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The delegates of the 31st General Congregation assessed the apostolic works of the Society of Jesus and acknowledged that “our labors” were not yielding the desired results. The decree below credits some poor results to a failure to “renew our apostolic or missionary spirit” and a “too great scattering of our forces.” The main reason […]

The 29th and 30th General Congregations established commissions to study the topic of poverty within the Society of Jesus. The delegates at the 31st congregation, in the following document , provide extended thoughts on the purpose of poverty, especially by issuing directive norms in order to “bring about this renewal in our way of poverty.”

Obedience was one of the seven topics in the “religious life” of the Society of Jesus that the delegates of the 31st General Congregation addressed with a decree. In the following document, the delegates note they are “conscious of the social change in our day which gives rise to a new awareness of the brotherhood

For the Jesuit delegates at the 31st General Congregation, consecrated chastity was a “gift” from God, “a sign of charity and likewise a stimulus to it.” Those delegates, nevertheless, also issued the following decree to acknowledge how contemporary attitudes and contexts have caused “new problems” on the topic. The decree urges the new superior general

In the following decree, the delegates of the 31st General Congregation assert “the importance of prayer,” while proposing “specific orientations on the manner and conditions of prayer” for members of the Society of Jesus. The decree closes with a reminder for “every Jesuit that personal daily prayer is an absolute necessity.” To that end, it

According to historian John Padberg’s historical account of the congregation, Jesuits sent more than 160 postulata (or petitions) on the topic their brethren’s spiritual formation for consideration at the 31st General Congregation (see Jesuit Life & Mission Today (2009), pg. 18–19). That formation, the following decree observes, “is the work of divine grace,” helping Jesuits in

Pope John VI opened the 31st General Congregation by noting the “fearful danger of atheism threatening human society.” Through the Jesuit delegates gathered for the congregation, the pontiff gave to the entire Society of Jesus (the “champion of the Church and holy religion in adversity”) a special task: “the charge of making a stout, united

The delegates of the 31st General Congregation promulgated the following decree, which recognizes both the limitations of the reforms encouraged by the Second Vatican Council and Paul VI’s Magno gaudio (1964) as well as the need for change nonetheless. The decree concludes that “the entire government of the Society must be adapted to modern necessities

“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