The Swiss province of the Capuchins has decided to leave the Olten convent at Easter 2024.
“During a turbulent history, the Capuchins worked for almost 400 years at the Olten convent, located near the city center and crossing the Aare,” they announced in a press release.
In the 1920s, the monastery became the mission hub and was the home base for Capuchin missionaries working in Africa, Indonesia, and South America.
Today, the situation has changed radically. Eight elderly brothers live in the Olten convent.
Likewise, few Swiss brothers still work in Tanzania and Indonesia.
The press release explains that currently, indigenous, young, and thriving Capuchin communities have emerged in these countries.
Thus, the base location for the Swiss missionary Capuchins is coming to an end.
The situation of Capuchins throughout Europe is such that they are forced to reorganize and set new priorities in the German-speaking region.
In this convent founded in 1646, the average age of the eight brothers is 84 years old, the youngest is 78 years old.
Today there are five other Capuchin convents in Switzerland where they can go.
In March 2022, one of the Capuchins of the Swiss province said: “When I was young myself – when I entered the novitiate about 55 years ago – there were 800 confreres. We were proud to be the largest province in the world. And today, there are only 88 brothers left, or a little more than ten percent of the number then.”
The Alemannic Capuchin [German-speaking] website emphasizes: “Until the 20th century, the Order was present throughout almost the entire territory in Switzerland and with a tight network. From 1535 to 1970, there were 192 establishments (convents, hospices, parishes).
Typical fields of action were spiritual assistance in parishes, special chaplaincy (peasant, religious sisters, worker and marginalized), pilgrimages, charities, media and education (schools and houses of formation). Added to this are missionary territories in Tanzania (1921) and the Seychelles (1922) as well as 18 other missionary destinations outside Europe.
“Like most religious orders in Western Europe, Swiss Capuchins have suffered a very sharp decline in the number of confreres in recent decades: from around 800 in the mid-1960s to less than 100 today.”
Olten Monastery
At Easter 2024, the convent building will be transferred to the Canton of Solothurn, which owns it.
Discussions about its future use are ongoing.
The canton will thus be in charge of two deserted convents.
Indeed, in 2003 the Capuchins also left their convent in Solothurn.
For the inhabitants of Olten, the Capuchin convent was an oasis in the middle of the city.
And an association was created, Friends of the Capuchin Monastery of Olten, “to preserve the values and traditions of the Capuchin Monastery and actively participate in its future.… Our objective, they specify, is to preserve the unique spiritual, cultural, and social importance of this historic place and to make it a living center of encounter and silence.”
The Capuchins (Ordo Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum, OFMCap), are the third branch of the order of St. Francis of Assisi. Reform movements coming from Italy, at the beginning of the 16th century, led to the creation of the Capuchin order.
Its aim was to rediscover the Franciscan ideal with literal respect for the rule and poverty.
Pope Clement VII approved the reform of the Capuchins in 1528.
The order began to form in 1529.