The Studium Biblicum Franciscanum:
Memory and Challenge

Rome, 8th September 2001
The Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary

«Incline the ear of your heart
and obey the voice of the Son of God» (LOrd 6).

Dear Brothers,
May the Lord give you Peace!

It is with great joy I wish to inform you that the Congregation for Catholic Education (for Seminaries and Study Centres), with the decree of the 4th September 2001, erected our Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem as a Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology dependent on the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum. It is a great event for our Order, which certainly honours us but which also entails great responsibilities for us.

1. Thanks
That which seemed like a dream, desired for a long time, has become a reality today. We would like to thank first of all the Lord, from whom all good comes, for all that He has done through the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum and will continue to do through the new Faculty. I take advantage of the occasion to express, in the name of the whole Order, our special thanks to the Congregation for Catholic Education that has kindly accepted our request: to the Prefect, His Eminence Card. Zenon Grocholewsky, to the Secretary, His Excellence Mons. Giuseppe Pittau, SJ, and to all the officials of the Congregation that have always paid heed to us and received us in a fraternal manner. I also wish to thank all who worked and work in the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum: They, with their commitment carried out "faithfully and devotedly" (LR 5,2), are the real constructors of this beautiful reality. Our thanks also go to the Custody of the Holy Land that has maintained, with great generosity right from the beginning, the Studium Biblicum. Indeed, our thanks go to all those who have committed themselves to having the request, presented in 1999, finally reach a successful outcome.

2. The Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem at the service of Biblical Science.
Our Order has always accepted the invitation, many times confirmed by the Church, to a profound study of the Word of God. St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bonaventure, Blessed John Duns Scotus, Alexander of Hales, Jean de la Rochelle, William of Middleton can be listed among the most prestigious bible scholars of the Middle Ages. Closer to us, especially in the XX Century, the Franciscans have been not only spreaders of the Word, through preaching, but also qualified scholars of Sacred Scripture. Concrete testimony of this are the translation of the Bible into Chinese carried out by the Ven. Gabriele Allegra, that into Japanese under the care of Br. Bernardin Schneider, the coordination of the work of translation of the New American Bible, published in 1970 under the care of Br. Stephen Hartdegen and the edition of the Bibbia Francescana published in Italia under the direction of Br. Bonaventure Mariani. The precious collaboration of our Friars in the translation and spread of the Bible in many other languages also demonstrates it.

Without forgetting the great activity carried out by our Studi Biblici of Hong Kong and Tokyo, the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem is certainly the most important of the Order. Erected in 1923 by the Custos of the Holy Land, Br. Ferdinando Diotallevi, when Br. Bonaventura Marrani was Minister General, in response to the appeal launched by Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical Providentissimus Deus of 1893 and for the defence of the authenticity of the Holy Places of Palestine, the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem was born with a clear vocation to research and teaching, a vocation lived with exemplary dedication and with a competence that is recognised everywhere, even outside the Church.

3. A Commitment for the future
The fact that the Congregation for Catholic Education has confirmed its confidence in our Order by allowing the Studium Biblicum of Jerusalem to become The Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology, is for us, at the same time, an honour and an onus: an honour in so far as it is a recognition of the serious and profound intellectual work carried out by so many Friars in this so important department for the life of the Church; an onus in so far as we are entrusted with a particular responsibility for the maintenance of this centre.

In order that our Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology can have the future that the Church expects of us, I consider it important to recall some priorities.

a) Our Biblical Faculty of the Flagellation will have to continue and increase the double dimension of its vocation, biblical research and teaching, in such a way that the Franciscan tradition, characterised by study in function of charity and from a Christological reading of Scripture can be developed. Archaeological research, then, has always been a characteristic of the commitment of the Friars Minor in the Holy Land: it will have to continue to be cultivated as a service to the Truth and to the Church. In this way, thanks to the teachers of the Studium, the Order will be able to help believers and deepen the knowledge of Christ and of the first Christian community so as to feel them almost as our contemporaries. Besides, the dialogue with our "older brothers" of the Jewish religion will be able to be consolidated on a scientific basis.

b) The entire Order must commit itself to continue with the effort to prepare new professors and thus assure and develop the vitality and the qualification of the Studium Biblicum. The Ministers Provincial will feel themselves co-responsible in the preparation of future professors for the centres of the Order, especially for the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum in Rome and for our Studi Biblici in Jerusalem, Hong Kong and Tokyo. All the Provinces of the Order and all the Friars should show generosity in this field. I especially invite the young Friars to commit themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture: a study that «requires continuous and profound intellectual investment, which is undoubtedly austere», but which if it is «sustained and animated by the faith», will lead to «a progress in the faith» (cf. John Paul II, Message to the General Chapter OFM, San Diego, 1991).

4. Ministers and Servants of the Word
The confidence of the Church in our Order, manifested through the erection of the new faculty, should also affect our vocation and our mission: to live and proclaim the Gospel to all. In fact, our Studium Biblicum of Jerusalem has been and is at the service of the announcement of the Good News to all, it has been and is at the service of the whole Church. The Studium also, like the whole Church, retains the «memory of the past», but above all wishes «to live the present with enthusiasm and to look forward to the future with confidence» (John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 1). We are not dealing with a glorifying of self for "our" merits but of seizing on the action of the Spirit of God who guides the Church and offers her, at the opportune moment, the ministers and servants of the Word. Our only claim should be that of becoming faithful servants of the Word.

This sends us back to the source of our vocation: the forma vitae that the Lord revealed to Francis and which he expressed in few words: «The Rule and Life of the Lesser Brothers is this: to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ» (LR 1,1). The truth of our vocation, therefore, consists of allowing the Word of God to illuminate and transform the whole of our life, our experiences and the world in which we live.

St. Bonaventure, in the Breviloquium, puts the "book" of the world in parallel with that of Scripture: the latter assumes the great book of the creation, makes the original sense "legible" again and, doing so, guides us along the path towards God, source of our eternal happiness (cf. Prologue 4,5). But in order to read properly the Bible it is necessary to have a synthesis of research and action, of word and of silence, of desire and of intelligence, which Bonaventure remembers in the Prologue of the Itinerarium mentis in Deum: «Do not believe that it is enough to have reading without love, speculation without devotion, search without charity, intelligence without humility, study without divine grace, the mirror without divinely inspired wisdom» (cf. Prologue 4). I am convinced that these words catch the spirit of Francis perfectly and offer an enlightened method for the prayerful reading of the Word of God according to the Franciscan style.

I ask the Lord for all this to become a reality for each one of us and that we all together, with the help of the new Faculty of Jerusalem, can return to sensing and bearing witness to the "fragrance" that, according to Francis, emanates from the word of the Lord (cf. 2LtF 2).

With the blessing of friar Francis

Br. Giacomo Bini, ofm
Minister General

Br. José Rodríguez Carballo, ofm
Secretary General
for Formation and Studies

Prot. No. 091401