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.

Origin

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, explained in a letter sent in February 2009 to Cardinal Franc Rodé, CM, then Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Cardinal Franc Rodé, CM, then Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, how the members of Virgo Flos Carmeli had a long experience of community life and 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.

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, the Virgo Flos Carmeli Society received the pontifical approval granted by Pope Benedict XVI in an audience with Cardinal Franc Rodé on April 4, 2009. Cardinal Franc Rodé.