The period from December 1974 to March 1975 were crucial times for the Society of Jesus. More than 230 Jesuit delegates from around the world met in Rome for a General Chapter, called by the charismatic Superior General of the Jesuits Fr Pedro Arrupe.

For faith to be authentic, it must show itself in the struggle to fight injustice, poverty and discrimination

Fr Arrupe was keen on updating the Order to meet various challenges, like the formation of its young members and the ongoing formation of all its members. However, the outstanding issues were the task given by Pope Paul VI to tackle the problem of faith (or lack of it), and many issues of justice.

Fr Arrupe felt very much the suffering of the poor, the marginalised and the outcasts of society. Later on he was to start an ambitious project – the Jesuit Refugee Service – which has given sterling aid to so many of our suffering brothers and sisters.

The General Chapter produced some outstanding documents. But perhaps the best document is Decree 4: Our Mission Today: Service of Faith and Promotion of Justice. A great deal of energy was expended in the drafting of this document, with heated discussions and great interest shown by the participants.

Among the participants was Fr Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Provincial of Argentina, who celebrated his 38th birthday just two weeks after the beginning of the General Chapter. I am sure he must have taken an active part in the discussions – he was certainly exposed to a wide array of arguments and experiences of Jesuits from various backgrounds, including his own country. So this decree must have made a lot of sense to him.

The thrust of the decree was that for faith to be authentic, it must show itself in the struggle to fight injustice, poverty and discrimination. The Apostle St James tells us that faith without deeds is dead. And the example he gives is precisely the lack of concern of the rich for the poor (James 2: 14-17).

I am sure we agree with this teaching, but do we take it seriously enough? During the Synod of the Bishops of 1971, the Church promoted the ‘preferential option for the poor’ as a priority in the Church’s mission to the world. So the Jesuits were following the Synod’s lead.

After all, wasn’t this the mission statement of our Lord himself, when he started his public ministry? “The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour” (Lk 4: 18-19).

But to agree with the Church is not enough: one has to take the challenge with all the seriousness and urgency that it requires. This is what the delegates to the General Chapter did. They knew they would be putting themselves in great peril, as the following years soon showed.

The next Chapter, meeting only eight years later, which Fr Bergoglio also attended as an elected delegate, declared “(This closeness to Christ) has brought us closer to the poor with whom he identified himself. At times it has brought us also the persecution for his sake that he promised his followers.

“Our service of faith and promotion of justice has made the Society confront the mystery of the Cross: some Jesuits have been exiled, imprisoned or put to death in their work of evangelisation.”

The Jesuit Rutilio Grande of El Salvador is an outstanding example: he was assassinated in 1977, and his close friend Oscar Romero decided to continue his work – himself ending in martyrdom.

As is now well known, as Bishop of Buenos Aires, Fr Bergoglio lived this ideal of showing Christ’s love for, and defence of, the poor and weak. And now as Pope Francis he has already made it clear in the very first days of his pontificate that he will make this the programme of his ministry: he wants to see a poor Church, for the poor.

We pray that he will not only succeed, but that he will inspire all the faithful to embrace the poor Christ and his poor members with sincere love.

hformosa@saintaloysius.edu.mt

Fr Harry Formosa is a member of the Society of Jesus.