Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus
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Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus |
General congregations are the ultimate governing body in the Society of Jesus, but that first one (1558) got off to a rocky start. It began two years after Ignatius's death, and it was not clear who was to govern the Society. As well, Pope Paul IV was at war with King Philip II of Spain, who would not let Spanish delegates go to Rome. Nicolas Bobadilla, one of the first Jesuits, was discontented with the Jesuit Constitutions. And the pope wanted to change some of the structure and practices of the new Society.
Fortunately, the congregation succeeded in providing for Jesuit continuity, and it performed the most important function of the congregation, electing a new superior general, Diego Laynez. Equally fortunate is that most subsequent congregations have been more serene than the first.
All congregations regularly dealt with two important concerns: What would preserve and advance Jesuit religious life? What would best help the Society carry on its works to serve God and Church? Once in a while they got caught up in seeming trivialities, such as who could wear the biretta and how long a cassock should be. Given the variety of cultures and circumstances in which Jesuits lived and worked, differing views sometimes made for lively debate on major and minor issues alike.
At the time of that first congregation there were already about 1,000 Jesuits. Seven years later, at the second, the Society counted some 3,500 members. By the fourth, there were more than 5,000. Much effort during those first congregations went into putting structure into the training of this vast influx of recruits, into daily religious life, and into Jesuit works, many new, some quite unusual, and spread all over the world.
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Claudio Aquaviva |
The fourth congregation (1581) elected 38-year-old Claudio Aquaviva, the youngest Jesuit general. Pope Gregory XIII expressed astonishment at the choice of someone "yet untried in virtue and age." Aquaviva said that he could only hope and pray for an advance in the former but that he could guarantee it for the latter. He served as general for 34 years (the longest term in Jesuit history) and presided over three congregations.
Some Spanish Jesuits, dissatisfied with Aquaviva, tried to use the power of the Spanish king, the Inquisition, and the pope to make substantial changes in the Society. They failed, but they persuaded Pope Clement VIII to order the general to convoke the fifth congregation. The delegates cleared Aquaviva, maintained the Jesuit substantials, and then expelled from the Society more than two dozen Jesuits as "authors of sedition."
The sixth congregation also had to put to rest continuing quarrels about Aquaviva as general, but both congregations did other important work too. For example, the fifth made it clear that the Society's teachers were to follow Aquinas and Aristotle in theology and philosophy. The sixth made obligatory a daily hour of prayer and an annual eight-day retreat for all Jesuits.
Aquaviva was succeeded by another long-lived general, Muzio Vitellischi, so there were only four congregations from 1581 to 1646. But in the next six years there were three, including the tenth, which elected two generals. The first, Luigi Gottifredi, died during the meeting itself, and after the members elected the second, Goswin Nickel, they departed posthaste for home.
The 19th congregation (1758) was the last before the suppression of the Society in 1773, and the 20th (1820) was the first one held after the Society's restoration in 1814. Greatly concerned that the Society be the same as before the suppression, it reinstated the legislation of all past congregations.
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Jan Roothaan |
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Peter Beckx |
The 21st (1829) elected Jan Roothaan, along with Aquaviva one of the greatest generals. He rebuilt the Society while carrying out the mandates of the congregation, which included reinvigorating the use of the Spiritual Exercises, encouraging mission activity, taking up educational work again, and insisting upon solid spiritual and academic preparation of the great number of recruits again joining the Society.
But Roothaan and his next successors had to live through nineteenth-century political revolutions; Roothaan himself had to go into exile for a time. In 1870 the then general, Peter Beckx, temporarily had to move Jesuit headquarters to Fiesole, near Florence, and the 24th congregation had to meet in Spain in 1892 because of hostility in Rome.
By the time of the 25th congregation in 1906, peace within the Church was jeopardized by the crisis of so-called modernist teachings. Some Jesuits, including the new general, were accused of sympathy with Modernism, but so was the future Pope John XXIII!
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Wlodimir Ledochowski |
World peace was in short supply when the 26th congregation met (1915) and elected as general Wlodimir Ledochowski, who, like Aquaviva, presided at three congregations, all especially concerned with the rapid growth of the Society, codifying its law, and adapting ministries to a changing world.
John Baptist Janssens, elected general at the 29th congregation (1946), presided also at the 30th congregation, held just five years before Vatican II. The postwar years had suggested changes in the way the Society lived and carried on its work, but the very conservative atmosphere of the Church at that time allowed only for hesitant steps.
The 31st congregation took place during and after Vatican Council II (1962–65), which looked clearly at the inner life of the Church and called on all religious orders to recover their original charism, or inspiration, and to renew and adapt their activities accordingly.
That congregation, which elected Pedro Arrupe as general, dealt with Jesuit life and work in greater detail than had any previous meeting, legislating changes and updating the theory and practice of poverty. It returned to Ignatius's insights on prayer, affirmed greater liturgical participation, and expanded work in the social apostolate.
Changes in the Church and the Society in the following years were widespread - liberating to some, dismaying to others. New works began, some solid and lasting, others quixotic and ephemeral. Praise and blame abounded. By 1970 Arrupe convoked a congregation and to assess the Society's efforts to live out the mandates of council and congregation.
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Peter-Hans Kolvenbach |
The 32d congregation (1974) began after four years of more-direct Jesuit participation in its preparation than ever before. Major issues included formation, studies, community and personal religious life, religious obedience, the "grades" or categories of membership in the Society, and the possibility of extending to all Jesuits the "fourth vow" of readiness for special assignments from the pope. The "service of faith and the promotion of justice," established as the specific and overriding characteristic of all Jesuit works was put front and center in the consciousness of the Society.
The 33d congregation (1983) elected Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as successor to Arrupe, who had suffered a stroke, and it affirmed the basic orientations given to the Society by the two previous congregations. As was the case with every congregation from the first, it asked that the decisions of its predecessors be better implemented.
The most recent congregation (1995) fulfilled three major responsibilities. First, it produced a series of documents on the life and apostolates of the Society of Jesus. Among the most important were those that clearly linked the Society's mission and faith, justice, culture, and interreligious dialogue. Among other such documents was one on the position of women in church and civil society and another on cooperation with the laity in mission. Secondly, it legislated on the structures of government in the Society. Third, and as its central concern, the congregation clarified the text of the Jesuit Constitutions and produced a set of norms complementary to the Constitutions, so that the two together would mutually reinforce both the traditions of the Society and the ways in which it carried on those traditions in its internal life and in its apostolic work in the world today.
John Padberg, SJ, is the director of the Institute of Jesuit Sources (www.jesuitsources.com) in St. Louis.