Father Pedro Arrupe and Jesuit education: a personal reflection

Abstract

This article explores the impact on Jesuit schools made by Fr. Pedro Arrupe, Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983.

Keywords:

• Arrupe
• Jesuits
• justice
• Option for the Poor

Notes on contributor

Michael Holman SJ is a Jesuit priest and has been Principal of Heythrop College, University of London, since January 2012. Ordained in 1988, he was previously deputy head teacher at Mount St Mary's College, Sheffield, 1992–1994, head teacher of Wimbledon College, the Jesuit comprehensive school in south London, 1995–2004, and Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Britain, 2005–2011.

Notes

1. The Gesú Church is the mother church of the Society of Jesus. Located in the Argentina district of Rome, it was consecrated in November 1584 and includes the tombs of St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society, and Fr Pedro Arrupe.

2. The 1971 Synod of Bishops was the second ordinary general assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Its agenda consisted of two subjects: Ministerial Priesthood and Justice in the World.

3. Pope John Paul II was later to use the concept ‘structures of sin’. See “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis” (1987) paras 35–38, for example: ‘If the present situation can be attributed to difficulties of various kinds, it is not out of place to speak of “structures of sin”, which, as I stated in my Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, are rooted in personal sin, and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them and make them difficult to remove. And thus they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people's behaviour’.

4. Arrupe, Pedro, The address to the ‘Tenth International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of Europe’, in Valencia, Spain, on 31 July 1973, http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/men-for-others.html.

5. For example, in the nineteenth century, the British Jesuits had established schools in the inner cities of Glasgow, Preston, Leeds, Liverpool and Stamford Hill, London, with the purpose of providing an education for the children of Irish immigrant families; and in the twentieth century, they built schools in numerous mission stations in their care in the present-day diocese of Harare in Zimbabwe.

6. From the mid-1960s in particular, many Jesuits began to question the appropriateness of maintaining their schools for the middle and upper classes. In Mexico in 1971 the Jesuit provincial decided to close the Instituto Patria, the principal Jesuit secondary school in the capital. This decision not only provoked the anger of many parents but also divided the Mexican Jesuits. Similar debates were held throughout Latin America. Most provinces opted for maintaining their elitist schools, but only after introducing courses and activities that would make the students more socially conscious. Today, in a typical Jesuit school in Latin America, upper-division students are encouraged to do voluntary work among the poor at the weekends or during the summer. See Klaiber, Jeffrey, SJ, The Jesuits in Latin America: legacy and current emphases. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Jesuits+in+Latin+America%3A+legacy+and+current+emphases.-a0115567365.

7. Each summer, sixth form students from Wimbledon College and St Ignatius College, Enfield, spend some weeks at mission schools in Manvi, Karnataka, south India and Dodoma, Tanzania, respectively. Jesuit Missions, Wimbledon, partners British Jesuit schools with schools in Africa; for example, St Aloysius College, Glasgow, with St Aloysius School, Kibera, Kenya; Stonyhurst College with St Peter's, Kubatana, Harare, Zimbabwe; Mount St Mary's College, Sheffield, with Canisius High School, Zambia.

8. Pope Francis, address to students and teachers from Jesuit schools in Italy and Albania, 7 June 2013, Pope Paul VI Audience Hall. http://c.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/june/documents/papa-francesco_20130607_scuole-gesuiti.html.