Word: kolvenbach
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...Jesuits' outgoing Superior General is a soft-spoken Netherlands native named Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, who has served since 1983. The 79-year-old last year became the first ever Jesuit leader to ask for, and receive, papal permission to retire from the post. White-haired and goateed, Kolvenbach has kept a low public profile during his quarter-century reign, but is widely praised for his skills in reestablishing good ties with the Holy See after the run-ins with top Vatican officials of his predecessor, a charismatic Basque-born progressive named Pedro Arrupe...
...Kolvenbach must lean on reduced forces to tackle the Eastern Europe assignment and other challenges to his men. Although the Jesuits remain the biggest Catholic male religious order, they have declined from a 1965 peak of 36,000 members to the current 23,870 or so. The rate of loss is slowing, however, and the number of seminarians has increased steadily since the nadir in the 1970s. Significantly, the sources of decline are largely limited to the First World; 63% of today's Jesuit recruits worldwide are Asians, Africans and Latin Americans. There are 3,522 Jesuits in the area...
...Kolvenbach's priests and brothers are at work in 113 countries, with about one-fourth of the order's members involved in education. There are 1.8 million students in the 177 Jesuit universities (28 in the U.S.) and 356 secondary schools around the world. One index of Jesuit influence is the fact that the Gregorian University alone has trained one-fifth of all the world's bishops...
...administrative leaders of the order who elected Kolvenbach in 1983 wanted him to continue the policies of his predecessor. But Kolvenbach has proved conservative enough, or diplomatic enough, to placate the Pope, even while earning the loyalty of his subordinates. John Paul's warmer attitude was first signaled in 1988, when Kolvenbach was chosen as the preacher for the Vatican Lenten retreat, an honor that was bestowed upon John Paul himself just before he was elected to the Throne of St. Peter. Kolvenbach has been meticulous in carrying out papal directives to the letter, aides say, and he shrewdly picked...
Under Arrupe's reign, the society had declared a duty to "show solidarity with all the oppressed and underprivileged everywhere." That commitment was reaffirmed at Kolvenbach's election and again two months ago at a special meeting in Spain of the heads of all 84 Jesuit provinces. Are the Jesuits still too political? "To be human is to be political," responds the order's assistant general, American John O'Callaghan. In any event, Jesuit activism no longer seems to worry John Paul so much, just so long as doctrines supportive of Marxism are eliminated from the society's arsenal...