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538 BENEDICT VADAKKEKARA The general Minister is also credited with having floated the idea of establish– ing a Historical Institute for the Order. The villa of Cardinal Massaia in Frascati on the outskirts of Rome, which was playing host to the students of the International Seraphic College during their summer holidays, was proposed as the possible venue for the research centre. The Institute was to be equipped with a printing press and adequate research materials. The plan does not seem to have been followed up im– mediately. The establishment ofthe Historical Institute would become a realitywith the relocation of the Museo Francescano to Assisi in 1927. The Order's missionary commitment was an area on which Fr Pacificus ofSeg– giano would leave behind his mark. Though the work of implanting the Order lo– cally was put on the backburner by Fr Bernard ofAndermatt through his indefinite suspension of the novitiate ofMussoorie in India (1890) 96 and the Oriental Institute (1892) 97 , he was able to give a new impetus to the missions by apportioning the Order's missions among its various provinces. The wish to be fully responsible for an overseas mission and administer it directly was to contribute greatly towards spread– ing and intensifying the general interest of the provinces in the Order's missionary commitments. Fr Pacificus knew that this rekindled upsurge of enthusiasm for the missions among the friars and the faithful needed to be sustained and translated into action. Bringing up a mission is certainly a long-term project. In fact, the launching of a popular monthly magazine dedicated to the Order's missions had precisely this as its ultimate scope 98 • chiamato a Roma dal Superiore Generale, all'effetto di ricostruire queste collezioni e di ristabilire sotto una nuova forma questo bel Museo francescano di Marsiglia...". 96 See B. Vadakkekara, Establishment ofCapuchin Order in India, I: A travailous inception (1869-1916), in CF 66 (1996) 195-244. 97 See Criscuolo, Roberto Menini (1837-1916), 585-601. 98 On 1 November 1913, the general Minister sent out a fervent appeal to all the provincial Ministers and local superiors in Italy to respond to the exigencies ofthe missions. It was to be read in the refectory before the fraternity. Pacificus ofSeggiano, Acta Ordinis, A tutti i Ministri provin– ciali esuperiori locali d'Jtalia, in Analecta OFMCap 29 (1913) 339: "Ecco amatissimi Padri, l'opera che nel decoro dell'Ordine, in servizio della Chiesa, peril bene delle anime, e maggiore sviluppo e prosperita delle missioni, ci siamo proposti di promuovere, affinche tutti i flgli ed i devoti dell'Or– dine nostro, chi col sacrifizio di se stesso, chi coll'apostolato della parola e del buon esempio, chi con quello della preghiera, chi coll'oblio della carita, tutti senza eccezione cooperino alla missione sublimissima di propagare il Vangelo e di guadagnare anime a Dio. Questa e l'opera per eccellenza che dobbiamo preferire a tutte le altre e prendere sommamente a cuore perche consentanea alla missione affidata all'Ordine nostro da Dio".

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