Chapter 2022 Elects Our New Council
Every three years, we Capuchin Franciscan friars gather to discuss our lives in fraternity and service. During that meeting, called a Chapter, we also elect those who will serve in leadership as Provincial Minister. Four other brothers are elected to serve as his Council.
The Chapter of friars, held from May 23-27, 2022, elected our brother, Robert Marva, OFM Cap., to serve as Minister for this term. Currently serving as Pastor of St. Agnes/Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Cleveland, OH, Br. Bob takes the helm of the Province previously served by our Br. Tom Betz, OFM Cap., who served for the past two terms (2016-2022).
Br. Bob was born on September 26, 1966, in Solon, OH, a member of St. Rita Parish there. An early interest in high school seminary led him to apply to our Capuchin St. Fidelis Seminary in 1980, but the seminary was to close its doors that very year. So, instead, he attended St. Mark Seminary High School in Erie, PA (1980-1984) before studying for the Cleveland Diocese at Borromeo College Seminary of Ohio (1984-1988). After graduating, sensing the call to our Capuchin brotherhood, and after living as a postulant of the community and then receiving the habit of the Order in 1989, Bob professed vows as a Capuchin in 1990.
FROM THE GENERAL MINISTER: Easter 2022
English translation of the Italian Video Message below
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
We present here the Easter message of the General Minister. Let us spend Holy Week and Easter in meditation on the mercy of God and the mystery of Christ crucified and risen. Happy Easter!
Easter Greetings by the General Minister
Pace e Bene, Brothers!
We once again find ourselves fast approaching Easter, the mystery of our Lord's passion, death and resurrection. These days, I think the whole world’s been caught off guard and drawn into something very similar to these dynamics through what has been happening in Ukraine: we wonder how such a thing is possible, how cruel the hearts of men become when they no longer consider their fellow man. How evil we can be – how very evil! The iniquity of evil, what does it bring about? Evil against humanity. I think that even the evil we allow to fester within ourselves is always against humanity. And when we are too focused on ourselves, we go nowhere. Today, in the world, there exists a great evil, but perhaps it is also between us individually.
Capuchin Memories: St. Fidelis High School and College
Our Province of Capuchin Franciscans staffed a High School and College Seminary for 103 years from 1877-1980. Many of our brothers were educated there and came to appreciate the lives of the wonderful (and well-trained!) men who nurtured their knowledge and gave such great examples of faith and goodness.
Our alumni has decided to 'never forget' that story and have created A History of Memories section for the pages of the Alumni webite. Those pages in the coming months will celebrate the history and memories of the people that taught there, worked there, preached there, prayed there, studied there and lived there.
As Dave Schaffner ('81) writes for this initial installment of Memories, "I often get asked about 'the fire. It’s an event so significant in the history of St. Fidelis that, when it’s talked about, it’s just called THE Fire. So when we talked about setting up the History of Memories pages and went through some of the archives, it was clear what should be the first post."
Go back with them and start remembering . . . .
Mario Mastrangelo, OFM Cap., 1931-2022
Our Province suffered a loss when our brother Mario Mastrangelo, OFM Cap., 90, made his transitus to the Lord’s eternal life on Saturday afternoon, February 26, 2022. Health problems have plagued him throughout the past years. Sometimes dampening his spirits but never his kindness, his resolve or his trust in the Lord, his visits in and out of hospital for a range of issues dealing with his diabetes called upon our prayers and support. We became accustomed to his bouncing back and returning to the brothers, but after a final visit by his blood brother, Fr. Nick Mastrangelo, a retired priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh (PA), Mario succumbed to Sister Death.
Anthony Mastrangelo was born in New Castle, PA on May 3, 1931, the first of three sons born to Nicholas and Concepta (Toscano) Mastrangelo. Having been baptized in New Castle’s St. Vitus Parish, his childhood was nurtured by the immigrant Italian community of the city. Bouncing back and forth between public and parochial schools during his elementary and high school years, 17-year-old Anthony finally landed among our Capuchin Franciscan friars at St. Fidelis High School and College Seminary in Herman, PA, to complete his last two years of high school studies before entering the college seminary.
