71st Congregation of Procurators Draws Jesuits to Loyola
By Rev. Michael J. Graham, S.J., Senior Advisor for Formation Programs, AJCU
From May 6 through May 21, 107 Jesuits from across the globe gathered in Loyola, Spain for the 71st Congregation of Procurators in the history of the Society of Jesus. While a number of the men present accompanied Rev. Arturo Sosa, S.J. (the Jesuit Superior General) from Rome, and a roughly equal number were there as secretaries, translators or assistants, the great bulk of us came as elected representatives — Procurators — from our home provinces.
The primary purpose of this gathering was to advise Fr. General as to whether or not a General Congregation ought to be called. In our entire history, only one Congregation of Procurators has clearly voted to call for this supreme law-making body in the Society. In May, we sided with history and elected not to call one.
But Congregations of Procurators have another important purpose in the governance of the Society and that is to advise Fr. General in his leadership — that purpose constituted the bulk of our time together. Fr. General is charged with providing the Procurators an update on the State of the Society (in Latin, De Statu Societatis), and this hefty document provided ample material for our deliberations.
We did this in two ways. The first eight days of the Congregation were given over to a retreat during which we took on the document section by section. Daily presentations recommended themes and ideas for our prayers, which were supplemented by scripture passages and selections from important Jesuit documents. Without a doubt, the highlight of these days were the small groups with which we met daily to discuss the results of our own prayers so as to be able to forward to Fr. General comments, suggestions and reactions to the document that resulted from the communal discernment of our groups. An added benefit of these groups was that they helped shift each Procurator from a focus on his own province to a more global viewpoint. Through sharing conversations daily, as I did with Jesuits from India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and England, that was certainly my own experience.
At the end of the retreat, each group forwarded a short list of topics they thought would be good to pursue in the second part of the Congregation. When aggregated, they formed the agenda for our discussions. Among these topics were the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs), collaboration, and governance in the Society. We took on one topic each day, with input in the morning from Fr. General and two members of the Congregation. Our own prayer led once again to group discussions (although in different groups from the retreat). Their fruits were summarized on PowerPoint slides, which led in turn to fascinating discussions among the whole group in afternoon plenary sessions.
What’s next? Fr. General was very clear that he would take all of the feedback received and consider it with his General Counselors and others, and then revise the document as seemed best to him before releasing the revised, final draft on July 31, the Feast of St. Ignatius. So, I suppose, stay tuned! While this document will be of primary interest to Jesuits, it is Fr. General’s great hope that it will likewise be of interest to the men and women with whom we collaborate.
Certainly that will be true of the UAPs. You may recall that there are four of them: showing the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment; walking with the poor and excluded; journeying with youth toward a hope-filled future; and caring for our common home. Fr. General indicated that there would be a “mid-term review” of these in 2024 before a “second phase” of implementation in 2024–2029. Because the UAPs have influenced all Jesuit works in countless ways, it will be interesting to see what Fr. General says about them in the forthcoming document and what guidance he gives us for our deeper appropriation of them.
Although the weather certainly could have been better, those of us who gathered at the powerful place where Ignatius was first born and then later converted to God’s service after his famous cannonball wound, agreed that the two weeks we spent together in Loyola was a highlight of our lives as Jesuits. May that time likewise be profitable for the body of the Society as a whole — and those with whom we work — as the Spirit leads us forward!
