Pedro Arrupe: The Cause for Beatification is Open

A man of God, a man of the Spirit

On November 14, 2018, the feast of St. Giuseppe Pignatelli, Fr. Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, announced to the entire Society that “the process has begun toward the possible beatification of Fr. Pedro Arrupe.” The Society of Jesus had asked the Vicariate of Rome, the place where Fr. Arrupe died, to begin the ecclesial discernment of the heroic nature of his virtues. Then on February 5, 2019, the 28th anniversary of his death, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the session to open the cause of his beatification was held.

The Superior General mentioned in his letter how he had been able to verify in the last few months that the memory and legacy of the man who was the 28th successor of St. Ignatius as the leader of the Society of Jesus was still alive in many diverse locations around the world.

Arrupe was born in Bilbao, Spain, on November 14, 1907. He studied medicine in Madrid from 1923 to 1927, the year in which he entered the novitiate in Loyola. After his studies in the humanities and philosophy he earned a degree in theology and was ordained a priest on July 30, 1936, in Valkenburg, Holland, as the Jesuits had been expelled from Spain in 1932.

He asked his superiors to allow him to go as a missionary to Japan, to which he was missioned in 1938. He was the master of novices when, on August 6, 1945, he was a witness to the atomic explosion at Hiroshima. In 1958 he was named provincial of the recently founded Jesuit Province of Japan.

He was a member of the 31st General Congregation, which elected him Superior General on May 22, 1965. He participated in the latter stages of the Council, was elected to the Union of Superiors General, the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on six occasions, as well as the Latin-American Conferences at Medellin (1968) and Puebla (1979).

He was struck by cerebral thrombosis on August 7, 1981, and on September 3, 1983, the 33rd General Congregation accepted his resignation from the position of Superior General. He died in Rome, at the General Curia, on February 5, 1991, after almost 10 years of illness. On November 14, 1997, his mortal remains were transferred from the Verano Cemetery, where he had been buried, to the Church of the Gesù.

A man of God, a man of the Spirit

All his biographers observe that Fr. Arrupe slept very little and prayed much. In spite of his busy agenda, he always found time to pray at length in his private chapel, the “little-big cathedral,” as he liked to call it. He was a “man of God” not only because he prayed a lot, but also because he reasoned and decided according to divine categories. He thought, spoke and acted according to these perspectives; he had interiorized the preparatory prayer of the Spiritual Exercises (SE): “That all my intentions, actions and operations may be ordered purely to the service and praise of the Divine Majesty” (SE 46).

As a good disciple of Ignatius, he acknowledged the Lord as the one absolute dimension of his life; all the rest was relative. He had united in himself an identity as “a man of God and a man of the Spirit,” that is, a man who lets himself be guided by God, attentive to not setting limits on God and not confining God within narrow human categories. He truly believed that the Spirit rules the Church, and within it, the Society of Jesus. He understood very well how to make himself an available “instrument” in the hands of the Lord (cf. Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, No. 638.)

Here is found the deep roots of his contagious optimism, which some interpreted as naiveté and even as a lack of the gifts of governance. He himself admitted to being an optimist and explained the reasons for this: “I am an optimist because I believe in God and in people.” His faith was in the Lord in whom “alone hope must be placed” (Constitutions 812). This was also the source of his apostolic enthusiasm, his audacity and resoluteness in seeking answers to the problems of evangelization of his time and in the prophetic intuition of the future.^[1]

So great was his faith in God and in the capacity of a person to respond and to be converted that he did not hesitate to propose grand ideals, convinced that they were achievable. Even in the most difficult situations, he did not lose this hope, this optimism, which united faith in God and faith in humanity. His optimism had a strong component of trust in the Lord who guides history and in the human ability to improve situations. “The hope of which we are the bearers is based on the humble recognition of man’s radical limitations and impotence.”^[2]

Interior biography: wrapped in the mystery of God

Much has been written about Fr. Arrupe. A story of facts, initiatives and decisions, actions visible and appraisable according to various perspectives and criteria has been recorded. But beyond this lies a parallel interior life, and one must immerse oneself in it to unlock the motivations behind the exterior events.

