Photo via Gonzaga Magazine

Father Frank Case is an American Jesuit with a vision of the international whole of the Society of Jesus. He spent 18 years in Rome, where he received an education in the Society’s global works.

In 1990, Fr. Case became regional assistant representing U.S. Jesuits to Father General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach. In 2005, he was named general secretary, the Society’s No. 2 position. Six days a week, he and other advisers met with the Father General for briefings on Jesuit matters from all over the world.

Fr. Case, who now serves as vice president for Mission and Identity at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., shared some of his insights on the global Society of Jesus.

“Africa was marvelous to watch. With our Oregon Province twinned with Zambia, we still have about five men from our province in Zambia,” he said. “There are a lot of young provincials in Africa … It’s neat to see them take ownership of their society and of the African Church, which is burgeoning, full of life and vitality.”

As for Asia, India has the largest population of Jesuits in the world – more than 4,000 of 18,000 Jesuits worldwide, according to Fr. Case. Vietnam sees healthy Jesuit growth, he says, with 20 to 40 vocations per year.

China has two often-polarized strands of the Catholic Church, the government-run Catholic Patriotic Association and the underground Church, explained Fr. Case. In a sign of its trust of the Jesuits, Fr. Case said, the Chinese government asked American Jesuit universities to collaborate in creating a U.S.-style MBA program in Beijing. The program began in 1998 and thrived until publicity of its successes upset the unusual arrangement. Yet China continues to tolerate a Jesuit presence, Fr. Case said.

When Fr. Case arrived in Rome, the fall of the Iron Curtain was still reverberating.

“When the Berlin Wall collapsed,” he said, “we had [Jesuits] coming out of the woodwork. In one case, two blood brothers were Jesuits, and neither knew about the other. That was the level of secrecy needed all through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania. One Jesuit was a nuclear physicist in Lithuania. He sat on the equivalent of the Russian atomic energy commission, and certainly no one knew that he was a Jesuit.”

Read more of Fr. Case’s insights in the story by Marny Lombard at Gonzaga University Magazine’s website.

The Society of Jesus’ diversity of ministries and commitment to the poor and marginalized drew Vincent Giacabazi to the Jesuits. Giacabazi, a Jesuit scholastic, says that Pope Francis’ election has helped the Jesuits become well-known for more than just their universities in the U.S.

“Jesuits are also involved in ministry to and accompaniment of refugees and migrants and in other works in the social apostolate, inter-religious dialogue, parish ministry, secondary and primary education, especially among the poor, the offering of the Spiritual Exercises (of St. Ignatius) in various settings and so on,” said Giacabazi.

He entered the Society in August 2005 and is pursuing theology studies at the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. Born in Peoria, Ill., Giacabazi attended a Catholic parish and said, “I had certainly thought about (the priesthood), but I wasn’t ready to enter a seminary of any kind.”

Giacabazi first encountered the Jesuits at Saint Louis University. A class on the Gospel of Mark and Catholic social teaching had an active component that had him working at a shelter for women in crisis. Additionally, Giacabazi and his father developed a tradition of going to the preached retreats at White House Retreat, a Jesuit retreat center in St. Louis that focuses on the Spiritual Exercises.

“Out of that experience I learned how to be more attentive to my prayer and how to be attentive to discern the will of God in my life,” Giacabazi explained. “The combination of the professors who inspired me academically, broadened my horizons on how to think, how to write and how to engage the world, as well as the campus ministers dealing with the heart, and mixing those two together with the retreat, I started to think, ‘Maybe I could be one of those guys.’”

During the Jesuit formation process, there are opportunities not just to study poverty and what it means to be rejected, lonely and lowly, but to live it. At the novitiate in St. Paul, Minn., Giacabazi was given a one-way bus ticket to El Paso, Texas, and $30 and told to return in 30 days, relying on the kindness of others along the way.

“It was awesome,” Giacabazi said of his pilgrimage. “Unless a Christian has a direct experience of helplessness and utter poverty — spiritual or actual — it’s hard to relate on an intimate level with people who live that day in and day out. Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) would have had a similar experience.”

Read more about Giacabazi’s experience as a Jesuit in The Catholic Post, the newspaper of the Diocese of Peoria, Ill.

