Amigonians

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Amigonian community in Gelsenkirchen-Feldmark is located in an ordinary end-row house.

The Amigonian Friars (also: Capuchin Tertiaries , official name Congregation of Capuchin Tertiaries of Our Lady of Sorrows , Latin Fratres Tertii Ordinis Sancti Francisci Capulatorum a Beata Maria Virgine Perdolente , religious symbol : TC) are a Roman Catholic religious order , that of the Spanish Capuchin Father and later Bishop Luis Amigó y Ferrer were founded. As part of the Regulated Third Order, it belongs to the religious family of St. Francis of Assisi .

history

The Spanish Capuchin Father Luis Amigó endeavored to promote the religious life of the lay people associated with the Capuchin Order who, for Christian reasons, campaigned directly for needy families, the sick and marginalized social groups . As early as 1885 he founded the female religious order of Capuchin Terziarinnen of the Holy Family with some pious women who wanted to combine a monastic life with such tasks . From the religious groups of men in the vicinity of Valencia that he spiritually looked after, most of which were associations of the Franciscan lay order , some members asked him to join a charitable religious community. To support this cause, Father Amigó founded a male counterpart to the community of sisters on April 12, 1889 in Torrent near Valencia. Initially it was planned that the brothers would mainly visit prisons and look after convicts. A few years after it was founded, the brothers took over the management of a home for children who had committed criminal offenses in Madrid , the first of its kind in Spain. Initially recognized as a religious order under episcopal law, the community was approved as a congregation under papal law on September 19, 1902 . The Amigonians settled in Germany in 1962. The first branch was in Cologne-Immendorf , in 1969 another branch followed in Bonn-Endenich , and the congregation has been active in Gelsenkirchen since 1985 .

Patroness of the order is Our Lady of Sorrows , the most important religious festival is the memory of the Seven Sorrows of Mary on September 15th.

Today's distribution

Structures

The congregation has around 400 members, around half of whom are priests, in over 70 branches and 19 countries around the world (2011), mainly in the Spanish-speaking world. The Venezuelan Frank Gerardo Pérez has been the general superior of the community since May 2019, and the German Jens Anno Müller, who has lived in Gelsenkirchen since the 1990s, was elected as his deputy. As the first Amigonian bishop since the death of the founder of the order, the Spaniard Bartolomé Buigues Oller was appointed Bishop of Alajuela in Costa Rica in 2018 .

Germany

In Germany, the Amigonians are currently represented by five brothers, four of whom are priests. They belong to the "Spanish" order province with seat in Madrid, which extends from Poland to the Ivory Coast, and worked until 2019 in Gelsenkirchen and Cologne .

Gladbeck

In 1962 the first branch in Germany was founded in Cologne-Immendorf , which was relocated to Cologne-Dünnwald / Höhenhaus in 2004

In 2019 the Amigonians left the Archdiocese of Cologne and moved to Gladbeck , the two German communities were merged in July 2019. The delegate and legal representative of the Provincial in Germany is Father Ralf Winterberg. On July 1, 2019, the Amigonians were entrusted by the diocese of Essen with the pastoral care of Spanish-speaking Catholics in the Ruhr area .

Gelsenkirchen

The branch in Gelsenkirchen has existed since 1985. The youth club has existed since 1989 on the edge of the Aldenhofstrasse housing estate. The facility offers an open meeting place for children and young people, holiday programs and trips, help with homework, support for children with learning difficulties, help with graduation and the start of professional life, as well as group lessons and advice for visitors and their families, but also provides further help of any kind.

In 2014, Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez visited the youth club and spoke to the children and young people about the difficult living conditions in El Salvador. Auxiliary Bishop Chávez was invited to Germany by the Adveniat to participate in the annual campaign with the motto I want the future! to report on the situation of young people in Latin America and the support provided by the aid organization.

The 25th anniversary of the youth meeting was celebrated in 2014, together with the 125th anniversary of the religious order.

Bonn

Since 1969 there was another house in Bonn , but it no longer exists.