The same Fr. Arrupe referred to these motivations in the homily for the 50th anniversary of his entrance to the Society of Jesus, on January 15, 1977: “In listening to these personal histories one senses in each of them something that is unspoken because it cannot be uttered, a personal secret that not even the individual himself fully understands. The sphere that is hidden, or half-hidden, even from ourselves is the area that is truly interesting.” And he gives us the reason for this: “It is the area of closest relationship between God, who is love […] and man, who from the depths of his being gives a response that is unique because there is not, nor will there ever be his like.”^[3]

It is the story of the mystery of the personal love of God for each person and the mystery of the interior life of each person as response to that love. Less is written about this spiritual dimension, but it becomes necessary to explore it, grasp it because it is truly interesting, and because without it we cannot understand much about the actions of Fr. Arrupe, and run the risk of losing sight of the more authentic meaning of his life and his work. It involves entering into this interior life via his intimate writings, some most personal and spontaneous, rather than being limited to speaking about them or deducing them from his behavior.^[4]

On the occasion of his 50th anniversary of religious life, celebrated in the Church of the Gesù, with complete simplicity and spontaneity Fr. Arrupe confided to his brothers in the Society: “During these 50 years of religious life with its varied experiences, certain particular loves have grown and increased in me, almost imperceptibly. They have, moreover, the proper characteristic of all true love: the more suffering the more love.”^[5] These loves were for Jesus Christ, the Church and the Society.

Jesus Christ, the ‘everything’ of his life

I remember that when I was a Jesuit student in Rome I heard on the radio an interview with Fr. Arrupe. One of the questions of the interviewer was: “For you, who is Jesus Christ?” Fr. Arrupe remained silent for some time, as if looking into the depths of his own soul, and answered with just one word: “Everything.” Then he added: “If you take Jesus from my life, it will collapse like a house of cards.”^[6] And, in fact, if any passion is evident in the life of Fr. Arrupe, that passion is Jesus Christ. The “everything” and the “more” – a typical Ignatian binomial – summarize his interior biography, that of a person in love with Jesus Christ, who therefore lives “only desiring and choosing that which is more conducive to the end for which we are created” (SE 23).

Only from this experience of faith can one understand the personality and the work of Fr. Arrupe. It is here that his Ignatian identity is grounded: availability to the will of God, mystic in mission. He looked for nothing else.

His spirituality centers on the Ignatian indifference of the “Principle and Foundation” in the Spiritual Exercises, and so he is led to incessantly seek and accomplish the will of God – “Nothing whatever ought to move me […] except the service and praise of God our Lord and the eternal salvation of my soul” (SE 169) – and the dynamic of the Exercises leads to “dispose of everything according to your will” of the “Contemplation to Attain Love” (SE 234). “Not my will but yours be done.”

This is the content of the “sphere that is hidden, or half-hidden, even from ourselves,” that Fr. Arrupe defines as “truly interesting” and that is found in intimate terms within an exceptional text from his spiritual notes on the Exercises of 1965. We will recount three phrases that summarize the entire page: “The thanksgiving [for being elected General] obliges me to be very faithful to the Lord, so much so that I cannot deny him even the smallest thing that I see that he is asking of me.” “The need for an intimate contact, the most possible, and continuous with the Lord obliges me to the greatest purity of spirit. Our Lord is he who must motivate me and illuminate me with his grace. […] Listening to the Lord and understanding well his will requires a heart that is perfectly pure.” And in conclusion he writes: “It follows that, even if already it normally is the case, now the vow of perfection becomes especially real. Now I must observe it with extreme diligence, given that such diligence will consist of my preparation for listening, seeing and being an instrument in the hands of the Lord: which is equivalent to doing his will in everything.”^[7]

Fr. Iglesias does not hesitate to affirm that here we have “the most realistic sketch of the self-portrait of Pedro Arrupe’s interior life.”^[8] The “vow of perfection” or the “vow of what is more perfect,” present in many spiritual traditions, is intended as a commitment to aspire constantly to an increasing docility to God, to let oneself be moved only by what one is discovering as the divine will, to orient one’s entire interior gaze to the will of Jesus Christ, by whom one feels totally absorbed.

