Father Nicola and the new Jesuits

Those of us in our Companions group have been following the Society's General Congregation and the selection of a new Father General with great interest. As former Jesuits with varying time in the Society--some of us with only a few years and others with several decades--and with varying degrees of contact with the Society as it is today, it might be argued that it's really none of our business what decisions are made. This was the case made to me in an email from one of the Companions, who suggested that those who leave an organization no longer have a right to say what those who remain should be doing. We can be interested spectators but that's as far as it goes.

I personally disagree. It was the retiring Father General, Hans Kolvenbach, who made the point to Bob Holstein, the man who brought us together to become the group that we are today, that in his mind there was no such thing as a former Jesuit. All of us who had gone through the Spiritual Exercises and committed ourselves to the ideals of Saint Ignatius still would (or should) carry the sense of a vocation even if we no longer were in vows. Here in the California province, where our Companions' group is now legally incorporated, there is a strong sense of a continuing connection with the Society. As individuals our present religious affiliations may be quite diverse, but we still feel that we are part of what the Jesuit world is all about. Members of our group, along with representatives from other ministries of the province, took part in the last province convocation, and several of us have a very direct involvement with current province operations.

So it is that we are waiting to hear more about the future direction the Society will be taking. The last major change was back in the 1980's when, following the directives of the Second Vatican Council, all religious orders and congregations undertook to revamp their constitutions. It was then that the Society broke down the barriers that I recall so well between those who would prepare for the priesthood and those who as lay brothers would carry on the "temporal" work involved in keeping up our buildings and operations. As a scholastic novice I was expected to study my Latin and look forward to an active ministry, but the few men who had entered to prepare to be lay brothers were not to receive any more formal education and for the most part were segregated from us. Today, as I came to appreciate when I worked with scholastics in Vietnam a few summers back, all Jesuits are expected to study philosophy and theology and to be involved in the ministry.

The next step is lowering still further the barriers between those who are formal members of the Society and those who share their work. Some of us would like to see far more radical changes--the formal inclusion of women, for example--but that seems rather unlikely at the present.

With the selection of another Spanish Jesuit with long experience in Asia, it does seem reasonable to expect the Jesuits to continue and expand their work internationally. I would expect Father Nicola in the spirit of Father Arrupe to continue a tradition of acceptance of other than European cultural traditions along with with an increased emphasis on what has been called a preference for the poor and a concern with social justice.

I think there are going to be some very real surprises ahead. The idea of a shared apostolate, which was very much part of the last province convocation when I attended it, will be developed still further with the idea that there is something specific about a Jesuit identity that will not be limited to those who have gone through the novitiate and taken their vows. What that means in practice, especially its implications for Jesuit educational institutions, has yet to be seen.

For many of us who are older and raised in a milieu in which Jesuits were seen as a cultural elite specializing in education, some of what is happening will possibly be disturbing. Who are these new Jesuits who are more likely to be social workers than Latin teachers? Will they have any of the same feeling for the history and traditions of the Society that we were raised in? They definitely will not be like us, we know. I for one think this is all to the good.