Congratulations

Friar Giacomo talks with a group of Poor Clare nuns outside their newly built monastery in Rwanda (1985).

to the new
Franciscan
Minister General

AmericanCatholic.org and St. Anthony Messenger Congratulate Friar Giacomo Bini as new Minister General!

On May 14, Friar Giacomo Bini, O.F.M., was elected the successor of St Francis and leader of the worldwide Order of Franciscan Friars (O.F.M.) by the General Chapter, meeting at St. Mary of the Angels near Assisi, Italy.

Friar Giacomo succeeds Friar Hermann Schalück, O.F.M., who guided the Order between 1991 and 1997.

Friar Giacomo was born in Ancona, Italy, in 1938, entered the Franciscan Order (Province of the Marches) in 1956 and was ordained a priest in 1964. Since 1983 he has worked as a Franciscan missionary in East Africa as a

Friar Giacomo works barefooted alongside two Rwandan field workers in 1985.

member of the Vice Province of St. Francis of Africa and Madagascar. For the last six years, he has served as its Minister Provincial from Nairobi, Kenya.

We at AmericanCatholic.org and St. Anthony Messenger wish Friar Giacomo every blessing as he begins this new ministry of service for the worldwide Order. As a Franciscan communications outreach, we pledge our prayers and support to the new Minister General.

We are not really strangers, however, to Friar Giacomo. AmericanCatholic.org’s and St. Anthony Messenger’s president, John Bok, O.F.M., (Minister Provincial of the

Friar Giacomo dialogues with Franciscan candidates against a beautiful mountain background in Rwanda (1985).

Cincinnati Franciscan Friars) was a member of General Chapter which elected Friar Giacomo. But St. Anthony Messenger has even earlier connections to the new Minister General.

In 1985, Friar Giacomo appeared in a photo story in St. Anthony Messenger (October). He is shown in the photo below washing dishes with three other friars in the friary kitchen in Kivumu, Rwanda, where he was serving as a missionary at the time.

Rwandan photos by Jack Wintz O.F.M.