Making Up with the Jesuits

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Despite their activism, Jesuits are still thought of, in O'Callaghan's phrase, as "an intellectual elite who educate the cream of Catholic society." The rationale for this approach, adds O'Callaghan, is that "if the rich are properly educated, they will learn the needs of the poor and the joy of service." Kolvenbach has no plans, however, to expand the number of Jesuit-run schools; he wants priests to concentrate more on teaching and other duties than on running institutions. The Jesuits constitute the largest missionary body in the Catholic Church, and 3,270 of their number are engaged in parish work.

Even with the signs of renewed papal approval, some Catholic conservatives question whether the Jesuits have changed enough. Father Joseph Fessio, editor of the San Francisco-based Ignatius Press and himself a Jesuit, complains that in the U.S., "I don't see any perceptible change since Kolvenbach was elected. Although there are often professions of loyalty to the Holy See, there is an underlying attitude of dissent toward anything that comes from Rome or from the Pope, and a feeling that 'we have to wait out this pontificate.' "

All factions are united, however, behind the Pope's new mission in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, which, says Pittau, "has given us a new sense of purpose. Our first job will be bringing the clergy up to date in theology, biblical studies and Christian ethics." Many churchmen were trained haphazardly, and often clandestinely, and know little of the changes made in Catholic doctrine and liturgy by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.

Even after decades of oppression, 1,203 Jesuits remain in Eastern Europe, some of whom were forced to live and work for years in secret. Before communism's collapse, the East bloc regimes singled out Jesuits for special punishment. Some Jesuits may now go into Belorussia for short-term assignments, and a number of Soviet universities have asked for Jesuits to teach religion courses.

As the anniversary year proceeds, the Jesuits will be showing a higher profile. Festivities to celebrate the occasion include an array of academic symposiums, pilgrimages, museum displays, musicales and plays, as well as a lavish exhibit at the Vatican Library and the restoration of St. Ignatius' living quarters in Rome. What is more important, though, is that the society has returned to a place in what a close observer called "the most difficult and extreme fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the front line of social conflict." The words came from Paul VI. John Paul II has since echoed them approvingly.

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CAPTION: WHERE THE JESUITS ARE