María del Rosario Ríos, superior of the Company of Mary since 2010, was until recently the vice president of CONFER. In April last year she became interim president when the previous president, Luis Angel de las Heras, was appointed bishop of Mondoñedo-Ferrol. Then, in November, the General Assembly of CONFER elected her as president for the next four years.
Mariña (as she is familiarly known) was born in A Coruña in 1960. She has a degree in Psychology from the University of Santiago and a Bachelor's degree in Theology from the University of Comillas. She has worked among young people in colleges and university residences, as a teacher of novices and in various government services.
On his return from La Rioja and hours before catching the plane to Rome, he makes time to meet the readers of Palabra.
Maria del Rosario, how will you experience this year's World Day for Consecrated Life?
I would emphasize the accent suggested by the chosen slogan:"Witnesses of hope and joy."which evokes the words of Pope Francis to the Church and to the Consecrated Life.
It evokes the Apostolic Letter Witnesses of joywhich the Pope addressed to us consecrated men and women during the Year of Consecrated Life. In that letter he encourages us to be witnesses of hope and to spread hope to all in the midst of the difficulties of our time and also of the difficulties in our own religious life.
I would also emphasize the same sense that the celebration of the Day has, not only for consecrated life, but for all the People of God. What is intended is to give thanks, to witness, to renew the religious charism and to deepen what it is. These days help the People of God to experience consecrated life as what it is: a gift in the Church.
How have the different ecclesial institutions, and also the institutes integrated in CONFER, received the fact that the president is a woman?
In CONFER it has been positively received, as something normal and as a service.
In religious institutions we already live the reality that men and women carry out services of government or formation at different levels: local, provincial, general. For this reason, it has been experienced as something normal, positive and as one of the various contributions of women to the Church.
Pope Francis invites women to contribute also from places where sometimes we have not contributed so much, because of the same trajectory of the Church or because, for various reasons, we have not dared to do so.
With regard to other areas of the Church, I have also felt positively welcomed.
I would add that there is a danger, when it is news, of insisting too much on the fact of being a woman. It is true that this is the first time that a woman president has been elected, but we have to enter into evangelical categories, even if we also have to fill positions.
These appointments can be an expressive sign of the contribution of women to the Church, but the contribution of women is not limited to that. We do not have to stop there, because in the end the important thing is to carry out a service to the Church, from the task of government and also from other tasks that are equally service.
Has anything surprised you during your time at the head of CONFER? How do you see the current situation of religious life in Spain?
The Spanish Confederation of Religious has a total of 408 religious congregations. Of these, 301 are female and 107 are male, with a total of some 42,000 members (with the same ratio of 3 to 1 between women and men as between the number of female and male congregations). And a total of more than 5,400 communities. Contemplative religious communities are generally not included.
The presidency of CONFER allows me to see the great richness of religious life in Spain and the plurality of its charisms. It is a very lively reality, very active, very creative, very busy and concerned about evangelization.
It has allowed me to discover many things that sometimes in day-to-day life can go unnoticed.
How do you deal with the aging of some religious institutes?
It is true that the average age of religious in Spain is higher than in other countries, as is also the case in Spanish society as a whole. But this does not detract from their vitality. We find in our religious institutes people who in civil society would be retired and in religious life are very active and committed people. God works wonders with these people. Perhaps they do not appear in the newspapers, but that is not what we want either, but to be faithful to Jesus.
There are several lines of action. One is to form and train ourselves to accompany this important stage of life and vocation in old age; also the local superiors and those responsible for communities.
It is true that life expectancy has increased. On the other hand, aging in some congregations-not in all of them, but it is true that the average age is higher than in other times-is leading us to look creatively at how to maintain service to the mission in another way.
Forty years ago a seventy-year-old religious was an old man. Today he is not. He may not be able to continue as a teacher in a religious school, but he can continue to be active as a reference in this apostolic work or continue to accompany young people.
I would say that we are facing it with realism and hope, because in the end - and here the Pope has made an important call to us - our trust is not in numbers, figures or youth, but in the Lord, who can do great things with what we are. If what is evangelical at times is the small and the weak, a high average age can also be evangelical.
We face it with a look, at the same time, believing and grateful. Because the elders have accumulated wisdom and experience and are a testimony of fidelity to the Lord.
Can reducing the workload by reducing the number of provinces of an Institute also be a line of action?
The grouping of provinces, which implies reducing operating structures, is not so much to reduce the mission, but just the opposite, to strengthen the mission.
I am thinking, for example, of my congregation, the Company of Mary. We did a reduction of provinces more than twelve years ago. We went from five provinces to one, but not so much to reduce the mission as to have more people active in the mission and less in the provincial structures. Many of these measures are taken to adjust the organization to reality and to be able to continue to strengthen the mission.
Another thing is that it is necessary to make discernment on certain presences, whether or not there is a reduction of provinces, because of the reality itself or because of the demands of reality. It is hard to say that today this work is either transformed or our health, educational or pastoral presence would have to be different in order to respond better to the reality.
What are the points on which Pope Francis insists the most for religious?
In the first place, we religious feel challenged by what the Pope says to the whole Church, not only to us. But, in addition, it is true that when he addresses the religious, some constants are observed, which seem to me to be in line with the idea that we should live our religious vocation with depth and joy. He calls us to be experts in communion and witnesses of hope, of joy and, in short, of the Lord. And to be part of that Church in going out, from our own vocation. It seems to me that this is the key to what the Pope is asking of us.
Another of his insistence is that we should not put ourselves at the center, not even our difficulties, but that the center should be the Lord and others.
I believe, moreover, that these calls are significant because the Pope speaks to us knowing religious life from the inside. His words are accurate, for example, when he insists on fraternity and communion, not only among religious. These are not theories, but the insistence of one who loves religious life well and knows it from the inside with all its riches and difficulties.
A few years ago there was talk of increasing the length of the novitiate for better vocational discernment. Is there any news about this?
In fact, some Congregations that had one year of novitiate have extended it to two. Other orders or institutes already had two years of novitiate. What is being done is to take great care of the pre-novitiate and discernment processes. Some Institutes, in addition, have extended the time of the postulancy, before the novitiate.
What is clear is that today formation and processes are much more personalized than they were thirty or forty years ago. The situation is different today, because society is different and the origins of vocations are different.
The idea is to ensure a good process of vocational discernment and formation that confirms the vocation to a religious institute.