This desire, this “deliberate determination” is already present in the young Arrupe and will accompany him for his entire life.^[9] In a prayer from 1933, when he was studying theology, he wrote: “O Lord, I do not tire repeating this: I want nothing, except to love you, I desire nothing in this world besides You […] I am here, Lord, like a little guinea pig, ready to undergo all these experiments […] Bind me, nail me, if necessary, because at the moment I retreat.”^[10]

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his religious life in the Society, Fr. Arrupe reaffirmed the same point and summarized his own life as a constant gaze on the face of the One with whom he felt in love: “Reviewing the course of my 70 years, of which 50 have been in the Society, I cannot help but recognize that the decisive stages, the radical turning points in my life’s path have always been unexpected, I might even say irrational. But sooner or later, in every instance, I have had to recognize the hand of God that gave the helm a bold twist.”^[11]

One of his preferred models was Abraham; he recognized in him a call, an eruption of God, an imprecise destiny, but always a decisive response to travel an unexpected road, sustained only by faith in the word of God. In his heart was always present the response of Abraham to Isaac: “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Gen 22:8). It was the mystery of a call that is prolonged in an incessant dialogue and that leads him toward the surprise, even to the end of his life: toward what is incomprehensible from the human point of view. Fr. Arrupe welcomes in his life the “twists of the helm” as signs of the divine will, and so lives like a “guinea pig” immersed in the “mystery of God.” Like Ignatius, he makes himself a “pilgrim,” a tireless seeker of the will of the Lord: “seeking and finding God’s will in the ordering of our life” (SE 1). This is important to him and preoccupies him, and so he identifies with “the available one” as he likes to call Jesus Christ: “See, I have come to do your will” (Heb 10:9).

One of these “surprises of the mystery of God,” a new “twist of the helm,” the last and the most unexpected, was without doubt that of the night between August 6-7, 1981. He experienced a cerebral thrombosis that forced him to resign as General of the Society and led him to the end of his life in a “pilgrimage” of almost 10 years in the mysterious silence of God, where existed only the prayer “Not my will but yours be done.” He lost the ability to move, as well as his voice, but his heart remained to continue to suffer for Jesus and to love Him, the Church and the Society, his three loves. With the heart remained his smile and the penetrating gaze, a reflection of his “eyes of the heart enlightened” (cf. Eph 12:18).

On September 3, 1983, he presented his resignation to the 33rd General Congregation. He could not read out the message, nor was the form written by him, but the content and the explicit approval were his. And again we find that flow of the Spirit that marked his entire life: being in the hands of God, wanting to live immersed in the mystery of God and accomplishing his will. In his renunciation he affirmed: “More than ever, I now find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life, from my youth. And this is still the one thing I want. But now there is a difference: the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in his hands. […] My call to you today is that you be available to the Lord. Let us put God at the center, ever attentive to his voice, ever asking what we can do for his more effective service, and doing it to the best of our ability, with love and perfect detachment. Let us cultivate a very personal awareness of the reality of God.”^[12]

The day after, in the Eucharist celebrated in the chapel of La Storta – a place full of Ignatian resonances – in his Nunc dimittis he could do nothing less than turn to the mystery that had accompanied him in the course of his life and that was rooted in Ignatius’ own experience in that place: Christ on the cross, difficulty, contradictions; service of the Son; the Church; I will be propitious to you in Rome; comfort. “True, I have had my difficulties, both big and small; but never has God failed to stand by me. And now more than ever I find myself in the hands of this God who has taken hold of me.”^[13]

A man of discernment

We can understand from this how Fr. Arrupe was a person of discernment, who rediscovered it in Ignatian spirituality and sought to make it known and practiced by all Jesuits and their institutions: that attitude of constant looking for what God wants in order to put it into practice, over and above one’s own will or more or less personal opinions. For him availability and discernment work together.

