On Saturday afternoon, September 28, 2024, Pope Francis left the campus of the Catholic University of Louvain and arrived, around 6:15 p.m., at the Collège Saint-Michel, a Catholic school run by the Society of Jesus, located in Etterbeek, Brussels. There he met with about 150 Jesuits who reside in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. With them were the Provincial of the Francophone Western European Province, Fr. Thierry Dobbelstein, and the Superior of the Netherlands region, Fr. Marc Desmet. Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, was also present. The Pope began:
Good evening, everyone! I have been here twice before, and it is good to return. I must tell you the truth: I once committed a theft here. I came to celebrate Mass and saw some papers that intrigued me. They were handouts from lessons on the Book of Job. That year in Argentina I was supposed to teach classes specifically on Job. I flipped through the pages, and they impressed me. Those notes remained with me!
Pope Francis, we are very happy that you are here in Belgium. You are very, very welcome. We will ask you questions, which we hope will be interesting and intelligent. Here are the Provincial of the French-speaking Western European Province and the Superior of the independent region of the Netherlands. This land is a real crossroads, and the Jesuits who are here are also very diverse: some come from the Conference of European Jesuit Provincials, then there are French-speakers and Flemish-speakers. You know that when you visit a Jesuit community, you are never faced with photocopies! Here we are not alike at all. We also speak different languages. A stirring adventure of hope and renewal in the Church began on March 13, 2013. We want this to be an informal and convivial time. In Holland we have a typical word for this, “gezellig.” It is difficult to translate: it can mean “conviviality,” “cozy atmosphere,” or even “good mood,” depending on the context. Here it is the right word for us at this time. And that is why we want to sing the hymn “En todo amar y servir” together.
[P. Desmet takes the guitar and begins the song. The Pope also enunciates its words, which he knows well, under his breath. Then the questions begin.]
Holy Father, what is the specific mission of the Jesuits in Belgium?
Look, I don’t know your situation well, and so I can’t say what your mission should be in this specific context. But I can tell you one thing: the Jesuit should not be afraid of anything. He is a man in tension between two forms of courage: courage to seek God in prayer and courage to go to the frontiers. This is true “contemplativeness in action.” I think this is really the main mission of the Jesuits: to immerse themselves in the problems of the world and to wrestle with God in prayer. There is a beautiful allocution of St. Paul vi to the Jesuits at the beginning of General Congregation xxxii . At the crossroads of complex situations there is always a Jesuit, he said. That allocution is a masterpiece and clearly says what the Church wants from the Society. I ask you to read that text. There you will find your mission.[1]
I live in Amsterdam, one of the most secularized cities in the world. Father General Adolfo Nicolás once said that he dreamed of giving the Spiritual Exercises to atheists. In our country atheism is the norm rather than the exception. But we want to give the richness of our spiritual life to all our neighbors, really to everyone, as you say, “Todos, todos, todos.” How can we get to this deep level of inculturation?
We find the limit of inculturation by studying the beginnings of the Society. Our examples are Fr. Matteo Ricci, Fr. Roberto De Nobili, and the other great missionaries who even frightened some in the Church by their courageous action. These masters set out the limits of inculturation. Inculturation of faith and evangelization of culture always go together. So, what is the limit? There is no fixed limit! One must look for it in discernment. And it is discerned by praying. It strikes me, and I always repeat it: in his last speech Fr. Arrupe said to work on the frontiers and at the same time never to forget prayer. The Jesuit’s prayer is developed in borderline, difficult situations, at the limits. This is the beautiful thing about our spirituality, taking risks.
In Western Europe we are familiar with secularization. Our societies seem far from God. What can be done?
Secularization is a complex phenomenon. I realize that sometimes we have to confront forms of paganism. We do not need a statue of a pagan god to talk about paganism: the very environment, the air we breathe is a gaseous pagan god! And we must preach to this culture in terms of witness, service and faith. And from within we must do it with prayer. There is no need to think of very sophisticated things. Think of St. Paul in Athens. It went badly for him because he went down a path that was not his own at that time. I look at it this way. We need to be open, to dialogue, and in dialogue to help with simplicity. What makes the dialogue fruitful is service. Unfortunately, I often find in the Church a strong clericalism, which prevents this fruitful dialogue. And, above all, where there is clericalism there is no service. For goodness sake, never confuse evangelization with proselytizing!
Jesuit spirituality and theology gives space to the heart — the Word became flesh! But often, unfortunately, we do not give the right space to the heart. This deficiency, in my opinion, is one of the things that then produces forms of abuse. I would then like to ask you a question about the difficulty of giving women a more just and adequate place in the Church.
I often repeat that the Church is woman. I see women blessed with charisms, and I do not want to limit the discussion of women’s role in the Church to the topic of ministry. Also, in general, masculinism and feminism are “market” themes. At this time, I am trying more and more to bring women into the Vatican with roles of higher and higher responsibility. Things are changing; you can see and feel it. The deputy governor of State is a woman. Then the Dicastery for Integral Human Development also has a woman as its deputy. In the “team” for the appointment of bishops there are three women, and since they are in charge of selecting candidates, things are much better; they are acute in their judgments. In the Dicastery for Religious, the deputy is a woman. The deputy in the Dicastery for the Economy is a woman. Women, in short, are entering the Vatican in roles of high responsibility: we will continue on this path. Things are working better than before. I once met with Ursula von der Leyen. We were talking about a specific problem, and I asked her, “But how do you handle these kinds of problems?” She replied, “The same way all of us mothers do.” Her answer gave me much to think about….
