Search Results for: Ferrer

In the following letter, Ignatius writes to Stefano Casanova, an ailing young Jesuit who was teaching in the college at Tivoli. Ignatius instructs Casanova to systematically repress only his sinful sensual cravings, adding, however, that for health’s sake it can sometimes be more meritorious to indulge harmless craving than to mortify them. Whether the young

The 35th General Congregation took place during the first two months of 2008. Its delegates approved six decrees and appointed a new superior general. At a Mass closing the congregation, Adolfo Nicolás remarks to his brethren: “I believe that we are all aware that we have had a great experience. The Word of God, however,

Nicolás delivered the following homily in Rome’s Church of the Gesù on January 20, 2008. The day before, the 217 members of General Congregation 35 had elected Nicolás, the former provincial of Japan and president of the Conference of Major Superiors of East Asia and Oceania, as their order’s new general. For more from the

In one of his last acts as superior general of the Society of Jesus, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach issued the following brief letter to Pope Benedict XIV. The correspondence was sent in reply to the pontiff’s own letter to the 35th General Congregation, then having recently begun at the Jesuits’ Curia in Rome. For more from the

For just its second time in its more than 400-year-old history (but for the second time in the last three decades), the Society of Jesus accepted the resignation of its superior general in 2008. At the 35th General Congregation, the delegates issued this statement to its outgoing general, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach. For more from the 35th

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council issued Perfectae caritatis, a proclamation that mandated religious orders seek renewal through reflection and honoring “their founders’ spirit and special aims.” In 2008, the delegates at the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, in part, responded to that mandate with their second decree, “A Fire that Kindles

The delegates of the 35th General Congregation had been in session just three days when they received a letter of greeting from Pope Benedict XVI. The pontiff expresses his hope that “the present Congregation affirms with clarity the authentic charism of the Founder so as to encourage all Jesuits to promote true and healthy Catholic

One month after they elected Alfonso Nicolás to succeed Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as the Jesuits’ superior general, the delegates of the 35th General Congregation gathered, at the pontiff’s invitation, in the Vatican’s Sala Clementina. There, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the men with words of gratitude. He states, “I very much hope, therefore, that the entire Society

Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, delivered the following remarks, over three days, to open the Jesuits’ 34th General Congregation. Kolvenbach reminds the delegates that their gathering had its “source and origins in the spiritual experience of Ignatius and his first companions,” that, in the words of Ignatius, theirs was “a