Fr. Arrupe lived this integration and transmitted it to his brothers in the Society. Already in his first words as General he pointed out that above all it was “necessary to examine seriously and discern the individual elements of questions in order to recognize what is permanent and what is transitory,”^[14] a practice that later would be widespread in the Society, and later also in the entire Church.

These were affirmations that originated from his most intimate spiritual life. This involved a will that sought with passion to put it into practice joyfully and that shows the Ignatian wisdom in the choice of life in the Exercises: “I should beg God our Lord to be pleased to move my will and to put into my mind what I ought to do (SE 180); “Not my will but yours be done” (Matt 26:39, John 6:38).

Convinced that this availability or “indifference” was the “heart of our identity, that should characterize us as followers of Jesus, namely ‘to be available,’”^[15] Fr. Arrupe exhorted the entire Society to have it very present in its life and mission.

Love for our Holy Mother, the hierarchical Church

From the love for Jesus Christ, from his passion for Jesus Christ flows in Fr. Arrupe – as in St. Ignatius – love for “our Holy Mother, the hierarchical Church” and his service of “the Church his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, Vicar of Christ on earth.” From his first love, from the passion that pervades his entire life is nurtured his love for the Church. He had learned this well in the “Rules to follow in view of the true attitude of mind we ought to maintain in the Church Militant”: “For we believe that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, his Spouse, there is the one same Spirit who governs and guides us for the salvation of our souls” (SE 365).

The content of the vow of perfection is not lacking in this confluence of loves: the desire that it be the will of God that rules his life and his actions. In effect, the fourth vow of the Society, of obedience to the pope, “principle and principal foundation,” synthesis of his identity and the expression of his charism has as one of its principal objectives, according to the Formula of 1550: “a greater abnegation of our own wills, and of surer direction of the Holy Spirit” (No. 3).

One can well grasp how Fr. Arrupe felt much at his ease in complying with this fourth vow, because it allowed him to live out the essential desire of his life: to fulfill the will of the Father, to make a good discernment and to feel obligated to be available to let himself be sent wherever the greater service awaited, the task to search for what the Lord wants and to accomplish it with diligence, receiving the “twist of the helm,” the surprises of the mystery of God.

Fr. Arrupe wrote and spoke on numerous occasions of the fidelity of the Society and of every Jesuit to the person of the Roman pontiff, expressing his own conviction that in such fidelity is contained something essential to the charism of the Society. One of his most significant speeches was that of February 18, 1978, at the Center for Ignatian Spirituality in Rome, titled: “Serving only the Lord and the Church his Spouse, at the Disposition of the Roman Pontiff,” a theme that he links in a particular way with the discernment of St. Ignatius in the foundation of the Society: “Inspired words, in which Ignatius and his companions consecrated literally the final result of a long search for their apostolic identity.”^[16]

Fr. Arrupe was aware that he was speaking of a question of crucial importance for the Society. Years earlier, on January 25, 1972, he had written a brief letter to the Society in which he wanted “to make us aware of our responsibility and of our mission on this point. I refer to the spirit of fidelity to the person of the Holy Father; a spirit that, inspired by our fourth vow – principle and foundation of the Society, in the mind of St. Ignatius – and sealed by a tradition of four hundred years, should remain deeply rooted in our minds.”^[17]

