Search Results for: Rabl

In the 1740s, Feodosii Smorzhevskii, a Russian hieromonk in Beijing, reported to his superiors on the work of Jesuit missionaries in China. Both the Russian Orthodox and Catholic missionaries attempted to navigate the labyrinthine world of the Qing imperial court. In the selection below, the Russian hieromonk reveals—in vivid detail—the precarious position of Christians in […]

Simão Rodrigues, one of Ignatius’s first companions in founding the Society of Jesus, became the founding provincial of the Portuguese province in 1546. In Coimbra, Portugal, his fellow Jesuits opposed Rodrigues’s unique training methods for Jesuit scholastics. Men like Francisco Estrada and others objected to the policy that scholastics had to reproduce the saints’ humiliating

Five months after Ignatius’s death on July 31, 1556, Jerómino Nadal gave two talks to Jesuit scholastics in the Collegio Romano. The talks came at the request of Diego Laínez, who served as the vicar general of the Society of Jesus following the death of Ignatius. Nadal explains, in the following excerpts, to the men

The issue of priestly vocations within the Society of Jesus, according to the following letter sent to all the Jesuit major superiors, is a troubling matter “much too serious to ignore or set aside.” Arrupe sent his letter on July 11, 1973, a time when worldwide membership in the Society of Jesus had dropped from

In the following letter sent to every Jesuit in the world on November 1, 1976, Pedro Arrupe writes about “our most important concern at present” in the Society of Jesus, namely: “How can we securely strengthen our spiritual life and our apostolate, welding them into a perfectly integrated whole so that what we do really

Pedro Arrupe issued the following position paper at a meeting of the Union of Religious Superiors General in Rome in February 1974. Arrupe believes that it is “clear that religious life must be an evangelizing force,” one that adapts in order to help the Catholic Church adapt as well. The “effectiveness” of an evangelizer, then,

The Jesuits of the Province of Turin met in Genoa in December 1973, in order to make preparations for upcoming 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. At this meeting, Pedro Arrupe first delivered the following remarks on “the simplicity of life,” which he considers “the measure of our spirit of poverty, the practical

“Do not expect a doctrinal treatise on the priesthood,” Pedro Arrupe declares to the more than 700 Italian priests gathered for a day of recollection on June 18, 1975. “We have at our disposal rich and abundant doctrine in the perennial sources of Theology, Vatican II, the 1971 Synod and the Magisterium of Paul VI,

Montreal hosted the Third Inter-American Congress of Religious in November 1977. Pedro Arrupe, as the President of the Union of Superiors General, was invited to address the assembly. In light of the congress’s theme— “The Future of Religious Life that We are Building Together for Tomorrow”—Arrupe’s remarks, appearing below, seek to answer the question, “What

On April 10, 1972, Pedro Arrupe delivered the following remarks in Rome to a meeting of the Vatican officials, superiors, priests, and professors (these periodic meetings were organized under the Approdo Romano). To these leading figures in the Catholic Church, Arrupe speaks about the religious superior in the modern context. He cites the reasons why