Search Results for: Powers

Historian John Padberg observes that the delegates to the 31st General Congregation did not have the necessary time or expertise to properly revise the Jesuits’ catalog of censures and precepts (see the congregation’s historical preface in Jesuit Life & Mission Today (2009), pg. 39). Therefore, the delegates gave authority to the superior general to “abrogate the […]

The following decree from the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus provides the superior general with the responsibility and authority to respond to questions that would result from the congregation’s actions. It also allows him to make any additional necessary changes to the various formulas governing the Society of Jesus. For more from

The delegates at the 31st General Congregation were asked by their fellow Jesuits to articulate how they ought to teach at colleges and universities, according to Jesuit historian John Padberg, “in the light of the characteristics of our vocation and in the light of the theological doctrine on the character and office of the priest

This extended decree represents the thoughts on Jesuit community life by the delegates to the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. The decree declares that “the foundation and aim of community life in the Society of Jesus” is “a community of men who are called by Christ to live with Christ, to be

Pope Paul VI addressed the delegates to the 32nd General Congregation on December 3, 1974, noting similar “joy and trepidation” to when the last congregation began nearly a decade before. Looking to the assembled Jesuits, the pontiff declares, “there is in you and there is in us the sense of a moment of destiny for

On July 31, 1973, Pedro Arrupe, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, spoke to the 10th International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of Europe gathered in Valencia, Spain. Because of the “new awareness in the Church,” Arrupe concedes in these remarks that a graduate from Jesuit schools and colleges had not been properly educated to

Peter Canisius was one among the many Jesuits whom Ignatius sent to Germany. He asked Ignatius to order the entire Society to offer special prayers to remedy and aid that country. Ignatius replied with this letter to the Society, though he added “England…and the northern nations” to the petition, indicating the places that were “imperiled

After the Spiritual Exercises, perhaps until the publication and translation of his “autobiography,” the writings of Ignatius were perhaps best known for this letter, commonly known as the “Letter on Obedience” to the Province of Portugal. Generations of Jesuits heard it read at table once a month in their refectories. Ignatius writes here during a