In Fr. Arrupe there was much more than an intellectual conviction or the affirmation of an historic fact connected with the charism of the Society: there was an authentic devotion to the person of all the popes with whom he had relations.^[18] A few years later, Fr. Kolvenbach defined this “devotion” as a component of the fourth vow: “One tries sometimes to reduce the special obedience to the Holy Father only to the mission. It could be this canonically speaking, but can it effectively accomplish our mission if affectively our heart is not there?”^[19] And Benedict XVI, in his discourse to the 35th General Congregation, assumed this same interpretive line on the fourth vow of the Society, when he invited the Jesuits: “to further reflect so as to find again the fullest sense of your characteristic ‘fourth vow’ of obedience to the Successor of Peter […] that implies […] readiness to ‘love and serve’ the Vicar of Christ on earth with that ‘effective and affective’ devotion that must make of you his precious and irreplaceable collaborators.”^[20]

Prophet of the conciliar renewal

Fr. Arrupe joined the Council late, and it cannot be said with certainty that he was a leading figure of Vatican II. He was elected only a little before the Council entered into its fourth and final phase, which took place in the autumn of 1965. Still he was recognized as a key post-conciliar figure: he contributed vigorously, in fact, to nurturing the life of the Church. He was always involved with evangelization and interior ecclesial renewal and, in particular, with religious life.

His love for the Church and his fidelity to the Council drove him to this passionate dedication to the renewal of religious life and that of the Society: “Following the example given by the Church in the Ecumenical Council, we must face problems with great sincerity and caution.”^[21] As president of the Union of Superiors General he took part in all the synods that followed the Council.^[22]

It fell to him to live in the difficult times of the first post-conciliar years. He had to manage tensions that were by no means simple, such as between fidelity and creativity, charism and institution, structure and liberty, the tradition that looks back and the prophecy that looks to the future.

In 2007, the centenary of the birth of Fr. Arrupe, Fr. Kolvenbach presented him at the University of Deusto, at Bilbao, as a “prophet of the conciliar renewal.”^[23] Tracing a magisterial portrait, he emphasized that “the attitude of Fr. Arrupe in respect to the novelty of the Council […] was neither to the right nor to the left; it did not lie either in maintaining the past or an obsession with the present, but with the future.” Then he added: “In this effort to introduce the newness of the Council Fr. Arrupe made his own what His Holiness John Paull II exhorted the Jesuit professors of the Gregorian University of Rome to practice: ‘Know how to be creative every day, not being too easily content with what has been useful in the past. Have the courage to explore, with prudence, new ways.’” And he explained how Fr. Arrupe would interpret this counsel of the pope: “Founded on the experience of St. Ignatius, Fr. Arrupe trusts prudence in prayerful discernment: before God, in the Lord, all truth is scrutinized to read what it is that God wants to accomplish with us.”

Fr. Arrupe was a mystic, but an Ignatian mystic, “with open eyes,” with his feet and his heart solidly among the people. From his deep faith in the Trinitarian mystery he discovered how to love the mystery of persons. He desired to learn to look on people as Jesus does, to be interested in every person and in everything that persons are. In him were no sterile dichotomies, but an evangelical integration of love for God and for the neighbor, of faith and justice. His intuition to create in the Society the Jesuit Refugee Service was truly prophetic, if we think of the current emergencies involving immigration.

In this picture, Fr. Kolvenbach does not forget Fr. Arrupe’s optimism, and reported some of the words in which he affirmed that “even though he could not pretend that we could all be at the same level of optimism, he did insist we not give in to pessimism.” And he added that, in spite of the pessimism that circulated in the post-conciliar period even in the high spheres of the Vatican, Fr. Arrupe never omitted a word of trust and of hope, of encouragement and of faith in the impulse of the Spirit of God who renews the face of this world through his Church.

Fr. Arrupe, prophet of the conciliar renewal, as every prophet, was not always well received either within or outside the Society. All that he did and said – and what he suffered – was motivated by the desire to “serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, Vicar of Christ on earth.” In this “love and service” are woven the last part of the life of the “pilgrim” Arrupe.

