Jesuits in formation are constantly being evaluated by other Jesuits. (And I am referring here, of course, only to the formal processes of evaluation, rather than the ongoing, informal assessments that, no doubt, occur!)
As they pass from stage to stage, information is collected from reliable sources, in order to discern whether Novice X or Brother Y or Scholastic Z can be prudently allowed to pronounce first vows, or go on regency, or move on to theology, or be admitted to ordination. When a Jesuit is being considered for a position of governance, a similar process of evaluation is undergone. Information concerning his aptitude for governance is collected, and, if the Jesuit is being considered for a position like Rector of a large community or Novice Master that requires the appointment of Fr. General, the whole dossier of information and evaluations is forwarded to Rome.
The documents surviving in Rome concerning Nicholas Keian Fukunaga (one of the four new Jesuit blessed beatified last November 24, 2008) all have a simple unanimous theme: his superiors considered Nicholas “ordinary.” No doubt, in the Latin they used at that time, the word would have been more pointed: “mediocritatem.”
He was never ordained. He never passed the evaluations.
Born in 1569 (around twenty years before Pedro Kibe), he entered the novitiate in Amagusa at the age of 18, in 1588. The future saint, Paul Miki, had entered a few years ahead of him and was still in Amagusa when Nicholas entered. Nicholas made his first vows in 1590. The years after that saw him studying for the priesthood, doing excellent ministry as a preacher, but somehow never being considered “fit” enough to be ordained.
One of his classmates, for example, Blessed Julian Nakaura (beatified along with him last November 24) was ordained in 1608. Nicholas was sent to assist him in Fukuoka, was considered a great help as a lay preacher, but was, mysteriously, not considered ready for ordination.
In 1614, Nicholas was one of those expelled from Japan to Macau, along with Peter Kibe, who was then a lay catechist or dojuko. Nicholas was put in charge of these lay catechists. He was finally admitted to final vows in 1619, when he was fifty years old, an unusually long thirty-seven years after he had entered the Society. He was still, it seems, not considered worthy of ordination.
In 1620, he was sent back to Japan, apparently because he dared to express an opinion that differed from that of his superiors. From 1620 till 1633, he ministered in the Fukuoka area, till he was arrested in 1633 in Nagasaki. He was one of the first, if not the first, to suffer the terrible torture of the pit. It was in the pit that he gave his most powerful sermon. When his torturers asked him if there was anything he regretted in his life, Nicholas answered: “Yes, I regret very much that I was not able to lead all the Japanese people, beginning with the shogun, to Christ.” Nicholas died after three days in the pit, significantly on the morning of the feast of St. Ignatius, 31 July 1633.
Having done my fair share of evaluations of Jesuits over the years, the story of Blessed Nicholas Fukunaga is both humbling and inspiring. After all, it was the Jesuit Provincial, Cristobal Ferreira, who apostasized, not this ordinary Jesuit, whose apparent deficiencies kept him from being ordained, and whose final vows were constantly postponed. The preface of the Mass of Martyrs says it most powerfully: “You choose the weak, and make them strong in bearing witness to you.”
Nicholas’ story is, to me, a striking reminder about the limits of human judgments—or a testimony to the limitlessness of God’s power at work in us. It invites me to be careful in making and trusting human judgments, and at the same time, calls me to be daring in my hope and trust in God’s surprisingly creative grace.
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