Interview of Peter Hans Kolvenbach
Fr. General of the Society of Jesus
“Faithful
to our charisma, we Jesuits have undergone a change”
Vincent Marques, SJ
What attracted you, as a young man, to
the Society of Jesus? Our parish was under the Dominicans during World War II
– I was in my teens then – they took special care of the
youth and one of them placed in my hands, Romano Guardini’s
The Lord, which continues to be for me a book of great
inspiration.
But my parents enrolled me with the Jesuit …… where I
matriculated in technology, which would open the way for me
to take up a career in engineering. Impressed as I was by
the Jesuits, what definitively influenced me was something
else: we youngsters would visit the jails housing political
prisoners and distribute reading material. One day I noticed
a slim book and on its first page I read, “Principle and
Foundation”. That first page of the Spiritual Exercises of
St. Ignatius enlightened me in those days of confusion and
gloom. It is ironical that in later years, experts in the
Spiritual Exercises assured me that “You have not understood
what Ignatius wanted to say”. That little book led me to
discover that I was being called to serve the Lord.
What evolution – development have you
experienced in your 57 years as a Jesuit?
Usually, whenever elderly Jesuits meet and exchange views,
ideas and so on, they are greatly amused that although they
come from different parts of the world, they share an
identical Jesuit culture: the same customs, permission for
small things; same vocabulary, the same perplexity when
required to play games; a soutana, the same penances in the
dining room……
Such things did not impede their apostolic breadth of
vision… things do change for the truth is that nothing is
permanent. An expert in the Constitution of the Society of
Jesus says that if the Society had not changed according to
the circumstances (a key Ignatian phrase) one could
seriously doubt the Society’s fidelity to the foundational
charism. Civil society has changed and evolved; the Society
of Jesus has to spruce up its lifestyle and engage in a
newer mode of apostolate in order to meet the new challenges
to the consecrated life, and the innumerable problems the
church is facing. Hence the urgent need for community
discernment to discover what the Lord is asking of us.
The there is the need for inculturation so that each group
of people is able to praise the Lord in its own language
fashioned by its own culture. This prayerful discernment
gives birth too, to an option for the poor and the struggle
against injustice, in the name of the Lord who spoke as no
one else spoke but did all things well….
We’ve been alerted to these areas of the Apostolate by the
Holy Spirit through the Second Vatican Council, which
demands of us a change in our communitarian way of living
and with manner we carry out our Apostolic labours.
The original charism of the Society
asks of the Jesuit to integrate in himself these distinct
polarities: action and contemplation; faith and justice. How
are the Jesuits to live this tension? Ignatius’ challenge to us is that we jump over these
dichotomies in order to arrive at an integration in depth.
It is not a matter of acting and contemplating but of acting
while contemplating or contemplating while acting, i.e. if
searching for and finding God in the very action. Neither do
faith and justice belong to different worlds, which meet
only accidentally. It is a faith that does justice. It is
this conjunction and not the tension between them, that is
the Ignatian novelty.
The Society is oriented to the service
of the Universal Church: How do Jesuits combine their
universal vocation and their service to the local Church?
“Think globally, and act locally” is a valid watchword
for most Jesuits. All of us need to feel we are a living
part of a church and a Society of Jesus called to a single
universal mission, although we are daily engaged in teaching
the young in an African village or in pastoral care in a
metropolis. In the time of St. Ignatius, the young Society
was made up of Jesuits from various European nations – an
international body that placed its destiny into the hands of
the universal pastor… the Society of Jesus exists for the
universal church and in total fidelity she desires to serve
in accordance with the wishes of the Supreme Pontiff.
In herself the Society is non-entity; her raison d’ être is
the glory of God and the good of the universal church; hence
in giving herself to the local church she is moved by her
solicitude for the universal church.
What is Fr. General’s vision for the
Society today? How would you respond, briefly, to a
candidate who’d ask you this question? How are the
priorities arrived at in such a vast apostolic field? God sent his Son to redeem us and show us the way to
eternal life. The Society is engaged in the work of
evangelisation. The choice is arrived at through Ignation
discernment by which we strive to discover God’s will for
the “here and now”, which of course, involves much study,
consultation, information, and deliberation, in a spirit of
faith until we arrive at the Lord’s confirmation of our
plans.
In his Spiritual Diary, St. Ignatius describes dramatically
the discernment he made about the kind of poverty in the
Society of Jesus, and his ardent search for the Confirmation
from God – And we Jesuits have been following this method
since our very beginnings. We do this not only to discover
what God wants us to do, but also the how.
How do you see the future of the
Society in the face of the present situation of the falling
number of vocations? That we’ve gone down in numbers is a fact; probably
we’ll be further reduced… for a few more years. This applies
particularly to Europe and the United States, but not to
countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Some say the reason could be the shift in the center of
gravity. There was a time when the Society flourished, at
least in numbers, in Europe, then it shifted to North
America… could the time have arrived when the apostolic
personnel of the Society are more fruitful in Asia or
Africa? Many may think this to be beyond imagination, but
history counsels us not to discard surprises “in abundance”.
Finally, we cannot forget that in the future, the
consecrated life will have to look for its specific place in
an ample field where, happily, lay movements are active and
drawing increasing attention.
Finally, Fr. General, while I thank
you for this interview, please say a few words to our
readers. Most happily do I take this opportunity to greet readers
of this centenary issue of your magazine. At the same time I
hope they do not forget to pray to the Lord that the Society
of Jesus in the 21st century be faithful to her vocation of
serving the Lord and his Church, his spouse, under the Roman
Pontiff.
Events
Interview of Peter Hans Kolvenbach
“Faithful
to our charisma, we Jesuits have undergone a change”
