For the Society of Jesus, a change in leadership is at hand
"No storm is so insidious as a perfect calm, no enemy so dangerous as the absence of enemies," St. Ignatius Loyola once told his followers. He need not have worried that the Society of Jesus, which he founded in 1534, would ever be without enemies. Over the centuries, Jesuits have been accused not only of seeking to undermine various rulers (including a number of Popes) but of plotting to assassinate no fewer than four European monarchs. By the 18th century they had become so powerful that enemies referred to the superior general of the black-clad order as the "Black Pope." The word Jesuit eventually became synonymous in the popular—though mainly Protestant—imagination with duplicity, equivocation and intrigue. Yet the society's demanding training, rigorous discipline and pioneering work in education also earned its members a reputation as "the schoolmasters of Europe." They trained, among others, Molière, Voltaire, Descartes and James Joyce. Even their most ardent critics grudgingly respected the superhuman feats of Jesuit missionary fathers who risked their lives to carry the Word to palaces and peasants on five continents.
The Society of Jesus was formed originally as a kind of spiritual Marine Corps to check the advance of Protestantism during the Counter Reformation. But in recent years Jesuit theologians have championed change within the church, most notably during the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council. But if the Jesuits have stood strong against all manner of assault from without, they have not weathered so well a storm of change from within. The society is still the largest single Catholic order. But its ranks, thinned by the turmoil in the church since Vatican II, have dwindled from an alltime high of 36,038 in 1965 to 27,053 last year.
More change lies ahead. Early last month, Superior General Pedro Arrupe, 73, who was responsible for overseeing the society's troubled course in the stormy years since the Second Vatican Council, was felled by a stroke. A Spanish Basque, like Loyola, Arrupe served nearly three decades as a missionary in Japan before being elected the order's leader in 1965. Though Arrupe is expected to leave the hospital this month, he is not likely to resume the arduous job of managing the Jesuits. Just last year, in fact, Arrupe made the unprecedented announcement that he wished to resign because of advancing age, but was dissuaded "for the time being" Pope by John Paul II.
Jesuits spend at least 15 years in the society before taking final vows. Unlike other Catholic orders, which vow chastity, poverty and obedience, top Jesuits are also bound to the Pope by a special pledge of fealty. Yet throughout history, Popes have accused them of arrogance and disobedience. In 1773 Clement XIV even suppressed the order because European governments and jealous clerics complained that Jesuits had too much power. The order was not revived until 1814.