Search Results for: Point

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

Fifty-three days after it began, the 33rd General Congregation closed on October 25, 1983. The delegates had passed only six decrees (the 31st passed 16, and the 34th would pass 26). But, for the first time in the history of the Society of Jesus, the delegates had accepted the resignation of their superior general and

At the Mass opening the 33rd General Congregation, Pope John Paul II offered the following homily. The pontiff declares a special interest in the Jesuits’ gathering, as the “General Congregation is an event that is destined also to have some important repercussions in the life of the Church.” He remained at the Jesuits’ Curia (or

Arrupe suffered a debilitating stroke in August 1981, during his sixteenth year as superior general of the Society of Jesus. Rejecting Arrupe’s preferred replacement, Pope John Paul II appointed Paolo Dezza as the Jesuits’ interim superior until a general congregation could gather to elect Arrupe’s replacement. Greeting the delegates, Arrupe was confined to a wheelchair

In a letter to Arrupe during General Congregation 32, Pope Paul VI reiterates his desire that “no change can be introduced to the fourth vow” taken by the Jesuits. He continues that the Jesuits’ superior general to encourage “yet deeper reflection on your responsibilities, and on your great potentialities as well as on the dangers

General Congregation 32 signified a major transition in how the Jesuits understood the connection between their mission and the service of faith and promotion of social justice. That connection was articulated in the congregation’s fourth decree, “Our Mission Today.” “In short,” as the decree’s introduction observes, “our mission today is to preach Jesus Christ and

At the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), Jesuits, as with other Catholics, engaged in new labors and in new contexts. The Council’s decree Perfectae Caritatis encouraged those in a religious order to first know their institute’s “original spirit” so that they might make “the best adjustments…in accordance with the needs of our new

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