictatas, quas si quis observaverit, inter Sanctos referri potest". 75 Paciflcus of Seggiano, Epistola de Constitutionum revisione, 192: "Quamquam autem tempora et conditiones novae disciplina in multis permutata, SS. Congregationum decisiones Summorumque Pontiflcum decreta necessitatem suadebant non pauca in corpore nostri Iuris inserendi, attamen Ordo, quasi natura ductus, numquam ausus est in eis, iam pro sacris habitis, aliquid innovare".