Saving souls or saving the world: The Jesuits and politics in the 20th century

Résumé du document

On Monday 7th January 2008, the 35th “General Congregation” of the Society of Jesus, the famous religious order founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and some followers, met to elect its 29th “General Superior”, after the demission of P-H Kolvenbach for cause of old age. The 225 representatives of the world's Jesuits also defined and confirmed the general orientations of the Society concerning their mission in the world. The issue of this “mission is the world”, regarding political actions, is more than complex it could seem at first for the Society. Christianity, for one thing, has always had an ambiguous relationship to the idea of political power, Jesus having said “My kingdom is not of this world”, and the even clearer “Give back to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, and to God what belongs to God”. The first orientation of Christianity thus is apolitical, and rather takes the shape of a retreat from the political, “mundane” world. However, since Constantine established Christianity as his only State religion, this religion has been linked to the symbols of power in the Western World – the most striking examples being the monarchy of divine right that was established in most European countries until the 17th century, and the establishment of the States of the Church in the Vatican.

Extraits

[...] One of the main results of the implication of Jesuits during World War II in general is their immersion, once again, in the society, without differentiation from the other men. The experience of the STO, where Jesuits held sacerdotal responsibilities in secret because of the ban of such activities by the Nazis, led to growing contacts between the Jesuits and the rest of the society, especially in the lower classes. D. Jesuits and communism in Europe: an ambiguous relationship It is therefore logical that in the immediate post-war period, the lower classes remain highly interesting for the Society. [...]

[...] The aim is to combine the respect of the different languages and cultures and the universality of Christ's message. Fr Kolvenbach, in 1991, strongly insisted on the importance of knowledge in this process of enculturation: the most “efficient” missionaries will be those who have stayed the longest in their host country, in order to learn their culture and understand their way of acting. The two “apostolical preferences” defined by Kolvenbach concerning enculturation are Africa and China, though in the Chinese case this goes with a general Asian enculturation. [...]

[...] In Catholicism, in 1938, the latter shows that, in contradiction with the general belief that the Church favours individualism, it actually took into account the social realities and advocated for a “social redemption”. Any Christian should, thus, beware of the danger of both individualistic liberalism and socialist collectivism. Combining both a properly theological thought and the expectances concerning social justice, this work is one of the major guidelines of social Catholicism at that time. C. Dictatorship and fascism: the authoritarian temptation 1. French Jesuits and the Action Française The Ligue d'Action Française an extreme-right organization created by Charles Maurras in 1898, starts attracting many Jesuits (Billot, Descoqs, Rousselot). [...]

[...] Obviously brain-washed, he confesses he is a “repented revolutionary” and criticizes strongly the liberation theology, the “Marxist formation” given to Jesuit novices and even the “priority choice for the poor”. Such a repentence obviously gave credit to those, in Latin America and in Europe, who wished to fight against the leftist tendencies of the Society of Jesus such as Dominican Bruckberger, who wrote in the Figaro Magazine: Latin America, very officially, a young man who felt called by God to enter the Society of Jesus did not know and no-one told him beforehand that the obedience he was going to vow and the formation he would receive from those to whom the Society had entrusted him, would make him a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, eventually a guerillero”. [...]

[...] Concerning the “priority option for the it remains fundamental in the Society, but Kolvenbach has obviously given it a different direction. The possibilities for Jesuits to act on social grounds are numerous, through “social projects, formation of (political and social( leaders, popular education, competent support to trade-unionist activities (Kolvenbach, 1991). The Social Centres, which have often taken too “leftist” orientations under Arrupe, still have a central place in Jesuit social action, and keep developing. However, the directions concerning personal participation of Jesuits to trade-unions or political parties, and even concerning the political dimension given to Social Centres, are much more strict: any participation of that kind is forbidden inside the Society (even though it is possible in exceptional cases in the Canonic Law), and the priority is given to formation and advice. [...]