by James Martin
Crafty Jesuits
Jesuits are supposed to be clever—if not crafty—when it comes to obedience. One joke has a Jesuit feeling guilty about one of his bad habits. He asks his superior, “Father, may I smoke while I pray?” The horrified superior says, “Certainly not!” He relates the story to another Jesuit who has the same habit. After pondering the matter, the second Jesuit asks, “Father, may I pray while I smoke?” “Of course!” says the superior.
Or, as the apocryphal Jesuit superior is supposed to have said, “I discern, you discern, we discern, but I decide!”
Since around the 1960s, Jesuit superiors have recaptured Ignatius’s original notion that not only is God at work through a man’s desires, hopes, and talents, but also that a person will flourish more in a job he enjoys. Most Jesuits teaching in a university, for example, have spent years preparing for their work and are happy to use their academic training—and their superiors are happy to send them there. But attentiveness to a man’s desires and talents has long been part of Jesuit discernment. “If people among us [show] a zeal and aptitude for a particular work, say foreign missions,” wrote the English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1874, “they can commonly get employed on them.”
Following the will of one’s superiors is usually a joyful experience, as one feels that one’s desires and the needs of the larger community are aligned. But there are times when you are asked to go somewhere that you would not choose on your own. Or do something that you would rather not do.
Many readers who have a problem accepting this aspect of obedience may have an easier time accepting a more practical reason: someone needs to be in charge. Managing a worldwide religious order, as Ignatius did, required one person, one ultimate authority, to guide the work. So the vow of obedience is always, as are the other vows, “apostolic,” that is, it helps us to carry out our assignments more effectively.
Actually, I’m always surprised by the number of people who scoff at obedience in religious orders yet live it religiously in their own lives. Many people who work in professional settings report to a manager who gives directives that they would often not choose on their own. When I worked for General Electric, I saw many longtime employees transferred to faraway locations, yet they would never think of complaining because they were so devoted to the company. These decisions are seen as necessary to achieve the organization’s goals—as are decisions in a religious order.
And having spent six years working in corporate America, I can say that in the Jesuits you have more say in these matters than in the corporate world. Your religious superior believes that your own desires, insights, and conclusions are valuable, whereas with management in the business world this is sometimes not the case.
In addition to the standard vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience taken by members of religious orders, Ignatius asked many Jesuits to profess what is called the “fourth vow.” That special vow relates to the pope. At the close of his training, a Jesuit promises “special obedience to the sovereign pontiff regarding the missions.”
What was the thinking behind this vow? Worldwide mobility. Ignatius saw the fourth vow not so much focused on the person of the pope (though he expected his men to have profound respect for the pope), but flowing from an understanding that the pope knew where the needs were the greatest, by virtue of his overall knowledge of the universal church. “The vow assumed,” writes John O’Malley in The First Jesuits, “that the pope had the broad vision required for the most effective deployment in the ‘vineyard of the Lord.’ ”
“It’s a vow to be a missionary, to be ‘on mission,’ to ‘travel to any part of the world,’ ” said Father O’Malley in a recent letter.
The will of Ignatius was clear: a Jesuit’s obedience was a hallmark of religious life. But besides the efficient running of a religious order, what are some other benefits of obedience?
Poverty frees you to live simply and frees you from worry about material possessions. Chastity frees you to love people freely and move around more easily. Obedience is about freedom, too. It frees you from excessive self-interest, careerism, and pride and allows you to respond more readily to the larger needs of the community. Rather than wondering, What’s the best way for me to get ahead?, obedience asks you to trust that your superiors, who presumably have a better idea of larger needs, will be able to answer another question: What’s the best use of this man’s talents, given the needs of the community?
Obedience frees you for that kind of service.
How does this work in practice? If you asked most Jesuits about obedience, they would talk to you about experiences in being missioned, or sent to a new work. The reason that St. Francis Xavier went to “the Indies” and St. Isaac Jogues to “New France” was not simply because they wanted to go, but because they were missioned there. Their vow of obedience gave their work the added dimension of being under the care of God. Like all Jesuits, they trusted that their work was as close as they could possibly come to following God’s desires—since it flowed from their desire to serve God and was confirmed by their superior. In short, they believed that God took their vows as seriously as they did, because the actual vow is made to God, to whom all Jesuits are obedient.
WITH AS MUCH LOVE AND CHARITY AS POSSIBLE
How does obedience play out in the everyday life of a Jesuit? Do superiors simply order you around the house, or arbitrarily send you on far-flung assignments?
The answer is different than it would have been a few decades ago. In the past, American Jesuits sometimes found out their assignments not during a conversation with their superiors but when the yearly list of assignments (called the status, pronounced in the Latin way) was posted everyJuly 31, the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola.
One elderly Jesuit told me a story about a province status that was posted in the late 1950s. He scanned the list and saw, to his puzzlement, that he had been assigned to teach chemistry. Well, he thought, there is clearly a mistake. Not only had he never taught chemistry—he had never even studied chemistry. He realized what must have happened: there was another Jesuit with the same last name who had majored in chemistry in college. That Jesuit had been assigned to teach English—what my friend had studied. So my friend made an appointment with the provincial to “represent.”
