GC35 In Their Own Words

Reflections on the Election -- Fred Kammer, SJ

posted by: Admin on Tuesday, January 22, 2008

His election as Superior General reflected a number of themes in my private discussions with the other electors.  First, there was abundant evidence of closeness to God and genuine virtue, reflected in his humility, balance, peacefulness, and wonderful sense of humor.  St. Ignatius starts there in his list of the qualities for a General.  His history as a scholar and theology professor, educated in both Tokyo and Rome, and his multiple language skills of East and West also were important in this international body of educators.  His experience as a director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila appealed to many, reflecting his influence upon bishops, priests, religious, and others in the Church who consider “their mission to serve as a leaven in a vast region characterized by ancient cultures, diverse religions, widespread poverty, and complex social changes.”

Jesuit electors especially valued his leadership and service to Jesuits and their colleagues in ministry as provincial superior of Japan, as presiding secretary of the 34th General Congregation in Rome in 1995, on key international Jesuit commissions, and, most recently, as an energetic and transformational moderator of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania, which stretches from China to Australia and Myanmar to Micronesia.

His experiences—of the dynamic emerging Church in such countries as India, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines—and his vision for spreading the Gospel appealed to many of those with whom I spoke.  It reminded them of the great missionary St. Francis Xavier, another Spanish Jesuit who took the good news of the Gospel to India and Japan and to the doorsteps of China.  I think that the choice of this older man of great international leadership experience and fine spiritual qualities reflected and reinforced the sense of the electors that we are an international body still committed to the mission that galvanized St. Ignatius and his companions in worldwide service to the Gospel and the Church.

We chose a global leader for a global Society of Jesus.