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THE CAPUCHINS
- A BRAND OF FRANCISCANS

Introduction

Cappuccino coffee is currently a popular hot drink shared by many to accompany friendship and conversation. Interesting though, it was so named originally because Italians saw its colour resembling the familiar brown robe of the CAPUCHIN friar.

In recent years some Australian Catholics have become familiar with the spiritual calibre of a visiting Capuchin preacher Fr Rainiero Cantalamessa. He is the humble, joyful, prayerful and gifted Capuchin chosen by the Pope to deliver annually a course of Advent and Lenten sermons to the Papal household.

Most people also, have heard of Padre Pio. This Capuchin mystic and stigmatist, who died in 1968, bore the marks of Christ's wounds in his hands, feet and side for over 50 years. Though confined most years to the one friary of San Giovanni Rotondo near Foggia, Italy, his gift of miracles, bi-location, ability to read the heart of his penitents were only a few of the ways in which the Lord used him to touch with conversion the lives of innumerable pilgrims drawn to see him and scores of others in distant lands unable to journey there. An unforgettable privilege, which perhaps many still alive can never forget, was to be present at the celebration of one of his daily Masses. Padre Pio, during that one and a half hours, in the presence of a packed church of people, witnessed to, in the flesh, and re-lived the moments of Christ's bitter sufferings and death. The reality of this fact was evidenced by the atmosphere of reverent silence during which you could hear a pin drop - a surprising and amazing point to one who is accustomed to the boisterousness of Italians even when in church.

What is not so well known to present day Australian Catholics is that the Capuchin sons of St Francis did pioneering work here in Australia in the last century. Elzear Torreggiani, a Capuchin, was the second bishop of Armidale (NSW). A second wave of Capuchins arrived in 1945 and have served the Australian Church for more than half a century. Golden Jubilee celebrations commemorating this period of presence were held in 1995, and we now prepare for the celebrations of sixty years of ministry in 2005.

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