In letters to President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress, the nine provincials of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in the United States are calling for comprehensive and humane immigration reform. More than 200 Jesuit communities, affiliated organizations, parishes and institutions are also lending their support to the provincials’ appeal.

Provincials are leaders in the Society of Jesus, an order of priests and brothers founded in 1540, responsible for colleges, middle schools and high schools as well as parishes and ministries that practice a faith that promotes justice. The provincials’ letters to Congress and the president urge that any proposed immigration reform include a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants as well as a legal employment structure protecting both migrants and U.S. workers, expedited family reunification and an end to policies that exacerbate family separation.  The letters to Congress and the Obama Administration follow a similar appeal made by the provincials in 2011.

“The immigration debate provokes emotion on both sides of the aisle and we hope that our elected officials can rise above partisan politics,” said Jesuit Father Thomas H. Smolich, president of the Jesuit Conference.  “Because of our commitment to educating the children of migrants in our schools, serving migrant communities in our parishes and offering men, women and children food and shelter on the border, we see firsthand the costs of current immigration laws.  We’ve been calling for reform for many years, and we’ve never been closer.  We pray that Congress considers the future of 11 million people hanging in the balance.”

The letter is the most recent action by the Jesuits supporting immigration reform. Earlier this year, the Jesuit Conference, the Kino Border Initiative and Jesuit Refugee Service/USA released a new study, “Documented Failures: The Consequences of Immigration Policy on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” highlighting excessive use of force, particularly dangerous deportation practices and abuse of migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Jesuit Father Sean Carroll, executive director of the Kino Border Initiative, testified at a congressional hearing on the report in April.

The provincials’ letter may be accessed at the links below:
Letter to the President
Letter to Members of the Senate
Letter to Members of Congress

(WASHINGTON, D.C., May 10, 2013)—The Society of Jesus in the United States announces that Father Timothy P. Kesicki, S.J., has been named the next president of the Jesuit Conference. Fr. Kesicki, who was appointed by Father Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, will assume his new position August 1, 2014. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Jesuit Conference is the liaison office that coordinates the national work of the Society of Jesus, the largest order of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church.

Fr. Kesicki, currently serving as the provincial of the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus, says, “This assignment comes at a very exciting time for the Church and the Society of Jesus here in the U.S. and around the world. Clearly, the election of Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope in history, has highlighted the Jesuit vocation. Going back to St. Ignatius himself, we Jesuits have always put ourselves in service of the Church to minister where the needs are the greatest. I look forward to helping the Society continue its mission with a renewed zeal, strategic use of our resources, and commitment to serving in Christ’s name here and around the world.”

Fr. Kesicki first met the Jesuits when he was an undergraduate at John Carroll University in Ohio, where he studied political science. During his Jesuit formation he studied at Loyola University Chicago and the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, Ca. After being ordained in 1994, his first mission was with Jesuit Refugee Service in Adjumani, Uganda.

Most of his apostolic work has been in secondary education, including teaching theology at Loyola High School in Detroit (1988–1991) and serving as president of Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland (2000–2008). In 2008, he was appointed provincial of the Detroit Province and a year later provincial of the Chicago Province; the two provinces came together under his leadership in 2010. A native of Erie, Pa., he enjoys skiing, cycling, and playing the piano.

Fr. Kesicki will succeed Father Thomas H. Smolich, S.J., who has served as president of the Jesuit Conference since 2006. Fr. Smolich says, “Fr. Kesicki is a dynamic leader whose wide range of experience—with Jesuit Refugee Service in Africa, as a high school president, and as a provincial—will serve him well. I’m grateful to Fr. Kesicki for his generosity in making himself available to serve the Society of Jesus in this important capacity.”

Fr. Kesicki adds, “When Fr. Smolich became president of the Jesuit Conference, the Jesuits in the U.S. were beginning a process of strategic planning. He has done a tremendous job in helping not only to redraw our geographic boundaries, but to ensure the effectiveness of our mission. I look forward to continuing this work as we leverage and maximize the expertise, resources, and talent of the provinces to find common apostolic approaches to the challenges of the world today.”