He loved with “effective and affective” devotion the Vicar of Christ, and he showed it with gestures that some judged naïve, such as standing every Sunday at the door of the Curia to see the pope pass by on the way to visit a Roman parish. For him this was neither naiveté nor formalism. He went down to greet the Vicar of Christ. It was an authentic “Ignatian devotion.”

Fr. Arrupe lived intensely the application of the Council, but “thanks to prayerful discernment, practiced in the Church, with the Church and for the Church, behind the letter of the conciliar documents he recognized always the revelation of the Spirit that makes all things new,” as Fr. Kolvenbach remembered.

From August 7, 1981, he resided in the infirmary of the Jesuit Curia, where he would remain for 10 years, until his death on February 5, 1991. On October 5, 1981, John Paul II made the decision to nominate Fr. Paolo Dezza his delegate for the Society, and Fr. Guiseppe Pittau as his coadjutor. The letter was read to Fr. Arrupe, in the infirmary, by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli. Fr. Arrupe followed the letter attentively, understood the contents perfectly and cried softly. A new and definitive “twist of the helm.” “Not my will but yours be done.” “I wish and desire, and it is my deliberate decision […] to imitate you in bearing all injuries and affronts, and any poverty, actual as well as spiritual” (SE 98).

On February 27, 1982, Fr. Dezza called to Rome all the provincials of the Society. In the Eucharist celebrated at the beginning of the meeting, Fr. Pittau read the homily that Fr. Arrupe had dictated to him. In it, among other things, he said: “In the Roman Pontiff, who shortly will receive us, we recognize and love the Vicar of Christ on earth, under whom we serve only the Lord and the Church his spouse. […] The links which bind us to him, for love and in service are ‘our principle and foundation.’”^[24] And further: “I feel a great joy in seeing and contemplating all this, because through human mediation I see the will of God, source of grace for our sanctification and that of our neighbors. And I desire that the entire Society live with the same joy and gladness this moment of concrete manifestation of the divine will.”^[25]

That same day, in the papal audience, Fr. Arrupe could hear these words of the Holy Father, which surely would console him: “Exemplary and moving has been above all, in this delicate contingency, the position of the Most Reverend Superior General, who has edified me and you with his full availability to the indications of his superiors, with his generous ‘fiat’ to the demanding will of God, that was manifested in his sudden and unexpected illness, and in the decisions of the Holy See. […] To Father Arrupe, here present in the eloquent silence of his infirmity, offered to God for the good of the Society, I desire to express, on this particularly solemn occasion for the life and the history of your Order, the thanks of the Pope and of the Church!”^[26]

To conclude, we can affirm that Fr. Arrupe, whether in his full lucidity or in his sickness, with his attitude and with his sufferings, has pointed out to the Society the road to live out its own charism: “serving the Lord and the Church under the Roman Pontiff.” At the end of his life he fully embodied, in the silent and prolonged oblation of his will to the mystery of God, his three loves: for Jesus Christ, for the Church and for the Society.

DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 3, no. 4, article 6, April. 2019: 10.32009/22072446.1904.6

^[1] Cf. F. Ivern, “L’uoma cho ho conosciuto,” in G. La Bella (ed.), Pedro Arrupe. Un uomo per gli altri, Bologna, il Mulino, 2007, 1049-1961.

^[2] P. Arrupe, “P. Arrupe, Justice with Faith Today, St. Louis, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980, 238.

^[3] Id., “Three Models and Three Loves: Father Arrupe’s Homily at the Concelebrated Mass on his 50th Anniversary in the Society of Jesus,” Rome, Church of the Gesù, January 15, 1977, in Challenge to Religious Life Today, St. Louis, Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1979, 1.

