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The State of Serra

Presented by Serra International President Giovanni Novelli
Opening Luncheon, June 28, 2002
This text has been lightly edited for space consideration

The Serran year 2001-2002 has been a year marked early on by Sept. 11 and later dominated by war, terrorism, and great suffering in the Holy Land – all despite the Pope’s tiring journeys, endless calls for peace, Christian unity, and understanding amongst the major religions. It has been a year during which, in several parts of the world, the Catholic Church has become the target of unprecedented and relentless investigation and reporting by the media; a year during which, because of the human failure and grave sinfulness of a small proportion of its members, the entire institution of the ministerial priesthood has come under attack, leading, in some cases, to wrongful accusations of faithful and holy ministers who with exemplary dedication spend themselves in heroic service to the people of God.

Almost every day, we witness the increasing disintegration of the family, especially in so-called industrialized countries, and of the systematic loss of certain basic values connected to the centrality of human life, such as euthanasia, abortion, certain genetic manipulations, etc. Serra too, in some of its activities, has been affected by this context and has had to deal with special contingent needs as well.
There have also been some practical problems, such as a reduction in travel (after Sept. 11), organizational changes in our Chicago office, certain difficulties in organizing conventions, an increase in economic needs and the cultural challenge of penetrating the social context.

My contacts with Serra clubs around the world have been very useful for evaluating the situations in various national contexts, for questioning the methods used to work toward achieving common goals, for listening to requests and providing feedback from the Board, and also for reinforcing old friendships and creating new ones.

In August 2001, I decided to begin my activity starting from the Chicago office, where I spent one week, and did not miss a visit to the detached seat of the USA Council.
I asked the Executive Committee to meet in Rome in October for the purpose of reinforcing our bonds with the Congregation for Catholic Education and its Prefect Cardinal Grocholewski, an event which also allowed us to take part in the opening mass of the Synod of Bishops celebrated by the Pope.

I later alternated my trips between Europe and the other continents. In Prague, I met Cardinal Miloslav Vlk and Novy Dwur. A French Cistercian monastery, partly sponsored by Serra, is being built in the Czech Republic. I also visited Dompierre in France and lastly Bangkok, where I met Cardinal Michael Michai Kitbunchu as well as all the Serrans who convened from the various Thai dioceses.

In November, I traveled to South America, where I visited Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile.

In January, I visited Chicago, where I met USAC President Claire Howard and other leaders of the USA Council during their SuperWeekend.

In March, I met all the main representatives from Eastern Europe gathered at a convention in Hungary. I then traveled to Salerno, in southern Italy, to attend the chartering of the new club founded in this city.

In April, I took part as a delegate in a three-day congress on vocations in North America in Montreal. President-elect Sue Cicherski was also present together with many Serrans from the U.S. and Canada. The conclusions of the congress regarding vocations to the ministerial priesthood and consecrated life in a rapidly changing social environment are strikingly similar to the trends identified at a recent convention of District 71 in Tuscany.
Afterwards I visited the Serra club in London, England. In May I took part in the convention of District 72 in Rome, where I was formally granted the offices of what I consider the Serra Embassy to the Holy See (in Via Lungotevere, The Vatican) where refurbishing work is still in progress. During the same month in Sicily, I had the opportunity to give the new club in Acireale its charter. Then I traveled to Bulgaria for the potential promotion of the first club in that area.

My monthly visits ended in the region of Puglia, where the District 73 Convention took place and where the Charter of the new club in Brindisi was announced, and finally in Tuscany where my Serra club is established.

I had many wonderful experiences, at times full of intense spirituality, like the encounter with over 1,000 Brazilian Serrans in Aparecida and the procession in honor of the Virgin in the basilica; the emotion felt in Guadalajara before the enthusiasm of 500 young men of the junior seminary and of 300 theology students of the senior seminary; and also the many meetings with cardinals, bishops, and high prelates of many different nationalities, who expressed their great appreciation of Serra International, whose popularity has grown in the ecclesiastical circle thanks to some effective communication activities.

