Renewal Among the Jesuits

The Society of Jesus, goes an old Jesuit joke, is "a monarchy limited only by the incompetence of its superiors and the insubordination of their subjects."

Since the death last October of the Very Rev. John Baptist Janssens, the world's 36,000 mostly competent, disciplined and obedient Jesuits have had no monarch. This week 224 priestly delegates from the Roman Catholic Church's most influential order are meeting in Rome to choose their 28th Father General and to discuss ways of applying the Vatican Council's spirit of renewal to the remarkable company of men founded 431 years ago by St. Ignatius Loyola of Spain.

In all, 1,084 proposals have been put forward by Jesuit echelons for consideration by their society's 31st General Congregation. Among the principal suggestions for reform are: 1) election of the general for six, seven or twelve years rather than life; 2) shortening the normal 15-year training period before ordination; and 3) providing more authority for the provincials (area chiefs) and more democracy within their provinces. Also to be considered are elimination of the elite Jesuit "professed," who take a fourth vow of personal loyalty to the Pope in addition to the standard vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and revamping of the Jesuit notion of obedience in light of modern Catholic thinking about individual conscience.

Behind the Times. The volume and scope of the reform proposals suggest that the Jesuits, traditionally the church's intellectual avantgarde, may have fallen a bit behind the times. Some members of the society freely admit it. "It's not that we've lost luster," says one prominent U.S. Jesuit theologian, "but others have made advances." The Jesuits can still boast proudly of having some of the church's brightest intellectual luminaries, ranging from such heady European theologians as Karl Rahner of Germany and France's Henri de Lubac to California's James Arenz, a promising young Ph.D. in astronautics who is a consultant at Lockheed. But the quality and character of the order varies considerably from province to province. The Jesuits of Colombia, for example, are extremely conservative, while in France the order remains radical and progressive-spirited. Man for man, the 8,600 U.S. Jesuits probably have less influence than the 261 communications-minded Paulist fathers. With few vocations to bring in new blood, the society in Italy, says one U.S. Jesuit, is in "terrible shape"; he describes the Roman province as a "museum piece."

If Jesuit renewal is overdue, part of the blame rests with Pope Pius XII, who squashed any overhaul at a 1957 General Congregation by warning the delegates against "the prideful spirit of 'free investigation.' " Another proximate cause was Father General Janssens, an ascetic and kindly Belgian who, for much of his term as "Black Pope," was too ill to handle the volume of clerical business that the Jesuit constitution demanded of him. Janssens, says one veteran German Jesuit, was "a noble spirit but not necessarily a great leader."

A Teacher, Quick. In the U.S., at least, inertia has been fostered by a crushing weight of institutional responsibility. In Loyola's time, the Jesuits were a mobile spiritual commando of shock troops, kept free of routine and organization to serve God and the Pope as need arose. Today, the American provinces are hard put to staff an awesome ecclesiastical machine that supports in the U.S. alone, 28 colleges and universities, 51 high schools, 24 national publications, and ten seminaries. As a result, the scholarly careers of promising men are sometimes delayed or curtailed by immediate institutional needs. "The percentage of our men involved in teaching and administration is amazing," says St. Louis Sociologist John Thomas. "A superior's attitude today," adds California Theologian James Wall, "is that he needs a teacher of English A, but quick."

"Sometimes," says one Jesuit Biblical scholar, "I look at my group and think no more conservative group could be found anywhere. Then I look at the other orders and I think, no, I'm sorry, but we're still ahead." What keeps the Jesuits ahead is, in large measure, the fire and zeal of younger members of the society, who have plenty of ideas of what ought to be done. Many would like to see the society abandon all but a handful of its best universities--such as Fordham and Georgetown--and send its top professors to jobs at secular universities. Bored with an outdated classical curriculum, they would like more training in social and physical sciences, greater freedom to develop a Christian theology for the racial struggle and international development. "You can't affect the world if you don't reflect it," says a San Francisco Jesuit teacher.

To Combat Atheism. How much reform the convention will accomplish before it ends--probably in July--is a matter of conjecture. Many older Jesuits, who control the centers of power, are reluctant to tamper with what they call the "substantials" of the society. Much depends upon how radical a reform Pope Paul will tolerate. Although last year he urged a convention of religious superiors to keep abreast of the Council, his address to the delegates was a quite traditional plea to combat atheism and avoid "indulging to excess in the novelties of the day."

Nonetheless, it is not in the nature of the Jesuits to be too still for too long,-and much renewal is already taking shape within the order by quiet evolution rather than constitutional change.

Already many U.S. seminaries are sending their students to nearby secular institutions for classes, adapting the curriculum to conform more to university standards of a liberal arts or science education. Carrying on the Jesuit tradition of scholarship, dozens of young scholastics are earning doctorates in space sciences, working side by side with laymen at research centers. "When the astronauts land on the moon," says Jesuit Scholastic Don Merrifield, who works at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, "there will be a Jesuit scientist among the entourage that follows."

St. Ignatius would have liked that.

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