^[4] Cf. I. Iglesias, “Per una biografia spirituale,” in G. La Bella (ed.), Pedro Arrupe. Un uomo per gli altri, op. cit. 987-1034. Undoubtedly Fr. Iglesias has been the one who has penetrated deepest into the interior story of Fr. Arrupe in his various writings: “Un nuevo y necesario accesso a Pedro Arrupe,” in Manresa 74 (2002 167-180); “Memoria de Pedro Arrupe,” in Miscelánea Comillas 49 (1991) 291-299; “Las oraciones del P. Arrupe,” in Manresa 62 (1990) 173-194; and especially in the Introduction to P. Arrupe, Aquí me tienes, Señor, Bilbao, Mensajero, 2006.

^[5] P. Arrupe, “Homily for the Concelebration on the occasion of the 50th anniversary in the Society,” op. cit., 6.

^[6] J. A. Garcia (ed.), Pasión por Cristo, passion por la humanidad. Escritos del P. Arrupe sobre la vida religiosa, Bilbao, Mensajero, 2015, 11.

^[7] I. Iglesias, “Per una biografia spirituale,” in G. La Bella (ed.), Pedro Arrupe. Un uomo per gli altri, op. cit., 991 f.

^[8] Ibid., 990

^[9] Cf. ibid., 1000-1003.

^[10] Ibid., 1005.

^[11] P. Arrupe, “Three Models and Three Loves: Father Arrupe’s Homily at the Concelebrated Mass on his 50th Anniversary in the Society of Jesus,” op. cit. 2.

^[12] P. Arrupe, “Message to the 33rd General Congregation after the Acceptance of his Resignation,” in Documents of the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1984, 93-95.

^[13] Id., “Homily of Fr. Pedro Arrupe at La Storta,” ibid., 96.

^[14] Id., “Discourse to the Fathers of the Congregation in the first session after the election” (May 24, 1965) in Decrees of the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Rome Provincial Curia of the Jesuits of Italy, 1967, 583.

^[15] Id., “Apostolic Availability” (October 19, 1977) in Challenge to Religious Life Today, St. Louis, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1979, 230.

^[16] Id., “Serving only the Lord and the Church his Spouse, at the Disposition of the Roman Pontiff,” discourse at CIS (February 18, 1978), 137.

^[17] Id., “Fidelity to the Person of the Supreme Pontiff,” Letter to the entire Society (January 25, 1972), 65.

^[18] Cf. D. Molla (ed.), Pedro Arrupe, charisma de Ignacio, Bilbao – Santander – Madrid, Mensajero – Sal Terrae – U.P, Comillas, 2015, 139-147.

^[19] Selected Writings of Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach 1991-2007, Madrid, Curia of the Province of Spain of the Society of Jesus, 2008, 166.

^[20] Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Fathers of the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus,” February 21, 2008, in http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2008/february/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080221_gesuiti.html.

^[21] P. Arrupe, “Discourse to the Fathers of the Congregation in the First Session after the Election” (May 24, 1965) in Decrees of the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Rome Provincial Curia of the Jesuits of Italy, 1967, 583.

^[22] Cf. S. Madrigal, “Il senso ecclesiale, in G. La Bella (ed.), Pedro Arrupe. Un uomo per gli altri, op. cit. 644.

^[23] P.-H. Kolvenbach, “P. Pedro Arrupe. Profeta de la Renovación Conciliar,” in Forum Deusto, Arrupe y Gárate: dos modelos, Bilbao, Universidad de Deusto, 2008, 99-113: cf. www.deusto-publicaciones.es/deusto/pdfs/forum/forum21.pdf.

^[24] P. Arrupe, “Homily for the Eucharist with the Provincials before the Audience with the Pope” (February 27, 1982) in Notices of the Jesuits of Italy 15 (1982/3 suppl.) 34.

^[25] Ibid., 35.

^[26] John Paul II, Discourse to the Fathers Provincial of the Society of Jesus, February 27, 1982, ibid., Section 1.