Identity

The Society shares the same charism as the Heralds of the Gospel, 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 composed of members who, after a long experience of community life, received the call to the priesthood in order to better undertake the work of evangelization.

It also includes some members who, while maintaining their lay status, collaborate in the various activities of apostolic life.

All of them take on the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience through private vows, and dedicate themselves especially to the sacralization of temporal values, permeating them with the spirit of the Gospel and, in the spiritual sphere, striving for the sanctification of souls, seeking to lead them to perfection.

Pontifical Approval

The Virgo Flos Carmeli Society was founded by Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, and was erected by the diocesan bishop of Avezzano, Italy, who was at that time Dom Lucio Angelo Maria Renna, O.Carm., on June 15, 2006.

Subsequently, the Society was transferred to the Diocese of Bragança Paulista, Brazil, and received pontifical approval from Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

In order to obtain pontifical approval for the Society, Dom José Maria Pinheiro, Diocesan Bishop of Bragança Paulista at that time, sent a letter in February 2009 to His Eminence Cardinal Franc Rodé, CM, then Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. In this letter, he explained that the members of Virgo Flos Carmeli had long experience of community life and consecration to evangelizing activities, with personal commitments to chastity, poverty, and obedience.

On the other hand, the Society had grown so much 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 into a de jure one.

The request of Dom José Maria Pinheiro was joined by that of dozens of other brothers in the episcopate, asking the Supreme Pontiff for pontifical approval of Virgo Flos Carmeli. Thus, the Virgo Flos Carmeli Society received pontifical approval granted by Pope Benedict XVI at the audience on April 4, 2009, to His Eminence Cardinal Franc Rodé.