About the Society of Jesus in the United States

Founded in 1540 by Saint Ignatius Loyola, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) is the largest order of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church. Jesuit priests and brothers are involved in educational, pastoral and spiritual ministries on six continents and in 127 nations, practicing a faith that promotes justice. For nearly 500 years, Jesuit education has made its mark on the world. In the United States, there are 28 Jesuit colleges and universities, 59 Jesuit high schools and 16 middle schools with a shared goal of developing competent, compassionate and committed leaders in the service of the Church and society. Jesuits minister in parishes and at retreat houses and serve as chaplains at prisons, hospitals, nursing homes and in the military. For more information on the Society of Jesus, visit http://www.jesuit.org.

Fr. Peppard recently spoke with the Ignatian News Network about his parish and this special service to the homeless. “I think a lot of people don’t realize the impact that the church and this ministry can have on a city,” he said.

The warming center helps the homeless get out of the cold during the winter, providing them a place to rest, get a cup of coffee, wash their clothes and take a shower. The church is the only place that offers these services in Detroit. “They’ve been phenomenal,” said one man who lost his home in a fire. “[They] gave me support and now I have a place to stay, but I still come give donations to them.”

Fr. Peppard described how the Jesuits in Detroit have reached out to the marginalized in the area since 1701, from the Native Americans to various immigrant groups to those struggling with race issues during the 1960 riots. “We have stayed here over a lot of changes, and we intend to stay for a long time into the future,” he said.

“Jesus said that the whole of the law can be summed up in ‘Love God and love your neighbor as yourself,’” added Fr. Peppard. “Some people say that that should actually be translated as ‘Love God, whom you cannot see, by loving and caring for the neighbor that you can.’”

The Jesuits arrived in Bagdad in 1932 to establish and run Baghdad College, which was staffed entirely by the New England Province Jesuits. In 1959, the Jesuits founded a second school there, Al Hikma University.

However, Fr. Linden explains that “American Jesuits were given short notice to leave, in two separate waves, in 1968 and 1969. Both schools eventually were wrapped into the state system of schools, and the U.S. Jesuits and the few Iraqi Jesuits filtered to other parts of the Near East or repatriated to the U.S.”

Fr. Linden says that many in Iraq remember the schools fondly and favorably. “There are good and supportive persons, Christians and Muslims, secularists and devout, who express hope and welcome to the Jesuits,” he says.

If the Jesuits return to Iraq, Fr. Linden says it’s hard to predict the nature of the Jesuit presence. “Some would like the U.S. Jesuits to parachute with a full Jesuit staff and system from the 1950’s back to Baghdad College. Some believe this is possible!”

According to Fr. Linden, Jesuits in Amman have learned that faith formation and service to migrant workers is important, as is close collaboration on the pastoral goals of the local bishops. “This can probably be replicated in Iraq,” he says.

Fr. Linden also believes Iraq has vocation potential. “Iraqi Christians are a giving people, and there will be Jesuit vocations from Iraq. These Iraqi Jesuits will eventually make the major discernment about their identity and work; perhaps it will include schools, perhaps not.”

Read the full interview with Fr. Linden in the April 2013 issue of JIVAN: News and Views of Jesuits in India and learn more at the New England Province Jesuits website. In the video below, Fr. Linden explains the ministries of the Jesuits in Jordan as well as their elation at the recent election of a Jesuit to the papacy.

The appointment was announced by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

“I offer my congratulations and prayers to Bishop-elect Barber.  As fellow Sacramentans, we have known one another for many years,” said Jesuit Father Thomas H. Smolich, president of the Jesuit Conference of the United States. “ I know him to be a man of prayer and discernment who will be a fine pastor for the people of Oakland.”

Bishop-elect Barber is the first Jesuit named to the U.S. hierarchy by Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope.

“I’m keeping my eyes on Pope Francis and seeing what he did in his first days as pope,” said Bishop-elect Barber at an introductory news conference in Oakland on May 3. ”I think he wants servant leaders … who look to the needs of the people. Listen first, speak second.”

