Word of the President

Dear Jesuit Alumni,

The 31st of July 1973 was no ordinary feast of Saint Ignatius for the Society of Jesus, but no one at the time could imagine that the two events taking place on that day would so decisively shape the destiny of the Society.

In Valencia, Spain, the Jesuit Alumni of Europe were gathering for their tenth congress and they were to be spoken to by the General of the Society of that time, born in the same Basque Country as Ignatius of Loyola. His name was Pedro Arrupe.

On the same day, on the 31st of July 1973, the feast of Saint-Ignatius, about 6.000 miles to the West, another Jesuit was becoming provincial of his country. His country was Argentina and the name of that second Jesuit was Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The first was expressing in front of the European Alumni what would be his legacy to the Society of Jesus, and its Alumni, and to the Church. And he did so by coining a phrase that now animates, energizes and even possesses millions of people around the world, and that is that we should be ‘Men and Women for Others’.

The second was becoming discretely the primus inter pares, the first of the Argentinian Jesuits in very tumultuous times for his country. We know what ensued and how Jorge Mario Bergoglio subsequently became archbishop of Buenos Aires, and later Pope under the name of Francis.

But, let us think of this, isn’t it an extraordinary feat that on the very same day, more than forty years ago, on both sides of the Atlantic, two Jesuits were taking up responsibilities that resonate until today?

Pedro Arrupe was announcing, like the prophet he was, to the Jesuit Alumni of Europe, a little bit in a state of shock, that the service of faith was not to be separated from the promotion of justice.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was assuming, like a pastor he is, the first of a series of responsibilities, at a time when, and in a country where he would have to discern in order to preserve and protect his fellow companions and the Society of Jesus as a whole.

God works in mysterious ways and sometimes his synchronicities are occasions to recollect. In this year where the Society of Jesus is celebrating the bicentennial of its restoration, let us remember in gratitude for what these two men have brought and still bring to us all and many others in the world.