“Father Provincial,” said the young Jesuit. “I think you’ve made a mistake.”
When my friend told me this story, he interrupted himself, roared with laughter, and said, “Well, that was the last thing he wanted to hear!” Annoyed by the young Jesuit’s presumption, the provincial said that there had been no mistake: he was assigned to teach chemistry in one of the province’s high schools.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I taught chemistry for a year,” he laughed. “And you know what? I got pretty good at it, too!” It was a misuse of power that my friend handled with grace.
Some Jesuits have nursed longstanding grudges about the bad decisions of superiors. The first editor of America magazine, on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination, stood up before a group of Jesuits, friends, and family and boldly announced, “All I have ever accomplished in the Society of Jesus has been despite my superiors!”
During much of the twentieth century, the emphasis was placed more on the superior’s than the individual’s discernment. But since the Second Vatican Council, when religious orders were asked to revisit the original spirit of their orders, Jesuits have reappropriated this essential piece of Ignatian wisdom: the Spirit works through everybody. Today decisions come after a long process of conversation and prayer.
But what would happen if you still don’t agree? Well, you can “represent” and explain your reasons one last time. In the rare instance when a serious dispute arises, a superior might order you to accept his decision “under obedience.” In that case, the challenge is to find a sense of peace and to trust that God is at work even in decisions with which you don’t agree.
Underneath these decisions is the superior’s r
esponsibility to pray to discover God’s desires and to carry out his decisions with love for the Jesuit. As Barry and Doherty write, “The practice of obedience in Jesuit governance, obviously, is not supposed to be authoritarian and arbitrary. . . . Ignatius wants superiors to act with love, even when they must do something painful for another.” For example, asking a man to do something he would rather not do.
That includes the most painful choice of all—the decision to dismiss someone from the Jesuits. Indeed, Ignatius carefully outlined the steps to be taken after the decision is made to ask someone to leave. This particular example of a compassionate superior could be profitably used by the corporate world.
First, said Ignatius, the superior should ensure that the man is able to leave the house with the respect of his peers, without any “shame or dishonor.” Second, the superior should send him away “with as much love and charity for [the community] and as much consoled in our Lord as is possible.” Third, he should “guide him in taking up some other good means of serving God, in religious life or outside . . . assisting him with advice and prayers and whatever . . . may seem best.”
Ironically, this no-nonsense to-do list is among the most touching of all of Ignatius’s writings. The gentle heart of Ignatius is revealed more openly than anywhere else in the Constitutions. Ignatius sees even this wrenching decision under the governance of love. (Compare that with the way firings and layoffs are sometimes handled in the business world.)
All Jesuits understand the goals of obedience. But there are times when, even with that understanding, it remains a challenge. Let me tell you two brief stories about that.
TWO STORIES ABOUT OBEDIENCE
Strange as it may seem today, Robert Drinan, S.J., was for many years a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving a congressional district in Massachusetts. In the late 1960s his prayer and discernment led Drinan, at the time a law professor at Boston College, to conclude that entering political life would be the best way to effect lasting change in society, and he received the approval of his superiors to run for office. Drinan served until 1981 and became famous for being the first member of Congress to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon in 1973, in light of his actions during the Vietnam War.
But in time the Vatican decided that priests should not be involved in political life so directly. So Pedro Arrupe, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, being obedient to his superior—PopeJohn Paul II—ordered Drinan not to run for reelection in 1980. Drinan’s comments at a press conference were striking. Here is a Jesuit relinquishing his important work and—most important—trusting in the obedience that he had made at his first vows.
I am proud and honored to be a priest and a Jesuit. As a person of faith, I must believe that there is work for me to do which somehow will be more important than the work I am required to leave. I undertake this new pilgrimage with pain and prayers.
Afterward Bob became a popular law professor at Georgetown University and a distinguished author of many articles and books on international human rights, respected by those inside and outside religious circles. In later years, before his death in 2007, he was criticized for some of his writings on abortion. (And I disagreed with him on this myself.) Still, I always respected him as someone who showed what it meant to trust that God was at work even in painful decisions.
A few decades earlier, another prominent Jesuit, the theologian John Courtney Murray, confronted a similar order. A tall, erudite man who, one Jesuit said, “entered a room like an ocean liner,” Murray was a brilliant scholar who once appeared on the cover of Time magazine. But his renown did not prevent him from accepting a hard decision from his superiors.
In the 1950s, a group of talented theologians, including Murray, were “silenced” by Vatican officials and their own religious orders. Murray, a theology professor at the Jesuit’s Woodstock College in Maryland, had written extensively on the question of church and state, proposing that constitutionally protected religious freedom, that is, the freedom of individuals to worship as they pleased, was in accord with Catholic teaching. The Vatican disagreed, and in 1954, Murray’s superiors ordered him to cease writing on the topic. One Jesuit recalled seeing Murray quietly returning all the books on the topic to the library of Woodstock College.
