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“The founding of the Society of Jesus,” Jesuit historian Joseph Conwell has argued, “begins with a discernment process.” The fruits of that process of discernment appear in the following document, Cum ex plurim, written by Ignatius and his companions in 1539. The document articulates the founders’ vision for what became the Jesuit order. Indeed, five […]

The following text was first orally approved by Pope Paul III in 1539. More commonly known as the “Five Chapters,” the document serves the first foundational document of what became the Society of Jesus, stating the key purposes of the proposed religious order. The document was later revised in 1540 (approved in the papal bull

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 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

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

 The 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus opened on January 5, 1995, with a Mass at the Church of the Holy Spirit, located across from the Jesuits’ Curia in Rome. At noon that same day, the delegates proceeded to the Vatican’s Sala Clementina for an audience with Pope John Paul II. To the