Dear members, associates, and Seminarians
I am glad to meet you all through this article to invite you to a new journey at the beginning of this new year. It is a journey of study, reflection, and exploration called, “Charism and Constitutions”.
The Superior General promulgated the newly revised Constitutions and Laws of the Society last month. The new version reflects the new structures and the decisions of the 2019 General Assembly. 
When was the last time we did such a revision? After the previous General assembly, the Constitutions and Laws were promulgated by the then Superior General in 2017, that’s about five years ago. When will the CL be revised again? Most probably after the coming General Assembly in 2025. 
Something looks strange here. 
Should Constitutions and Laws be revised after every General Assembly?
Let us see how it has been in our history.

Different editions of Constitutions and Laws

Our Founder wrote the Fundamental articles in 1856, then with Fr. Planque, he revised them in 1858. 
Then it took about forty years to get the first Constitutions approved by the Propaganda Fide in 1900.
After about fifty years, we revised it in 1953.
Then after about forty years, we revised again in 1990. 
Then we did it again in 2004, 2017 and 2022.
That is in the first 130 years, we had three editions (1900, 1953 and 1990). These are the major editions. And in the last 30 years, we have published already three editions (2004, 2017 and 2022). The first editions had about forty to fifty years of shelf-life, and the recent editions have come out after every one or two General Assemblies.
How do we explain this? Why did we have greater stability for the text in the past and less in recent years? 

Merging of Constitutions and Laws in 1990 and the consequences

In 1900, we published only Constitutions. Then a directory was added in the following years, which was called ‘Book 2’. It was a supplement to the ‘Constitutions’ which was ‘Book 1’. 
The edition of 1953 also had two separate sections Book 1 and Book 2. 
Then in 1990, the articles of both books were combined and arranged thematically and the whole book was called, “Constitutions and laws”. The laws were distinguished from the Constitutions by writing them in Italics and by adding an indent. The advantage of this method is that a law which adds more details to an article of the Constitutions is placed just under the same article. It looks easier to read and understand. The numbering goes linear from top to bottom in a single book, that is thematically organised.
What is the challenge with this method?
Constitutions and Laws depend on two different authorities. 
Constitutions are approved by the Propaganda Fide and Laws are modified and approved by the General Assembly. You get it now.
Every General Assembly can change the laws and the Superior General will promulgate the compilation of laws. Since the Constitutions and Laws are in the same book, with the same linear numbering, each time laws are changed, we are bound to revise the entire book, and give new numbering. It has not been easy to modify the laws without touching the articles of Constitutions - not only the numbering but even the content. 
Each time we touch the ‘Constitutions’, we need to get the approval of the Propaganda Fide. Even if we don’t modify the content of any article of ‘Constitution’, since we change the numbering, we need to ensure that they have a copy of the most recent version. 
The Commissions established to update the Constitutions and Laws can only update based on the decisions of the General Assembly so that the GA texts and the Constitutions and Laws are coherent with each other. Doing this in the last three consecutive versions resembles doing a patchwork. Any deeper work of organisation or revision would be beyond the competence of the commissions set up after Assemblies to update the texts.

GA2019 and PC2022 on Constitutions and Laws

After the 2019 General Assembly, the Superior General and his Council set up a commission to update the Constitutions and Laws in line with the decisions of the General Assembly. While doing the work, the commission became aware of the challenges just mentioned. 
While presenting the updated version of the Constitutions and Laws to the Plenary Council 2022, the Commission made a few recommendations. Subsequently, the Plenary Council asked the Superior General and his Council to initiate a special process which would include two things:
1. Separating Constitutions and Laws as two separate sections with separate numbering, so that Constitutions will have greater stability and we will be able to modify the laws more freely as needs arise. 
2. Organising a societywide consultation and reflection for a deeper revision.

Members of the new Commission

A new commission was set up and the members are 
Bernardin Kinnoume
Emmanuel Dim
Fachtna O’Driscoll
Waclaw Dominik 
And myself. 
The Commission has prepared the ground a bit and we are launching the society wide reflection and study.

Study of the first chapter of the Constitutions and Laws

Now we are going to study only the first chapter of our Constitutions and Laws. 
The version of 1900 has 5 articles in the first chapter, the version of 1953 has 6 articles and the version of 1990 has 30 articles which have remained more or less in all subsequent versions. 
Normally, the number of articles of the Constitutions need to be fewer than those of laws. For example, in the first Constitutions and directory, the Constitutions made about one-tenth of the directory, and in the present edition, the Constitutions make twice the size of the laws. From 10% we have gone to 200%. One senior SMA said that the essentials are drowned amid too many articles. 
The essentials are drowned amid too many articles.
How do we understand this jump from 5 to 30? Where do these new articles come from and in what context?
The second Vatican Council ended in 1965, and the Canon law was revised in 1983. The SMA revised its Constitutions and Laws in 1990, incorporating the evolution of the understanding of the mission expressed in the General Assemblies that were held after Vatican II.
It was a moment of major change. 
Most of the new articles came from General Assemblies reflecting the evolution of the missiology in the Church. 

Three questions to guide the study

I propose three questions to begin this reflection and study of the first chapter of the Constitutions:
             1. What makes our fundamental identity? That is what is the central content, touching which you touch our identity. We need to preserve them by all means.
           2. What are the articles in our Constitutions that do not need the weight of ‘Constitutions’? They can be there as laws. In other words, how much Constitutional weight do we want to give to the decisions of the General Assemblies that were held forty years ago? (between 1968 and 1983)? Can some of them be made as laws? If they are laws, General Assemblies can modify them.
            3. In the light of the General assemblies and the life of the SMA in the last 40 years, that is after 1983, what do we see as missing in these first 30 articles?
Let me repeat the same three questions differently and more simply:
              1. What is the core of the SMA identity we want to maintain by all means?
              2. What articles can be made as laws instead of Constitutions? 
              3. For the life and mission of the SMA today, what is missing in our Constitutions and Laws?
As we are marking the 40th anniversary of the 1983 General Assembly which has greatly transformed the SMA, this is an important moment to read closely the first chapter of the Constitutions and Laws and see how we identify ourselves with it. 
The three major editions of our Constitutions and Laws are the ones made in 1900, 1953 and 1990. Is it time to work on a major edition? We don’t know how long the whole process will take. What is important is to begin the process.

Reference documents on the website

For this work of study, reflection and exploration, we are making a set of documents available to everybody on our website, smainternational.info
You will see a dedicated page named “Charism and Constitutions”.
On that page, you will see all versions of the Constitutions and Laws from the beginning till the most recent one, You will see all texts of General Assemblies since 1968 And you will also see some other relevant books and articles. 
I have not read all the documents mentioned here. I have seen them. It is a bit like getting the basic bibliography for research; it is like getting all the essential material for exploration. Let us study them together. 
We feel extremely blessed to have on the one hand confreres who participated in the General Assembly of 1968 and on the other hand hundreds of seminarians who joined the SMA after the last General Assembly. This is what we are. We have a great past we are proud of, we have a vibrant present, we are grateful for, and we discern our future with hope. That discernment happens through the deep communion and dialogue between the various generations of the SMAs. 

May God enlighten us and guide us at every step of this journey.

Francis ROZARIO