WORCESTER, MA (October 3, 2016)—Assumption College will host a unique discussion on Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), featuring renowned Catholic scholars and Church leaders on Thursday, Oct. 27 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Hagan Hall, located in the Hagan Campus Center, on the Assumption College Campus, 500 Salisbury St. in Worcester. EWTN News Director and Anchor Raymond Arroyo will moderate the lively panel discussion.

Amoris Laetitia was released on April 8, 2016 and encourages a comprehensive examination of the family and the many challenges posed to family life in our contemporary society. Many have debated whether Pope Francis’s teaching in this Apostolic Exhortation is a radical break from long-standing teachings on the family and marriage or if it is indeed a reflection of authentic Church teachings.

Dr. Cesareo, president of Assumption College, together with trustees, Assumption Rome students, and members of the Assumpionist community in Rome

From October 1-8 more than fifteen of the twenty-five members of the Assumption College Board of Trustees, the body in the American higher educational system that bears primary responsibility for the institution's mission, sets institutional priorities, determines the budget, and hires senior management, and many of their spouses were in Rome for its first-ever visit, a visit with multiple purposes.

First, the Board wished to focus on their primary responsibility as a body, namely safeguarding the mission of the institution. In order to do so they spent an entire day listening to a series of talks beginning with the superior general, Fr. Benoît Grière, on the role of trustees at an Assumptionist institution. He addressed such topics as the meaning of Assumption College as a mobilizing work of the congregation, his expectations for College trustees, and avenues of broader collaboration between the College and other Assumptionists educational institutions.

By Br. Ramón Gutierrez, A.A.

I had the pleasure of being present to accompany my religious brother, the bishop of Juazeiro, Jose Geraldo da Cruz, on the day that he passed the episcopal reins to the new diocesan bishop, Carlos Alberto Breis Pereira, OFM, and immediately became bishop emeritus. I was the only Assumptionist able to attend this event in Juazeiro.

I had also been present in this city in 2014 and had the opportunity to spend time with many priests, religious, and lay-people. The occasion: the day that Bishop da Cruz rededicated the cathedral and confirmed its status as the shrine of Nossa Senhora das Grotas. There was an atmosphere of joy and profound reverence that day.

After repeated invitations from the archbishop of Bukavu, Most Rev. François-Xavier Maroy Rusengo, the Assumptionists recently opened a community in this large eastern Congolese city on the southwestern shores of Lake Kivu, bordering Rwanda and Burundi.

The Assumptionists are not new to the region. In 2001 Assumptionist bishop, Charles Mbogha, was named archbishop of Bukavu, a position he held until his untimely death in 2005, but whose short mandate left an indelible impression on the clergy and lay-people of the archdiocese.

At the beginning of the 20^th century the White Fathers (the Missionaries of Africa) opened various communities in this region, parishes, schools, and dispensaries. In 1959, just before independence took place, Pope John XXIII erected Bukavu as one of the six archdioceses of the country. The archdiocese and its institutions have often been the victims of armed conflicts which have troubled the mineral-rich eastern part of the country. Its location next to Rwanda, itself subject to internal tribal divisions (like the 1994 genocide), left the city vulnerable not only to an influx of refugees but all the subsequent problems that arose.