Bishop-elect Barber was born July 13, 1954, in Salt Lake City. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1973 and was ordained a priest for the Society in 1985. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history/philosophy from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington; a Master of Divinity and bachelor of sacred theology degrees from Regis College of the University of Toronto; and a licentiate and doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

His assignments after ordination included: missionary in Apia, Western Samoa (1985-1987); student at Gregorian University and assistant professor of theology there (1987-1992); researcher and tutor at Oxford University (1992-1998); director, School of Pastoral Leadership, Archdiocese of San Francisco (1998-2001); assistant professor of systematic and moral theology and spiritual director, St. Patrick Seminary, Menlo Park, California (2002-2010); and director of spiritual formation, St. John’s Seminary (2010-present).

Bishop-elect Barber said he would like “from time to time to get into the classroom” because education is a priority of the Jesuits. He added he also wants to “visit city jails and county jails as the pope has” and to visit Catholic Charities facilities, “getting my hands dirty in soup kitchen by washing dishes, pots and pans.”

He also spoke of jail ministry: “It’s one of those ministries expressly commended by Christ for us to do. ‘When I was in prison you visited me.’ You can’t get more explicit than that.”

Bishop-elect Barber succeeds Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who was named head of the San Francisco Archdiocese on July 27, 2012. The Oakland Diocese includes 1,467 square miles and two counties, Alameda and Contra Costa, in California. The diocese has 2,586,396 people, with 399,546, or 15 percent of them, Catholic.

“From its origin, the Society of Jesus was formed to be an instrument of Christ by serving the Church. Though Jesuits promise not to seek high office in the Church, when asked by the Holy Father, we respond to the call and serve as bishops. We promise our brother Jesuit Father Michael Barber our full support and continued affection as he continues to minister to the people of God in this new mission,” said Jesuit Father Michael F. Weiler, Provincial of the California Province of the Society of Jesus. [America Magazine, Catholic News Service]

Photo via Seattle University

Serving in the Peace Corps led Jesuit Jason Welle to the certainty that he was being called to the priesthood. What he wasn’t so sure of was what sort of priest he wanted to be.

To begin his vocational discernment process, Welle took to the Internet. The more research he did online, the clearer it became that he belonged with the Jesuits.

“I knew the Jesuits by reputation only, mainly for their commitment to social justice,” says Welle, who currently serves as program coordinator for Seattle University’s Education Abroad Office. “And I knew I wanted to do something that combined my interest in international development with a deep spirituality and service as a priest. I could see myself fulfilling both of those desires as a Jesuit.”

Entering the priesthood was not a foreign concept for Welle. He attended a high school seminary, but left to enroll at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After earning a degree in community studies, Welle worked as a travel agent and as a flight attendant. He loved traveling for work, but it soon became mundane. He decided to engage the world in a deeper way by joining the Peace Corps, where he was placed in Malawi.

“The Peace Corps is really where I discovered my vocation to enter the Society,” says Welle, who joined the Jesuits in 2006. “Getting out of the U.S. fish bowl gave me a new perspective on the world and America’s place in it.”

Welle was in Malawi for 9/11, an experience that he says completely reshaped his view of the world. “I was living in a country where 3,000 people died every week from HIV and AIDS — that’s about what the death toll was in the towers. People there were living at a level of poverty that we just don’t know in the same way here in the U.S. They had hardly even seen a two- or three-story building, much less a 150-story tower. It was just beyond their worldview. 9/11 just sort of awakened me out of a slumber or a complacency about America’s role and my own place in the world.”

The Peace Corps was transformative for Welle in other important ways. “There’s a lot of downtime, especially in Malawi, where there’s 12 hours of night, without a television and not much radio. I became very introspective. I think, without realizing it, I was praying, really yearning to understand who I was.”

Read more about Welle at the Seattle University website.

“Bishop Jin was a towering figure in the history of the church in China. Always gracious, ever perceptive, he will be missed by the people of China,” said Jesuit Father Thomas Smolich, president of the Jesuit Conference of the United States.

In the early 1980s, the bishop, who spent almost three decades in a Chinese prison and a labor camp, made the decision to cooperate with the Chinese government, which strove to exercise control over the church through organs such as “patriotic associations,” including one for Catholics.

Jesuit Father Michael Kelly, executive director of the Asian Catholic news agency UCA News, said of his fellow Jesuit: “From the 1980s, much to the suspicion of some, the condemnation of others but the amazement of most, Jin walked the thin line between recognizing the authority of the government while sticking to what he believed was most basic and important to Catholicism in China.”

