A Preview of the Decrees of GC 35

“Where do you wish to take me, Lord?” This was the question St. Ignatius asked himself in the Spiritual Diary. This might be the question we Jesuits might ask ourselves at the end of GC 35. Where does GC 35 wish to take the Society of Jesus in the next few years?

It is, of course, still too early to make a definitive statement about the directions the 35th General Congregation has set for the Society of Jesus. The official decrees have yet to be edited, approved by the Holy See, and officially promulgated by Fr. General. On the other hand, an initial report on the subjects and contents of these decrees might help prepare us to receive the decrees more appreciatively when they are finally released. This then is a preview of the six decrees of GC 35. I hasten to add that the following schema is entirely personal and has nothing official about it!

Six decrees, two divisions

It was clear from the start that we all felt that few decrees were needed. Since GC 31, the Society has produced many fine decrees, which remain relevant and continue to call for implementation. We chose instead to focus only what on what new things we felt we needed to say to help the Society in its life and mission today. In the end, we produced six short decrees.

I find it helpful to look at the six decrees of GC 35 in the following way. For me, three decrees articulate the substance of our identity and mission today. The other three, no less important, indicate the paths we need to take, if we are to be true to live out that identity and mission in our world today.


The substance of Jesuit identity and mission today

Three decrees belong to what I have called the “substance of our mission and identity today.”

1. “A Fire that Kindles More Fires”: Rediscovering our Charism:
This title of the decree is a quotation from St. Albert Hurtado. The decree is unique: unlike the more discursive, rationally organized decrees of the past, this is a poetic meditation on the meaning, the relevance, and the beauty of our Jesuit charism in the Church today. It is a decree that is intended to be received in prayer, and hopes to articulate, not just who we Jesuits are in the twenty-first century and what we do, but more importantly, why we are what we are, why we do what we do.

2. “With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism”: The Society of Jesus Responds to the Invitation of the Holy Father: This second decree is the shortest. Its title is taken from the profoundly appreciative yet challenging address of the Holy Father to the Society of Jesus through the General Congregation. The decree recounts the consoling experience of encounter with the Holy Father, expresses our grateful sense that the Vicar of Christ has confirmed us in our mission, and generously outlines a concrete response to Pope Benedict’s invitation. We renew our commitment to be men “sent to the frontiers” by the Church, but always united in heart and mind to the Church and with a special affection for the Vicar of Christ.

3. “Sent to the Frontiers”: Challenges to our Mission Today: This decree, in a sense, builds on the previous two. Confirmed in our sense of identity and renewed in our sense of our place in the Church, we confront the many challenges of the world today in mission. GC 35 embraces the mission orientations of GC 32 and 34 but realizes that the new and challenging context of globalization calls for new, more creative responses from the Society of Jesus. In this globalized world of secularism, marginalization and environmental devastation, this decree calls on Jesuits then to help live out, with Jesus, the Biblical meaning of justice, i.e. the building of “right relationships” with God, with others, and with creation. All of these point to global preferences for the entire Society of Jesus: Africa, China, the intellectual apostolate, inter-provincial institutions in Rome, and migrants and refugees. All of the above also calls for new planning on the part of the central government of the Society of Jesus, so that we respond as a global body to global challenges.


Paths to living out our mission and identity today

The next three decrees can be seen, I believe, as clarifying concrete paths which will make it possible for us to live the substance of our identity and mission today. How must we live so that we can deepen our Jesuit charism, renew our ecclesial sense of belonging, and respond in new ways to the new “frontiers” of mission? The next three decrees indicate a response: we must live in obedience, collaborating with others, with more responsive and universal structures of governance.

4. Apostolic Obedience in the Life of the Society of Jesus: We can only live our identity and mission today if we deepen what Ignatius always felt was our distinctive mark as a religious order in the Church: our obedience to superiors, and our obedience to the Holy Father through the Fourth Vow. In the light of our contemporary context, this decree reflects on the Ignatian and theological roots of our obedience and provides practical implications for our daily Jesuit life.

5. Collaboration at the heart of Mission: We can only fulfill our mission today if we continue to deepen GC 34’s commitment to collaboration with others: lay people, priests and religious, even those of other faith traditions. This decree, confirming GC 34, addresses new challenges that have arisen in our pursuit of collaboration: the sustaining of Jesuit identity of apostolic works, the need for formation for collaborative mission, the building of new networks of cooperation.

5. Governance at the Service of Universal Mission: With our changing demographics and with the global challenges we face, we can only respond effectively if the structures of Jesuit governance are renewed. The title of this decree is important. While it discusses governance on the Province and local levels, its key novelty, it seems to me, is in its emphasis on the renewal of Central Governance, for the sake of a more universal, more agile response to global challenges. The General is asked to restructure central governance in a radical way, and the roles of Conferences of Major Superior and their Presidents are outlined more clearly. Behind all this is a vision that, while provinces are our accustomed unit of governance in the Society, there is a need for structures that will allow us a more coordinated, more inter-provincial response to the great challenges of our day.

Other documents of interest

In addition to these six decrees, the official documents of GC 35 will include, among other things, at least three other significant documents:

• first, the consoling and challenging allocution of Pope Benedict XVI to the General Congregation;
• second, a narrative history of our discussion of about fifteen “Ordinary Governance” topics, ranging from globalization, youth ministry, communications, indigenous peoples, religious fundamentalism, ecology, formation, community life, etc, which resulted in suggestions to the new Fr. General;
• and finally, a letter of appreciation from the General Congregation, in the name of the entire Society, to Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach.

A Call to Reception and Implementation

Where does the Lord wish to take us through GC 35? Will these decrees bring about renewal in the life and mission of the Society of Jesus?

At the session in which we approved the final decree of the Congregation, Fr. General made a final remark that many of us found liberating and challenging. He called all the Provinces and Assistancies not to remain simply with the letter of the decrees, but to feel free to “rewrite” and translate each document into our own situations, with concrete steps towards implementation. In other words, these decrees will only be truly instruments of the Lord’s leading Spirit if, beyond reading them, we in the Philippine Province together discern what they will concretely mean for our personal lives, our lives as communities, and our apostolic planning.

Will these decrees bear fruit in our Province? That depends on us. The work of GC 35 continues.