Virgo Flos Carmeli
The Virgo Flos Carmeli Society is a clerical society of apostolic life founded by Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, which received pontifical approval from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life on April 21, 2009.
Clerical Society
The Society shares the same charism as the Heralds of the Gospel Private Association of the Faithful, a canonical association of Pontifical Right, applied to the specificities of the priestly vocation, with its own Constitutions and autonomy of government.
The Society is made up of members who, after long experience of community life, have received the call to the priesthood in order to better undertake evangelizing activity.
It also includes some members who, while maintaining the lay state, collaborate in the various activities of apostolic life.
All of them take on the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience by means of private vows, and devote special commitment to the sacralization of values in the temporal sphere, penetrating them with the spirit of the Gospel and, in the spiritual sphere, committing themselves to the sanctification of souls, seeking to bring them to perfection.
Pontifical Approval
The Virgo Flos Carmeli Society was founded by Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, and was erected by the then diocesan bishop of Avezzano, Italy, Monsignor Lucio Angelo Maria Renna, O.Carm., on June 15, 2006.
The Society was later transferred to the Diocese of Bragança Paulista in Brazil and received pontifical approval from Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.
In order to obtain pontifical approval for the Society, Bishop José Maria Pinheiro, Diocesan Bishop of Bragança Paulista in those years, sent a letter in February 2009 to Cardinal Franc Rodé. In it he explained to Cardinal Franc Rodé, CM, then Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the long experience of community life of the members of Virgo Flos Carmeli and their consecration to evangelizing activities, with personal commitments of chastity, poverty and obedience.
On the other hand, the great development of the Society had reached such an extent that it was impossible to extend its solicitude beyond the borders of the Diocese of Bragança Paulista. Thus, the pontifical erection of the Society would constitute the assimilation of a de facto status by a de jure one.
Bishop José Maria Pinheiro was joined by dozens of other brothers in the episcopate in asking the Supreme Pontiff for pontifical approval for Virgo Flos Carmeli. Thus, in an audience with Cardinal Franc Rodé, Pope Benedict XVI granted Pontifical Approval to the Virgo Flos Carmeli Society on April 4, 2009.