Jesuit Father Thomas Lucas, a professor of art and architecture at the University of San Francisco, had the opportunity in 2002 to collaborate with Bishop Jin on a five-year project to install 56 stained glass panels in the windows of St. Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai.

“Bishop Aloysius Jin was a remarkable man and a great Jesuit,” said Fr. Lucas. “He returned to his native Shanghai in 1951 after studies in Europe, knowing that imprisonment was the likely outcome. Incarcerated for 28 years, five years of which he spent in solitary confinement, he emerged unbroken in his faith and optimism.”

Bishop Jin, who was born in 1916 in Shanghai, was ordained a Jesuit in 1945. Two years later, he left for studies in France, Germany and Italy and earned a doctorate in theology. He returned to Shanghai and served for four years as rector of what was then known as the Xuhui Regional Seminary, later Sheshan Seminary.

He was arrested in 1955 because, he has said, he “opposed several laws of the state.” During his time in prison, he prayed and taught himself Russian. After his release, Bishop Jin was sent to northern China for almost 10 years, where he spent his time working the land and working on translations for the Chinese government.

He returned to Shanghai in 1982 to serve as rector of the Sheshan Seminary at the request of the Shanghai Diocese.

“I don’t regret coming back,” he said. “Now I can educate seminarians as previously. I can publish books. … It is important for Catholics. Now I am also in charge of church contact with foreign visitors. I can promote the mutual respect and confidence between the Chinese church and the church abroad. These things are contributions for the whole church.”

Bishop Jin was elected auxiliary of Shanghai in December 1984 and was ordained the next month, without the approval of the Vatican. He became bishop of Shanghai in 1989 but did not reconcile his status with the Vatican until early in the 21st century.

Bishop Jin also became a figure at the national level. He persuaded the authorities to allow inclusion of prayer for the pope in the Eucharistic prayers during Masses and helped to develop the liturgy in Chinese.

According to Fr. Lucas, Bishop Jin’s decision to preach the Gospel and bring the sacraments back to the people of Shanghai after the Cultural Revolution was controversial, as it meant working with — rather than against — the regime.

“Yet the decision bore great fruits for the re-evangelization of his native city,” said Fr. Lucas. “He built 15 new parishes, restored St. Ignatius Cathedral and became the beloved shepherd of a diverse community. Fully reconciled with the Holy See and the Jesuit Superior General a decade ago, Jin’s legacy of patience, endurance and practical wisdom was an inspiration to all who called him Father and friend.”

More than 1,000 people attended a funeral Mass for Bishop Jin on April 29. A government-organized memorial service is scheduled for May 2, after which his body will be cremated, according to UCA News. [Catholic News Service]

Br. Consolmagno recalls being a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and lying in bed at night wondering, “Why am I wasting my time worrying about the moons of Jupiter when there are people starving in the world?”

He had no answer, and he eventually quit his job and science and joined the Peace Corps.

“I told the Peace Corps people, ‘I’ll go anywhere you ask me to go, I’ll do anything you ask me to do; I just want to help people,’” he says. “They sent me to Africa, to Kenya, where I ended up teaching astronomy to graduate students at the University of Nairobi!”

Now as an astronomer at the Vatican, Br. Consolmagno explains that he encounters God in his scientific studies.

“Astronomy is how we experience the universe as creatures who are interested in more than just, ‘what’s for lunch?’” says Br. Consolmagno. “But what I have also come to see is that belief plays a fundamental role in being able to do that astronomy.”

According to Br. Consolmagno, there are three religious beliefs you have to accept on faith before you can be a scientist: that this universe actually exists; that the universe operates by regular laws; and that the universe is good.

“Science is where I get to spend time with the Creator,” says Br. Consolmagno. “When God invites me to encounter him in the things that have been made, as St. Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans, God is setting up a game we get to play together. It is a game that, on top of everything else, tells me he loves me. And for that, I am grateful to be an astronomer.”

To read more about Br. Consolmagno’s thoughts on God and astronomy, visit Thinking Faith, the online journal of the British Jesuits.