International Fraternity Formed in the Amazon
St. Lawrence International Fraternity Formed in the Amazon
February 2nd, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, a.k.a. the Purification of Mary, a.k.a. the Circumcision of the Lord, has tradionally been celebrated in many countries as the Day of Consecrated Life. Pope John Paul II made it a worldwide celebration for the Church in 1997. Our Order, through the work of its Commission for Evangelization and Mission, chose that day to inaugurate a St. Lawrence International Fraternity in the Amazon, part of the General's effort to begin building Saint Lawrence of Brindisi Fraternities throughout the world.
The efforts have been inspired by our former General Mauro Jöhri who wrote in 2014: "We want to try a new path, establishing intercultural fraternities, which in the light of the Gospel and our Constitutions live prayer, fraternal life and mission in an authentic and coherent way. The resource of interculturality will give witness that brothers and sisters from different cultures, if they look to Christ present among them, can live and give of themselves to work together. We are sustained by the certainty that the charism of Francis of Assisi, lived and witnessed, still has so much to say and communicate to the men and women of our time.”
Our brothers in Papua New Guinea Remember & Celebrate
The Lord has blessed us with three brothers who made their Perpetual Vows as Capuchins in the Custody of St. Michael the Archangel on Tuesday, January 25. Our brothers Clement Tarmat, Joseph Umba and Lucas Tamshong professed their vows in Mendi, PNG. Provincial Tom Betz, OFM Cap., was there to witness their commitments.
Jospeh signs his documents wearing his native headdress.
Custody Minister Modest Sangia, OFM Cap., attests to their vows at the altar.
Clement, Lucas and Joseph after the celebration.
Shia LeBeouf Tries out a Habit & Padre Pio
You may never have heard of Shia LeBeouf, but he's known in filmdom and is quite a popular name among those who've seen his work in Disturbia and in the Transformers series as Sam Witwicky, its main protagonist. But Shia, whose life has been somewhat tumultuous, experienced a conversion and became fascinated with the figure of our brother Pio of Pietrelcina. He spent some time with our confreres in the California Province and one of their brothers, Alexander Rodriguez, OFM Cap., is now serving as his companion in Italy as he takes on the role of Pio in a movie currrently being filmed near San Giovanni Rotondo and in Pietrelcina.
Homeless Jesus Finds a Cleveland Home
A bronze sculpture of Jesus depicted as a homeless man on a park bench outside one suburban Cleveland church sparked national headlines last year. That statue is part of a series of six sculptures by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz that illustrate Christ as a person in need, alternately sick, hungry, naked, a stranger, a prisoner or without shelter. Mr. Schmalz was the designer and creator of the Angels Unaware sculpture which has astounded and moved many a pilgrim or tourist at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.
Our brother Phil Bernier, OFM Cap., who serves as parochial vicar at St. Malachi Church in Cleveland, wrote us about the placement of one of the Homeless Jesus statues there . . .
Francis Xavier Russo, OFM Cap., 1934-2022
Our brother Francis Xavier Russo, OFM Cap., passed to the Lord’s eternal life early Friday afternoon, January 14, 2022, at Villa Rosa Nursing home in Mitchellville, MD, from complications following a stroke he suffered on December 4, 2021. Our confrere Emett Schuler, OFM Cap., administered the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and was praying with him at the time of his death.
John Carmen Russo was born on March 21, 1934, to John and Theresa (Izzo) Russo of Mahoningtown, PA. He was baptized at St. Lucy Church in Mahoningtown and educated in the local public elementary school before enrolling at St. Fidelis Seminary in Herman, PA, in 1951, where he received both his high school and college education. Following his second year of collegiate studies, he received the habit of our Capuchin Franciscan community when he entered the novitiate at St. Conrad Friary, Annapolis, MD, on July 13, 1953, and was given the name “Kent.”
Page 6 of 16