A few years later, however, Francis Cardinal Spellman, the powerful archbishop of New York, saw to it that Murray was named an officialperitus, or expert, at the Second Vatican Council. There the previously silenced Murray would serve as one of the architects for the Council’s “Declaration on Religious Freedom,” which drew on Murray’s earlier, banned work and clearly affirmed religious freedom as a right for all people. Toward the end of the Council, John Courtney Murray, along with other scholars who had been silenced, was invited to celebrate Mass with Pope Paul VI, as a public sign of his official “rehabilitation.” Murray died a few years later, in 1967.
Maybe you’re reading about those two Jesuits and thinking, That’s ridiculous! or Why didn’t Drinan continue with his political career? or Why didn’t Murray write what he wanted to write? Indeed, some Jesuits have decided that they cannot abide by their vows and have left to say or do what they feel they must.
What enabled men like Drinan and Murray to accept these decisions was the trust that God was somehow at work through their vow of obedience. Through their vows, offered freely to God, they believed God would work even if their superiors’ decisions seemed illogical or unfair or even foolish.
The stance is similar to the seriousness with which couples take their marriage vows during rocky times. Often in marriages, unhealthy, hurtful, or destructive situations must be confronted and changed. But through it all, the couple trusts that though their marriage is turbulent (or seemingly dead) and seems to make little earthly sense, their vows remain a sign of God’s covenant with them, a symbol of the sacredness of their commitment and a reason to trust that God will see them through. The vows are part of one’s relationship with God, and one trusts that God will fulfill his part of the deal.
The vow of obedience rarely leads to situations that are so painful. Most of the time the vow is easy, and most Jesuits begin their new missions with alacrity. And even in cases when they don’t agree with the wisdom of the decision at the moment, the wisdom is often appreciated in retrospect, sometimes many years later.
At one point in my formation, as I had mentioned, I fell in love. It happened in East Africa, not long before I was about to continue on to theology studies. At the time I had completed all the necessary paperwork and had been accepted into a graduate theology program, as my peers had been.
When I told my provincial, in a phone call, about how confusing it had been to fall in love and that it had briefly caused me to call into question my vocation, he decided that it would be better to delay my theology studies for another year.
It was a crushing disappointment. For one thing, my friends knew I had already been approved for theology studies. My provincial’s decision meant that I would have to admit the delay. Mostly, I worried, was this a sign that I was being asked to leave the Society? Had I failed the Jesuits?
It was the closest I ever came to leaving the Jesuits. Why stay if I can’t do what I want to do? Why stay in the face of embarrassment? Why stay if the Jesuits didn’t (seemingly) want me? This was how I falsely interpreted things: after all, the provincial had said not a word about my leaving.
Confused, I met with my spiritual director, a prayerful and kind-hearted Jesuit. George spent many years as a science teacher and late in life had rediscovered the Spiritual Exercises. At age seventy, he accepted a new assignment at the Jesuit retreat house in Nairobi, where I saw him for spiritual direction every month. He was an avuncular man with snow-white hair, a broad smile, and an affinity for royal blue cardigans. Simply being in his presence was a balm for my spirit. There were few people I respected more.
Or was more grateful for. Once, when I contracted mononucleosis and was too ill to leave m
y community, George drove an hour from his retreat house to give me spiritual direction at my home. “I’m making a house call!” he said cheerfully. We spent the afternoon sitting under a palm tree in the backyard of the Jesuit community.
After I spoke to my provincial, I had a worry more serious than mononucleosis: my future as a Jesuit. The next day I drove from the retreat house and told George the bad news. How could I accept the provincial’s ridiculous decision? What would I tell my friends and family, and especially my Jesuit friends, all of whom knew I was ready to begin theology studies? Was it a sign to leave the Jesuits?
George patiently led me through all the good things that had happened during my time in Kenya. The Jesuit Refugee Service had helped scores of refugees start their own businesses—we had sponsored woodcarvers, painters, basket makers, and dairy farmers; the refugees had set up tailoring shops, bakeries, carpentry shops, even a few Ethiopian restaurants and a chicken farm. After a year we opened up a small shop to market some of the refugee handicrafts. In the first few months the shop had made $50,000 for the refugees. Over the previous two years I had made many friends among the refugees and had given and received so much love. And my prayer as a Jesuit had been rich and satisfying in Kenya. George even reminded me of that consoling spiritual experience on the little hillside, on the way home from work, and of feeling I was in the right place.
“How can you doubt your vocation after this?” said George.
But I was adamant. The provincial’s decision was a sign that I should leave the Jesuits. Looking back, it seems clear that I was rapidly moving away from God and into despair, leaping from a delay in my training to leaving the Jesuits completely. The “enemy,” as Ignatius said, was at work—working on my pride and quickly moving me to despair and a rash decision.
“Jim,” said George, “how do you see your Jesuit formation?”
I didn’t understand him at all. Then he said something that changed my idea of the spiritual life.
