austraLasia
1516
Richard the
lion-heated lawyer defends his thesis
ROME:
3rd April 2006: Let's at least be historically clear - what you see
above is good headline stuff, not necessarily good history. Today, 3rd
April is not the feast of Richard the Lionheart , Richard I of England, but of
St. Richard of Chichester. Fr Ric Fernando SDB, canon lawyer at the
Direzione Generale, more commonly known as the Pisana, had no idea it
would be his namesake's day when, by mutual agreement with his professors, he
chose 3rd April to defend his doctoral thesis in Canon Law at the UPS. He
did not realise, either, that it was also the day the head of the organisation
which is subject of his doctoral investigations would be celebrating the fourth
anniversary of his appointment as Rector Major of the Salesian Society, the SSJB
(Salesian Society of St. John Bosco) as Ric calls it henceforth in his
thesis. All of that calls for a fervent prayer! St Richard of
Chichester, then, is just the man. 'Jesus Christ Superstar' immortalised
Richard's very own prayer: "May I know thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly, Day by day".
Ric, a Filipino, has
exactly the right form of this famous name, which is Germanic in origin.
'Ric', the spelling as Anglosaxon as you can get, really, means 'power, leader,
ruler, braveheart'. He needs all of that today as he tackles the question
of the higher organisational levels of SSJB. He looks at the governance
structures of Religious Institutes with particular application to SSJB.
The thesis came out of the personal experience of one trained in canon law,
arriving in Rome and expecting to be appointed to a juridical office with a job
description, with clear directions for action and so forth. Alas, life
isn't quite like that. This was Rome, and a particular part of Rome at
that. So he set too wondering about what the difference might be between a
'Casa Generalizia' and a 'Curia Generalizia', the latter having perhaps more of
the accoutrements of legal setting and
structure. This is not every man's favourite territory, and one has to
fight one's way through the jungle of distinctions between Procurator Generals
and Secretary Generals - Ric's thesis seems to suggest that these distinctions
are less clearly delineated in a 'Casa' than they are in a
'Curia'!
This is qualitative research at its most
interesting, especially as the thesis wrestles with balance between a central
form of governance in fidelity to Don Bosco, and a style which also bespeaks
familiarity, decentralisation, co-responsibility,
participation....
While not calling into question of the
existence of regional organisation as such, the thesis does call into question
the precise links in the structure between top level (Superior General and
Council) as understood across religious Institutes like ourselves, and
Provinces. At the very least, coming at a time when the whole Council has
gathered to think in detail of GC26, the thesis has something to offer to wider
thinking about future top-level structure and how it is spelled out. It is
the 'spelling out' which is a particular concern of the
thesis.
Here in the Region, we are with Fr Ric as he
fronts up for this culminating moment of his studies. It doesn't matter
what we think of the topic - all that matters is what his professors think
today! Good luck.
GLOSSARY
accoutrements: French, pure and simple, but common
enough in English too: means quipment in general, but perhaps more the equipment
of a soldier, so suitable in this
context.
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