Congregation ends with promise of fidelity to pope

BY CINDY WOODEN IN ROME
THE JESUITS have explicitly stated their fidelity to the Church and the teachings of the Magisterium.
The Jesuit General Congregation concluded two months of work by approving five decrees, including one on obedience, and a separate document reaffirming the Jesuits' allegiance to the Pope.
The 225 Jesuits elected to represent their almost 20,000 confreres around the world marked the end of their meeting with a Mass of thanksgiving in Rome's Church of the Gesn, site of the tomb of St Ignatius of Loyola, the Jesuit founder.
Fr Adolfo Nicolas, elected superior general of the Jesuits in January, called the meeting an experience of "the union of hearts, the union of the Society" and of its "union with its head. who is the Holy Father".
The congregation approved formal decrees focused on the Jesuit mission in the modern world; Jesuit identity; collaboration with those outside the Jesuits; internal governance and obedience, to one's superior as well as to the Pope.
The decrees will be translated and distributed to Jesuits before they are released publicly. In addition to the five decrees, the congregation approved a formal declaration entitled With New Fervour and Dynamism, the Society of Jesus Responds to the Call of Benedict XVI. In a January letter Pope Benedict asked the Society of Jesus "to affima its fidelity to the magiscerium and the Holy See." Fr Nicolas said.
He said the delegates approached the question "with interest and enthusiasm and also with joy".
"The Society of Jesus was born within the Church, we live in the Church, we were approved by the Church and we serve the Church. This is our vocation," he said.
Unity with the Pope "is the symbol of our union with Christ. It also is the guarantee that our mission will not be a "small mission," a project just of the Jesuits, but that our mission is the mission of the Church", Fr Nicolas said.
Promising fidelity to and union with the Pope is not and never was seen as a limitation for the Jesuits, he said.
"This tradition of obedience... has never stopped us, not in theological research, not in apostolic creativity, not in proposing new ways to live the Christian faith," he said.
"A serious, enthusiastic and joyful obedience to the Holy Father does not reduce in any way the ability of the society to reflect, to create. to continue moving forward in a dynamic service to the Church."
Being called to look again at the relationship of unity with the Pope "was a good occasion for becoming aware that we need a bit of humility", he said.