A few days ago, Father Alexandre was elected Superior General of the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Fathers. As he told the Vatican website, this came as a surprise to him, since he was not present at the General Chapter and was working as usual in the secretariat of the Dicastery. After being consulted, he spoke with Pope Francis who gave him complete freedom to decide. He expressed his consent, and immediately traveled to Schoenstatt in Germany to participate in this decisive moment for his community.

In spite of the work overload, Father Alexandre agreed to give a brief interview about this election and to leave a message for our Schoenstatt Family:

Father Alexandre, how do you see this election as Superior General of your Institute?

I accept this selection by my brothers humbly and confidently. I am delighted to carry out this task together with a General Council, which will be able to support me in some areas that I usually do not feel capable of doing.

The work of a General Directorate is carried out in a synodal, that is to say, collegial, manner. We, the General Council, are the expression of a community. This is what I hope will also happen with the task that I have been given with this appointment.

With it, you also assume the direction of the General Presidency of the International Schoenstatt Work. How do you intend to carry out this role?

Yes, with this appointment I also assume this leadership. I believe that my role is to coordinate and to be a source of unity and communion. It is my desire that there everything will also proceed in the same spirit of unity and communion that I experienced during my work with the Schoenstatt Family in Brazil. This will certainly happen since this spirit already exists in the International Presidium.

How does your work in the Dicastery contribute to the fulfillment of this new mission?

The task in the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life has undoubtedly enriched me with the vision of a universal Church and with the awareness of the richness of other Movements. I was able to learn that we can always allow ourselves to be complemented and enriched by what the Holy Spirit is bestowing upon the Church as a whole. I became even more aware of the need to work together with other Movements and offer our richness to other charisms and to the structure of the Church.

What are the perspectives of the Schoenstatt Fathers after the General Chapter?

During these days we are creating new perspectives as Schoenstatt Fathers. We hope that after the Chapter, when there is more clarity about this, we will be able to communicate what is inherent to the Schoenstatt Family.

In your message immediately after your election, you say that you look “to the future with joy and hope”. What is the basis for this during these difficult times?

I have no doubt that we must look to the future with joy and hope, because our God is a God of life, joy, and hope. We have been given the grace of His call to follow and serve Him.

I believe that the difficult times we live in are times of growth. In some respects, they are also times of purification. But, above all, it is a time of great hope, for we know that victory always belongs to God and to the Mother of God.

A message for the International Schoenstatt Family:

To the Schoenstatt Family I would say that we remain firm in the Spirit of the Pentecost Congress, we are the letter that our Founder needs so that we can imprint the Church and present-day society with his charism, a letter that is not perfect, but that should be written with much love as the letter of the Pentecost Congress says: “rooted in our charism we advance towards a future full of hope.”

This is what moves the Schoenstatt Family today, we have a pedagogical charism with great prophetic strength to transmit to today’s world and we want to do it with complete openness, in the spirit of communion with the whole Church, with the other Movements, allowing ourselves to be complemented, learning from others, and humbly giving our contribution in this synodal spirit that the universal Church is experiencing. With great confidence, courage, creativity and full of hope, with great awareness of our charism and therefore rooted in what is our history, in the charism of the Covenant of Love, the Covenant culture and, at the same time, with great hope that the Church’s future, and that of Schoenstatt in some way is also in our hands with the grace of God for which we pray in the Shrine.

We thank you for dedicating your limited time to answer these questions. May the Mother of God repay you with many graces and blessings for all that you will undertake in your new mission. You may count on the prayers of many Schoenstatters around the world.

Source: Schoenstatt Brasil