The Vatican cardinal who deals with religious orders this week publicly challenged the Society of Jesus to demonstrate greater adherence to the Pope and official church teaching, as Jesuit delegates gathered in Rome for a lengthy meeting to elect a new Superior General and set a direction for the future."The Church is waiting for a light from you to restore the sensus Ecclesiae [i.e. "sense of the Church"]," said Cardinal Franc Rodé, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Religious, at a Mass on Monday at the famous Jesuit Church of Gesù.
During the liturgy, which opened the Jesuits' 35th General Congregation (GC35), he also expressed "sadness and anxiety" over "a growing distancing from the hierarchy" among members of the Church's largest religious order. The cardinal said that this was contrary to the spirit of St Ignatius of Loyola, the Society's sixteenth-century founder: "The Ignatian spirituality of apostolic service ‘under the Roman Pontiff' does not allow for this separation."
Beyond the traditional vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, the founder stipulated that his men take a special "fourth vow" of obedience to the Pope in mission, pledging to go where he sends them. "You must show your desire and commitment to be faithful to the charism which [St Ignatius] left you as an inheritance," the cardinal said.
The prefect's blunt remarks were not unexpected. Jesuit sources said that many among the 225 worldwide delegates in Rome for GC35 were relieved that the cardinal was not harsher. "We were expecting worse," one of them admitted.
The cardinal's words seemed to reflect the Vatican's concern over the influence that the Society of Jesus has on other parts of the Church. He reminded the Jesuits that among those who would especially "pay attention to [their] choices" made at GC35 were many women's religious congregations that follow an Ignatian spirituality, as well as future priests and students of all disciplines who attend the more than 100 Jesuit-run universities around the world.
Cardinal Rodé cautioned the Jesuits not to allow the "growing participation of laity" in their ministries to "obscure" their identity. And he urged editors of Jesuit magazines and publications - which have traditionally posed tough questions to the hierarchy - to work "according to the ‘rules of sentire cum ecclesia'" - in other words to "think with the Church". He also challenged the Society to consider confronting a "new and urgent" need - fighting "doctrinal diversity", which "disorients the faithful and leads to relativism without limits". At the same time he also asked the Jesuits to recover their "avant-garde" position at "the crossroads between Church and society, between faith and culture and between religion and secularism".
Most Jesuits were pleasantly surprised that Cardinal Rodé referred to the "much loved Fr Arrupe", the social justice-minded former Superior General (1965-83) who had had an often rocky relationship with the Vatican; and that he praised the "wisdom, prudence, commitment and loyalty" of the current Superior General, Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, who is the first Jesuit leader in history to voluntarily retire.
The 212 delegates who are eligible to vote are expected to choose the new Jesuit Superior General late next week.