Further activities worldwide

The community is active in educational work with children and young people who need educational help. Traditionally, the Amigonians were mainly active in home education . In Spain, Italy and various Latin American countries, the order also runs various schools and is partly active in parish pastoral care and youth ministry. Since the 1970s and 1980s, in addition to looking after young people in educational institutions, other educational and psychosocial fields of work came into the focus of the religious, including - initiated, among other things, by projects of the brothers working in Germany - non-stationary and community-oriented approaches to youth social work ( open door , street work ) as well as - mainly in Colombia and Spain - various drug therapy projects .

In Medellín (Colombia), the congregation has had its own foundation university , the Fundación Universitaria Luis Amigó (FUNLAM), since 1985, which focuses on courses in the fields of pedagogy , psychology and social sciences , but since 2001 also the subjects of theology and philosophy and since 2002 a degree in law are offered. In recent years, the university's offering has been expanded to include branches in four major Colombian cities and a distance learning program, as well as various courses in business administration and information technology .

Capuchin Terziarinnen

The sister congregation of the Capuchin Terziarinnen of the Holy Family , also founded by Luis Amigó, forms the female counterpart of the community and has also been present in Germany (Cologne and Duisburg ) since the 1960s .

Lay association

Associated with the religious community of Amigonians in spirituality and in the practical apostolate is the lay association of so-called Amigonian workers (Spanish: Cooperadores Amigonianos ), which mainly supports or continues religious activities, but also implements its own projects. The lay group legally constituted as a church association belongs to the officially recognized spiritual communities of the Catholic Church.

Award and promotion

The Amigonian community in Gelsenkirchen was awarded the Heinrich Brauns Prize by the Diocese of Essen in 2008 for its work in the spirit of Christian social teaching . Her youth work has been funded by the Christoph Metzelder Foundation since 2010 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rule and Constitutions of the Amigonians - Capuchin Terziaren. Ed. von der Generalkuria (Rome 1985), translated from Spanish, Cologne-Immendorf 1989, p. 45.
  2. ↑ Amigonians worldwide , in 21 countries (as of 2015?)
  3. ↑ Announcement on the website of the order amigonianos.org of May 11, 2019, accessed on July 10, 2019 (Spanish).
  4. ↑ Announcement on the website of the order amigonianer.org of June 7, 2019, accessed on July 10, 2019.
  5. ↑ Eillyn Jiménez: Nuevo obispo de Alajuela: 'No habrá cambio que nos desborde porque Dios nos sostiene'. In: La Nación , March 1, 2018, accessed May 28, 2018.
  6. ↑ Website of the Order amigonianer.org , accessed on July 10 of 2019.
  7. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) amigoianer.de, accessed on October 17, 2013
  8. ^ Announcement on the website of the order amigonianer.org from February 19, 2019, accessed on July 10, 2019.
  9. ↑ Georg Meinert: The Amigonian Order comes to Gladbeck with three Fathers. In: WAZ , January 21, 2019, accessed on July 19, 2019.
  10. ↑ News from January 11, 2017 on orden.de , accessed on July 19, 2019.
  11. ↑ Report on the homepage of the religious order, accessed on September 15, 2019.
  12. ↑ Mareike Kluck: Amigonians Gelsenkirchen have the same basic values. In: WAZ , June 20, 2017, accessed July 10, 2019.
  13. ^ Bishop from El Salvador visits the Amigonian youth meeting. Press release of the Diocese of Essen from December 10, 2014, accessed on July 10, 2019.
  14. ↑ For 25 years "Amigos" of the young people in Gelsenkirchen. Press release of the Diocese of Essen from September 12, 2014, accessed on July 10, 2019.
  15. ↑ Website of the Ordensuniversität FUNLAM , accessed on May 22, 2015.
  16. ↑ Order homepage amigonianer.org: The Amigonian Family : Cooperadores (accessed on May 22, 2015).
  17. ↑ Christoph Metzelder Foundation: Amigonians' school meeting in Gelsenkirchen-Schalke ( Memento from March 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).