What follows is a summary of Decree 11, one of 26 Decrees dealing with the Mission of the Society Jesus today issued by the 34th General Congregation [GC34] of the Society of Jesus. The congregation met in Rome in the first three months of 1995. Its work affects the immediate future of Jesuits worldwide.
GC 34 reaffirms the "long and permanent tradition of service ... to which we dedicate ourselves not only as religious but also, and especially, in virtue of the fourth vow of obedience to the pope in regard to missions." This service is exercised in myriad ways---through ordinary ministries or through "the dangerous commitment of witness and struggle against the forces of injustice and persecution ..."
Today's world is in the midst of "strong sociopolitical and technological changes." Tensions within the church affect many aspects of the Church's life. "Vatican II was a prophetic event ... (that) reveals a People of God on pilgrimage, striving under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to live a recovered ecclesiology of collegial (or "synodal" for the Eastern churches) coresponsibility." The role of local churches and the role of the laity have both been rediscovered.
"The Society of Jesus renews its fidelity to the teaching of the Church as it discerns and confronts the signs of the times." Today's issues demand our response. Even positive developments in our society are ambiguous. These new situations demand fidelity to the Church's magisterium. "A Jesuit, especially the scholar or theologian engaged in research and the molding of informed public opinion ... " has a mission to "ensure that the Christian tradition maintains its respectability as a coherent and valid worldview in dialogue with the realm of secular scholarship and science." This kind of service requires courage and integrity and can also involve pain. "Ignatian obedience, in accord with the tradition of Catholic theology, has always recognized that our first fidelity must be to God, to the truth, and to a well-formed conscience." Obedience includes prayerful discernment. It is also "concrete fidelity to the real, visible, hierarchical Church ..." The context in which Ignatius wrote his rules differs from today but our service "is a profound mystical bond that transcends the particularities of its historical origins in the sixteenth-century Church." There are times to speak out and times to remain silent.
The address of Father General to the congregation of procurators is "a profound reflection on the foundational inspiration that motivated the Society to integrate itself more fully into a living experience of the mystery of the Church, in the spirit of the fourth vow in regard to missions that so distinctively unites us with the Holy Father." We make this teaching our own and recommend it to the whole Society. Our love of Christ "cannot justify a lack of solidarity with the Church ..." We must always seek to understand the mind of the hierarchical Church while also trying to articulate the sensus fidelium and help the Magisterium discern in it the movements of the Spirit in accord with the teaching of Vatican II. Our role is to speak or keep silent prudently and with humility and a genuine respect and affection for the pastors of the Church while striving for honesty to acknowledge the grace of their guidance. The Church "is animated by a transcendent Spirit that guides and authenticates the Christian community through the collegial action of the Pope and bishops, and is affirmed by the sensus fidelium."
In sensitive doctrinal and moral questions, "it is often difficult for magisterial statements to explicate exhaustively all aspects of an issue." "We will keep difficulties in perspective and not isolate them from their context." We cannot limit action to dismissive condemnation of abuses to the Church, but must communicate and defend the truth even while acknowledging conflicts and polarities. "We must cooperate with the media so that the Church's true face can appear and the Gospel be inculturated in this new mass culture as well."
If we are to be engaged in difficult and extreme fields, we are there as men sent by Christ to spread his message. "We pledge ourselves once again to generous service of all our brothers and sisters."
Synopses of Other Decrees which are available.
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