Preparing the Jesuits of tomorrow

Recent statistics have reinforced the fact that Jesuit vocations are increasing in Asia Pacific and declining in the West. The President of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, Fr Mark Raper SJ (pictured), reflects on the role of the Society in preparing new candidates for the demanding mission given to them today.

There are many factors contributing to the increase in vocations, such as poverty and lack of otheropportunities, along with the piety and devotion of the communities from which our candidates come. Our attention has been to improve the quality of those who are accepted rather than to increase the number of candidates to the Society. This is certainly the case for Myanmar, Timor Leste, Vietnam and Korea, where, over the past ten years, there have been good numbers of applicants. We have introduced tougher screening. We ask whether the applicant can take the long and rigorous studies, is ready to learn other languages and live in unfamiliar cultural contexts, is adequately free to make an independent decision about his life. As a result of this screening, we tend to accept fewer persons. It also means that their formation can be more focused.

       

During the last few years, the conference has been examining its purpose for the ‘formation’ of Jesuits in Asia Pacific. We see formation as deep human education, a profound personal transformation. This transformation occurs often, perhaps exclusively, through experiences of vulnerability. In other words, compassion is a key: enduring something with another person and allowing the pain of other people to get inside us dispose us to change, to being transformed. If the experience is deep, it is difficult to return to the isolated self again. But this formation cannot be forced; it is an invitation. It means being open to the outsider, to the poor and to those who suffer.

Our greatest challenges do not come from our changing demographics, but rather from the complexity of the world to which we are sent. Asia Pacific is changing fast.  Moreover, perhaps thanks to the changing distribution of Jesuits, we are recapturing a sense of our universal mission that was so much in the mind of Ignatius. He did not seek a Society that was grand in terms of numbers or prestige. He wanted a body of men prepared and disposed to go wherever the needs are greatest.

The challenge therefore is both to prepare Jesuit personnel for this type of mobility, and also to have the organisational arrangements that facilitate sending the right person to the right place at the right time.  Strengthening our communication and cooperation within the Conference is an important step to fulfil this requirement. But we need to go further in adapting governance arrangements. That restructuring is a work in progress. More redistribution of responsibilities within the Jesuits of Asia Pacific will take place.  Across the whole Society we are examining ways in which provinces will cooperate more, and smaller or diminishing units will be amalgamated with others for greater efficiencies.

One challenge for fast growing units of the Society is that they lack mentors and leaders: they have many younger Jesuits and fewer mature ones. The demographic in some of the more established provinces is the reverse: few young and more mature. By sharing personnel this imbalance can be partially addressed. Thus Australia, for example, is called on to supply personnel to assist in the formation programs and institution-building in other provinces. One member of the Australian Province, Fr Pham Van Ai, serves as Dean of the Theology Faculty in Vietnam, and Fr Brendan Byrne visits there frequently to teach scripture. Frs Nguyen Van Cao and Quyen Vu have recently been sent to Myanmar and Timor Leste respectively to help build local capacity.

The greatest decline in the Society has been occurring over the last thirty or forty years in Europe and North America. We can learn a lot from their examples, both where they face this changing reality and in places where for various reasons they do not face it. What remains important is our mission. Mission means being sent to new frontiers. This implies that we recognise and face challenges and respond freshly. One fresh response involves recognising how much these challenges are a product of global realities and must be dealt with from an international perspective. This implies greater international cooperation. Jesuit Refugee Service is an example of a coordinated international action undertaken in a contemporary way.

The Australian Province has fewer Jesuits than it had twenty years ago, but it has a far stronger social base – more lay persons who identify with its mission and are prepared to join it. But compared to ten years ago, this same diminishing body of Jesuits is also ageing. At the same time the context in which we exercise our mission is changing. Our society is less receptive to religious belief and argument.    

All this implies change. Change is never easy for anyone. In order to facilitate change we need to know why we want it, we need a vision that is shared, a shared understanding of our mission today and what it asks of us. Good leadership helps for this, but also good conversation. Without a sense of where we want to get to by changing, we can be without a rudder, without a sense of direction, overwhelmed by problems. A vision of the future that we want to create can generate energy, enthusiasm and purposeful activity. This is what gives life. Everyone and everything age. The point is to retain a sense of hope and purpose rooted in our mission. 

It will be a big challenge for the Church to have a voice and role in civil society in countries like Vietnam, Myanmar and Timor Leste. This will involve confronting and helping build societies that are ethical and respect human rights. This challenge for Jesuits relates precisely to our universal mission. How can our Jesuits return to their local communities and cultures with a vision that looks beyond those communities, is universal? Our formation, hopefully, does not alienate them from their cultures, but should help them to develop a capacity to be critically present in their local communities. Our education institutions should not build a prestigious elite but rather serve the whole country.

Only God knows the future. But because our mission is God’s mission and is so immense, there is every reason to go and seek the young men to engage in it and to prepare them for that service. Our mission is not reserved only for Jesuits but we seek collaborators with whom we can establish ‘organisations and networks to continue these and many other services’. 

In the concluding words of GC35 Decree 6 on Collaboration, ‘To respond today to the pressing needs of our complex and fragile world, many hands are surely needed. Collaboration in mission is not only an effective strategy, it expresses our true identity as members of the Church, the complementarity of our diverse calls to holiness, our mutual responsibility for the mission of Christ, our desire to join people of good will in the service of the human family and the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is a grace given to us in this moment; one consistent with our Jesuit way of proceeding.’

Fr Mark Raper SJ, as told to Giselle Lapitan