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508 BENEDICTVADAKKEKARA paragraphs. The final and definitive meeting of the commission was scheduled for May 1897. In the meantime the general procurator Iucundus of Montone was writing to various provincial Ministers to the effect that the new constitutions were openly against the Procura that he was heading. And in May 1897 he appealed directly to the members ofthe commission entrusted with the task ofrevising the constitutions, reminding them ofthe fact that they were working not on the Order's constitutions then still effective but on the text ofthe general Minister, who had drafted it and had it printed in secret, and kept it hidden till he was re-elected. On 5 May 1897 he ac– cused the general Minister ofworking against him and spreading calumnies against the procura. He then exhorted the members to vote non placet to the proposed draft. Thus the issue ofthe revision ofthe constitutions led to the Order's general Minister and the general procurator to lock horns over it. The commission entrusted with the work of drafting the constitutions had its last sitting on 8 June 1897 and gave its approval to the text of the revised consti– tutions. The text was then handed over to the Tipografia Vaticana for printing. In November 1897 printed copies of the same were forwarded to the pope and to the prefect of the Sacred Congregation ofBishops and the Regulars. In his letter to the pope dated 1 November 1897 Fr Bernard ofAndermatt detailed the procedure fol– lowed in getting the text revised. On 12 November another letter in the same vein was sent to Cardinal Seraphine Vannutelli, the prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. Meanwhile the general procurator did not remain sitting on his hands. He personally met Cardinal Vannutelli and explained to him how the whole story of the revision of the constitutions had unfolded and requested more time for preparing and submitting a proper report to him. He then sought the help of Fr Pius of Langogne, a long-time member of the Capuchin general curia, and Fr Bruno ofVinay, general procurator in 1879-1896 and general Definitor during Fr Bernard ofAndermatt's first term of office as general Minister. The information supplied especially by Fr Bruno was indeed revealing. He declared, for instance: "I would swear that before the morning of Saturday, 9 May [1896], after the elections of Friday, I did not know that a draft existed..." 11 • Thus Fr Iucundus ofMontone was formidably equipped to make out a strong case for getting the general Minister's strategy for revising the constitutions shelved. He presented an exhaustive report to Pope Leo XIII on 15 February 1898. And at the Congregation ofthe Bishops and Regulars the report created a profound impact. 11 Criscuolo, Bernardo Christen da Andermatt, 267.
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