A New Abbot General for the Canons Regular of the Lateran

The Canons Regular of the Lateran celebrated their General Chapter from 23 to 29 June in Brazil, at the end of the six-year term of office of Abbot General Fr. Franco Bergamin. The Chapter was attended by twenty brethren designated by the six Provinces in which there are communities of Canons: Italian, Polish, Franco-Belgian-Dutch, Hispanic-American, Brazilian and Argentinean, as well as the General Curia of St. Peter in Chains in Rome with the Abbot and his vicar.

It was an opportunity to reflect on the state of the Congregation in the various communities around the world, on the future prospects in the light of the vocations crisis, on initiatives and proposals to relaunch the charism that characterises the Lateran Canons, and on the common life of the clergy within a pastoral context proper to parish realities. We remain convinced and confident that the evangelical witness of the LRCs is still prophetic in a world context full of divisions, conflicts, discords that do not seem to find a solution.

But the Chapter also chose the new Abbot General, and so, on 26 June 2024, Fr. Edoardo Parisotto, 51, originally from Fanzolo (Treviso), was elected to succeed Fr. Franco Bergamin.

Fr. Edoardo did his basic training in the seminary-secondary school of S. Floriano from the school year 1983/84 and then continued his high school education at the Liceo Maria Assunta in Castelfranco Veneto in the first two years. He moved to Rome to the San Vittore College, where he completed the three years of high school and then did his novitiate year in the Canons' House in Gubbio, at the parish of San Secondo.

He then continued his studies in Philosophy and Theology, also in Rome at the Pontifical Lateran University, and later obtained a Licentiate in Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of the Teresianum.

Ordained a priest in May 1999 in Treviso, he carried out his pastoral work for a year in Lucca, and then for six years in San Floriano, as vice-parish priest and teacher of religion at middle and high schools.

He returned to Rome in 2006 as teacher of the professed and university chaplain at Sapienza University for three years, and then served first as vice-parish priest and, from 2014 to 2018, as parish priest at the parish of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura, also in Rome. From 2018 to date, he has been parish priest in Bologna at the parish of Saints Monica and Augustine and also pastoral vicar of the Bologna nord vicariate.

(Nazzareno Bolzon)

During the General Chapter the following were elected, Fr. Mario Tadeu Paulino (BRA) as vicar general and the Councilors: