Brother Pacifique, Brother Jean-Baptiste de l’Agneau and Brother Raphaël made their perpetual profession on Saturday 13 April 2024. A “humble choice”, as Brother Henri-Dominique, Prior of the Province of France, emphasised in his homily.

Brother Charles Basani made his final vows on April 6, 2024 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The mass was presided by Mgr Michael Gielen, Bishop of Christchurch. Some members of the brother’s family were able to be present and there was a fraternal lunch after the mass celebrated at the Brothers’ parish.

Brother François-Xavier CAZALI, Prior General; Brother Justin LEE, Vice-Provincial of Asia-Oceania; the Brothers of Saint John and the family of our brother are pleased to announce the perpetual profession of Brother

Charles BASANI (India)

The Mass will be presided by Bishop Michael Gielen, Bishop of Christchurch, at 12:05 PM on Saturday 6 April 2024 at Saint Theresa of Lisieux Church, Christchurch (New Zealand).

Brother Gabriel-Mary Fiore is priest and assistant professor of theology at the Angelicum University. He teaches Christian spirituality in Rome and for other institutes of religious formation in Europe, America, and Asia, including graduate-level courses on the desert and church fathers, on spiritual growth and afflictions, and on the spirituality of John’s Gospel.

Spirituality in John’s Gospel: Historical Developments and Critical Foundations

The Fourth Gospel has been known as the “spiritual gospel” since the second century, but only recently have biblical scholars attempted to express the unique spirituality found in that sacred text. Surprisingly, no consensus has emerged even after a century of research. Thus, while John’s Gospel is widely admired as a vibrant source of Christian piety, the distinct features of its spirituality remain unclear.

Brother Gabriel-Mary addresses this problem from the fresh perspective of spiritual theology. Capitalizing on a century of Johannine biblical scholarship, he uses the interdisciplinary methods of spiritual theology to bring new data to the study of the Gospel and solutions to many lingering questions: How did ancient readers understand what scholars now refer to as the Gospel’s spirituality? How does that ecclesial reading compare to the analysis of modern critical exegesis? What makes Johannine spirituality special among other forms of Christian piety? How does the question of the Gospel’s authorship impact our understanding of its spirituality? Does the Gospel contain what we now call “mysticism”? In what ways is John’s spirituality still relevant for Christians today?

Students of Christian spirituality and Johannine exegesis alike will find here stimulating historical and theological analysis of the Gospel’s spirituality.

Purchase the book

To the victims, especially those who have not come forward

Madam, Sir, Sister, Brother,

The report To Understand and To Heal, which has just been made public, is dedicated first and foremost to you. It is thanks to the courage of many of you, put to the test by all kinds of resistance, that the evil of the abuses committed within the Congregation of Saint John has been denounced, directly or through victims’ associations, and that it can now be brought to light and analyzed.

These steps have been decisive not only in identifying the aggressors and protecting other people, but also and above all in raising awareness of the systemic dimension of this abuse, i.e. the workings and beliefs that facilitated the contagion of abuse.

What you have experienced is an unspeakable tragedy for you, and today for the whole community. While you had every confidence in the brothers who were presented to you as men of God, you were deceived. They abused your trust and their authority. They have violated the limits of your intimacy and the respect due to you, either through hurtful words that leave a stain on your soul, or more seriously through touching or rape. A number of you have also been locked into evil by injunctions of silence, a claim to “secrecy”, by justifications or minimizations that abuse the meaning of words, the meaning of friendship and the priesthood.

The spiritual or religious life has been the motive that has captured your heart, and the abuse has made it a place of destruction for you. This betrayal of the Christian faith, a betrayal of God who makes himself man’s servant, who liberates and lifts him up, not enslaves him, shames us. The suffering you have experienced in your body, in your heart and in your soul, the suffering you still feel today in your psyche, in your relationships, in your life of faith or your religious life, never ceases to fill us with dread, shame and dismay.

Not all of you have been able to talk about the abuse you have suffered, or have wished, or found the means, to talk about it to an official body. Our thoughts are with each and every one of you. I’ve listed some contacts below for those of you who would like to take this step today.

Even if we are aware that we still have a long way to go, I wanted to tell you that thanks to your testimonies, we are deeply committed to a process of conversion and want to respond in deed and in truth to this report.

Brother François-Xavier Cazali CSJ
Prior General

Consult the report “To understand and to heal”

Contacts in America

Find contacts in America

Contacts in France

– The SOS Abuse Commission sos.abus@stjean.com, set up by the Congregation, is chaired by a magistrate. It is made up of four lay outsiders, including a lawyer and a psychologist, and two brothers from the Congregation. The commission is available to listen to you [in French or in English] and to recommend to the Prior General the steps to be taken with regard to Church and State justice systems.

– Bishops’ conferences or national conferences of religious: paroledevictimes@cef.fr and ecoutevictime@corref.fr in France.

– The Commission Reconnaissance et Réparation (CRR, victimes@crr.contact), an independent commission for victims of sexual abuse by religious, set up by CORREF (Conférence des religieux et religieuses de France). It formulates requests to the accused religious institute for recognition and reparation for the victim. Similar bodies may exist in other countries where the Congregation of the Brothers of Saint John is based.

– It is also possible to contact local civil society helplines, such as France victimes in France (01 41 83 42 17 (7 days a week, 9am to 9pm) or victimes@116006.fr).

In October 2019, the General Chapter of the Brothers of Saint John asked the Prior General to set up an interdisciplinary commission with the mission to establish what links exist between the high number of instances of sexual abuse committed by the members of the Family of Saint John and the personal and family history of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe OP (1912-2006), their founder. Today, after more than three years of work, the Commission submitted its report. Entitled “To understand and to heal – Origins and Analyses of the Abuse within the Family of Saint John”, the report totals 800 pages. The Brothers of Saint John is making it public, conscious of the gravity of the deeds it details and their dramatic consequences.

This is the story of Regina Caeli Hermitage, a seemingly far away place located only 30 minutes from Denver, Colorado.

Visit https://www.rchermitage.org/donate.html

Ordinations to the Diaconate

Brother François-Xavier Cazali, Prior General; 
Brother Côme-Emmanuel, Prior Provincial of Africa;
 the Brothers of Saint John and the brothers’ families are delighted to share with you news of the ordination to the Diaconate of Brothers:

Élisée Djogba (Ivory Coast)
François-Emmanuel-Marie Ziggar (Togo)

The ordination took place on Saturday 24 June 2023, at Notre Dame de Rimont in France. The mass was presided over by His Excellency Monsignor Patrick Le Gal, Auxiliary Bishop of Lyon.

Ordinations to the Priesthood

Brother François-Xavier Cazali, Prior General;
Brother Justin, Prior Vice-Provincial of Asia-Oceania;
Brother Côme-Emmanuel, Prior Provincial of Africa;
the Brothers of Saint John and the brothers’ families are delighted to share with you news of the ordination to the priesthood of Brothers:

Jean-Savio Aubry (France)
On Saturday 24 June 2023, at Notre-Dame de Rimont in France. The mass was presided over by Mgr Patrick Le Gal, Auxiliary Bishop of Lyon.

Paul-Raphaël Setchi (Côte-d’Ivoire)
On Saturday 8 July 2023, at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Abidjan (Ivory Coast). The mass was presided over by Cardinal Jean-Pierre Kutwa, Metropolitan Archbishop of Abidjan.

Ange-Marie Klu (Togo)
Lazare de la Mère de Dieu Nassabe (Togo)
On Saturday 5 August 2023, in Lomé (Togo). The mass was presided over by Mgr Nicodème Barrigah, Archbishop of Lomé.