Serra International has grown in its outreach this year, with the addition of 18 new clubs, to 808 Serra clubs with an adjusted membership (based on reviews conducted by some Serra Councils) of 19,440 Serrans. Looking to the future 76 clubs are in the process of formation on five continents.

I have tried to pass on to all Serrans the major points which characterize my program:

◊ to promote the internationality of Serra;

◊ to promote the importance of the Serra apostolate to the well-being of the Church;

◊ to promote harmonious relationships between all the elements of Serra; 

◊ to promote the cultural challenge to regenerate the soil for the attachment of the vocation roots;

◊ to develop a correct and intense use of the mass media to communicate Serra. 

I feel I have succeeded in listening to the thoughts, hopes, requests and sometimes the disappointments of the many friends who have honored me with their presence.

We have improved the organization by:

◊ creating a roster for all the Serrans in the world;

◊ professional revision of a central web site to which all the other sites set up by various clubs are linked;

◊ the project for the revision of the international dues system;

◊ an attempt to facilitate the work of the four International standing committees;

◊ opening the discussion on youth clubs;

◊ addressing our communication problems – including the research on a new aspect of Serra’s journals and relative improvements of the quality;

◊ supporting the new Executive Director of Serra International and of the Foundation, to whom I would like to express my best wishes for the good work that he is doing.

I cannot close this report without offering a personal analysis which derives from an almost 25-year experience in Serra and has reached its highest moment this year – a year in which, thanks to your trust, I have played such an important role.

Today I can say with full knowledge of the facts:

◊ that Serra, founded in the United States in the 1930’s from a formidable intuition, holds within itself a remarkable potential;

◊ that 67 years of work, of which almost 50 are truly international in character, has produced a presence which – even though honored by the quality of its members – cannot be considered satisfactory.

I would like to ask you simply to think about how well-known “service clubs,” whose philanthropic aims are more modest than our objectives, created in the early past century resulting from initiatives coming from North America, today have between 1 and 2 million members and have foundations in comparison to which ours is quite modest. Unlike other service clubs, we are, for instance, far from having a representative in bodies of international importance such as the UN.

Nonetheless, our roots lie in a worldwide mass of Catholics of over 1 billion. Indeed, we should have within our organization important professionals, intellectuals, male and female leaders of tried Catholic action, who are perhaps also involved in the above-mentioned service clubs.

Just think that the Knights of Columbus, concentrated mainly in North America, whose aims are not very different from ours (although mainly characterized by economic activities), reportedly has 1.5 million members, and their foundation has a broad contributive capacity.

If we were able to add a single Serra club for every diocese in the world, as I proposed in Los Angeles last year, we could achieve 4,500 clubs against the current 800 approximately, with many dioceses having more than one unit. Just think of what potential they would represent. This is not an impossible prospect in a social context where Catholics must continue the struggle to change culture. Only by being counter-cultural will we be capable of creating a favorable environment in which vocations can take root.

On the other hand, Serra’s spiritual objectives, which are extremely well-supported in so many of our clubs, represent a valuable starting point from which our members may truly become ambassadors of the Church for vocations, along the pathways of the secular world.

Meeting the challenge of the world, however, requires an effort of the imagination as well as various aspects of communication, penetration and perhaps of alliance; and also a reconsideration of our objectives. That is what I wish to recommend to my successors and I am certain that both our incoming President Sue – sensitive to the problems of youth – and her successor Alex Duncan, with his attention to organization and his Serran enthusiasm, will be able to give a new impetus to our fellowship so that it may embrace, in a constructive form, the basic objectives established by the four founders and, without neglecting the spiritual charisma dictated by our ‘guardians,’ succeed in aiming towards a new frontier.

Our society is disoriented and looking toward recuperating its fundamental Christian values in order to achieve a cultural change – the only one capable of re-creating the soil in which vocations to the ministerial priesthood and consecrated life may find their fertility. For such an outcome, I invite you to pray with feelings of hope.

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