North American Jesuits to reduce five novitiates to two

Officials said the consolidation will allow the Jesuits to maintain steady numbers in the two new novitiates, which host novices for their first two years of religious formation.

The Society of Jesus in the United States and Canada will combine its five novitiates into two starting in 2028.

The Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States announced the change in a letter dated 9 July. Signed by the leaders of the five North American provinces, the letter announced that a Detroit-based novitiate will be located at the Jesuit residence on the campus of the University of Detroit Mercy. The other novitiate will be based in Culver City, California.

The “multi-province” model would “allow us to maintain robust cohorts of novices and provide them with the best formators we could”, the provincials said. Both novitiates are expected to accommodate up to 30 novices, with the sites ready by summer 2028.

Fr Joseph Daoust SJ, superior of the Detroit Jesuit community, told Detroit Catholic, the official news outlet of the Archdiocese of Detroit, that the rearrangement of novitiates will ensure each location has an adequate number of novices for a proper formation experience.

“Running five novitiates takes an awful lot of Jesuit staff of very good people,” Daoust said. “You have to have three or four Jesuits in each of the novitiates, who usually are more senior Jesuits who serve as the formators of the novices. If we could put the novices in only two novitiates rather than five, we would save an awful lot of very valuable manpower for other works of the Society of Jesus.”

Officials said the consolidation will allow the Jesuits to maintain steady numbers in the two new novitiates, which host novices for their first two years of religious formation. The novices’ formation includes a 30-day silent retreat, study of the Jesuit constitutions and Ignatian spirituality, as well as immersion experiences at Jesuit ministries throughout the world.

Moving a novitiate to Detroit comes as the Jesuits prepare to celebrate 150 years in the city. The Detroit-born Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit will celebrate a Mass to mark the anniversary on 31 July.

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