The Jesuit General who won his battle for the poor

The centenary of Pedro Arrupe reminds us of his marvellous legacy, says Anthony Symondson SJ No Father General of modern times has had a more radical Father on the Society of Jesus since its foundation by St Ignatius Loyola in 1540 than Pedro Arrupe. He was, and remains, a controversial figure, misunderstood as much as he is extolled, so much so that the character of the man has been lost behind smokescreens and rhetoric. This month is the centenary of his birth in Bilbao on November 14, 1907, an event that is being celebrated by Jesuits throughout the world. It provides a good opportunity to set his life in context.
Arrupe came from a profoundly Catholic Basque family, the youngest of five children. He lost his mother when he was 10 and his father at 18. He began to read medicine at Madrid but, after visiting Lourdes, he entered the Society of Jesus on January 15, 1927 at the age of 19.
In 1932 the Republicans expelled the Jesuits from Spain and thereafter Arrupe was exiled from his native land. He volunteered to go to Japan in 1938 and expected to work as a missionary for the rest of his life. In 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and drew the United States into the Second World War. Arrupe was arrested, placed in solitary confinement for 33 days, and expected to be executed.
Not long after his release from prison, he assumed the duties of master of novices for the Japanese mission. He was in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city. Arrupe described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory". Utilising his medical skills in the service of the wounded and dying, he transformed the noviciate into a makeshift hospital for over 200 scarred and disfigured remnants of humanity. Hiroshima was a life-chang ing event and Arrupe's later life cannot be understood independently of it. • In 1958 he was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan. He remained there until his election as the 28th General of the Jesuits at the 31st General Congregation in 1965. The Second Vatican Council had been convened by Blessed Pope John XXIII in 1962. The Church and the world were still experiencing the after-effects of the Second World War, the horrors of the Holocaust, the dawn of the Cold War and the nuclear age. How was the Church to respond to this changed world? How should believers live in it? Vatican II reshaped Catholic liturgy and devotion: it redefined the forms of religious life and the role of the laity; it opened ecumenical initiatives and new approaches to other religions; it faced growing secularism on a universal scale.
Taking his cue from the Pope and the Council, Arrupe urged Jesuits to rediscover their call to contemplation in action, to a spirituality of profound engagement with God and the world. The first Jesuits understood this to mean a spirituality o "finding God in all things". For Arrupe, it meant finding God even in the tragedies and tensions of world and personal history, finding God in a world disfigured and symbolised by Hiroshima and Auschwitz, a world torn by division and oppression. Before the Council, Jesuits ran schools and parishes, sent missionaries abroad, did retreat work, and exercised spiritual ministries. In 1974-5 these ministries were redefined at General Congregation 32 when the Society asked itself: "What is it to be a Jesuit?" The answer it gave is memorable: "It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus as Ignatius was." This became the touchstone of the Society's new initiative as an apostolic order focused on mission and praxis. It unfolded a spirituality of service and a particular sensitivity to suffering and oppression.
These characteristics were crystallised in the document, Our Mission Today: the Service of Faith and the Promotion af Justice. The fourth decree defined Jesuit work as having an essential focus on the promotion of justice as well as the Catholic faith. It was hotly debated and Arrupe warned the Congregation that, if it was passed, e Society ould lose nefactors, thqre would be martyrs and wide misunderstanding. The preferential option for the poor is Christ's own option. Justice should, therefore, be interpreted in the light of faith, prayer, scripture and theology, rather than political ideology. The focus on justice was to cause conflict within the order and the Church, it did indeed lead to martyrdom, but it has since become the cornerstone of Jesuit thinking.
Arrupe's life was centred on the poor Christ and Christ in the poor. "The Jesuit is Christocentric or he is nothing," he told the British Province in 1970, "Christ is the focal point on the altar; Christ is the focal point in our life. From whatever aspect we view our life, it leads to Christ; that is, it only makes sense if it is seen in relation to him." He knew that following Christ in this way would involve risk and persecution but, while not every Jesuit would be called upon to shed his blood, all Jesuits should unreservedly offer their entire lives to Christ and be prepared for the consequences.
In 1981 Arrrupe founded the Jesuit Refugee Service. A year later he endured a crippling stroke that deprived him of speech and movement. He was the first Jesuit General to resign his office. Yet his mind remained active and during the 33rd General Congregation, convened in 1983 to elect his successor. he made a statement. "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 there is a difference: the initiative is entirely with God."
The Servant of God, Pedro Arrupe, died on February 5. 1991. "He no longer belongs to Jesuits alone," said his successor, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, "but to the whole Church and the world." His body lies in Rome in the Gesu; his words and example remain incisive now and for the future.