In our so secularized society, it is difficult to find ministers. How do you see the future of parish communities without priests?
The community is more important than the priest. The priest is a servant of the community. In some situations, I know in various parts of the world, people are looking within the community for those who can play a leadership role. But, for example, there are also women religious who take on this commitment. I am thinking of a Peruvian congregation of nuns who have their own specific mission: to go to those situations where there is no priest. They do everything: they preach, they baptize… If a priest is eventually sent, then they go somewhere else.
It is the 600th anniversary of the University of Leuven. There are some Jesuits working there and there are Jesuit students studying there who come from all over the world. What is your message for young Jesuits who are destined for the intellectual apostolate in the service of the Church and the world?
The intellectual apostolate is important and it is part of our vocation as Jesuits to be present in academia, research and also in communication. Let’s be clear: when the General Congregations of the Society of Jesus say to insert oneself in the lives of people and in history, it does not mean “making a carnival,” but inserting oneself in even the most institutional contexts, I would like to say, with some “rigidity,” in the good sense of the word. One should not always seek informality. Thank you for this question, because I know that sometimes there is a temptation not to go down this path. A very important field of reflection is that of moral theology. In this field today there are so many Jesuits studying, opening paths in interpretation and posing new challenges. It is not easy, I know. But I urge Jesuits to keep going. I am following a group of Jesuit moralists, and I see they are doing very well. And then I recommend publications! The journals are very important: those like Stimmen der Zeit, La Civiltà Cattolica, Nouvelle Revue Théologique…
I wonder where the process of canonization of Henri De Lubac and Pedro Arrupe stands.
Arrupe’s cause is open. The problem is the revision of his writings; he wrote so much, and the analysis of his texts takes time. De Lubac was a great Jesuit! I read him often. I do not know, however, if his cause has been introduced. I take the opportunity to tell you that the cause of King Baudouin will be introduced, and I did it myself, because it seems to me that things were not moving in that direction here.
I ask my question in Mafalda’s language. You have a very busy schedule: as soon as you finish your visit to Belgium, the Synod will start. You will preside over a reconciliation celebration at the beginning. So, you will animate the Church and its mission of reconciliation in our troubled world, as St. Paul asks of the Corinthians. But the Church community asks to be reconciled in itself in order to be ambassadors of reconciliation in the world. We ourselves need synodal relationships, reconciling discernment. What steps do we need to take?
Synodality is very important. It needs to be built not from the top to the bottom, but from the bottom to the top. Synodality is not easy, no, and sometimes this is because there are authority figures that do not bring out the dialogue aspect. A pastor can make decisions by himself, but he can make them with his council. So can a bishop, and so can the pope. It is really important to understand what synodality is. Paul vi , after the Council, created the Secretariat of the Synod for the bishops. The Easterners have not lost synodality; we have lost it. So, by the impulse of Paul vi , we went on until the 50th anniversary that we celebrated. And now we have come to the Synod on synodality, where things will be clarified precisely by the synodal method. Synodality in the Church is a grace! Authority is carried out in synodality. Reconciliation comes through synodality and its method. And, on the other hand, we cannot really be a synodal Church without reconciliation.
I am involved in the Jesuit Refugee Service. We are embracing two strong tensions. The first is the war in Ukraine. Our youngsters gave me a letter and a picture of St. George for you. The other tension is in the Mediterranean, where we hear a lot of politics with talk about borders and security. What advice do you want to give to the Jesuit Refugee Service and the Society?
The problem of migration must be addressed and studied well, and this is your task. The migrant must be received, accompanied, promoted and integrated. None of these four actions must be lacking. That would be serious. A migrant who is not integrated ends badly, but so does the society in which the migrant lives. Think, for example, of what happened in Zaventem, here in Belgium: that tragedy was also the result of a lack of integration. This is what the Bible says: we must take care of the widow, the poor and the foreigner. The Church must take seriously the work with migrants. I know the work of Open Arms, for example. I was in Lampedusa in 2013 to shed light on the migration drama. But I add one thing that is close to my heart and that I am repeating often: Europe has no more children, it is aging. It needs migrants in order for life to be renewed. It has now become a question of survival.
Holy Father, what are your first impressions of your trip to Belgium and Luxembourg?
I was only in Luxembourg for a day, and of course you can’t understand a country in one day! But it was a good experience for me. I had been to Belgium before, as I told you. But, at the end of this meeting, I ask you, please, not to lose the evangelizing force in this country. Behind the long Christian history, today you can hide a certain “pagan” atmosphere, let’s say. I do not want to be misunderstood, but the risk today is that the culture here is a bit pagan. Your strength is in the small Catholic communities, which are by no means sluggish: I see them as missionary, and they should be helped.
The Pope left the meeting hall after an hour of conversation. Before leaving, he recited a Hail Mary with everyone and then gave his blessing. At the end, a group photo was taken. Next, on the same floor as the meeting room, he visited the prestigious library of the Bollandist Society, whose mission is to research, publish in their original state, and comment on all documents pertaining to the lives and cult of the saints. Conceived in 1607 by Jesuit Héribert Rosweyde (1569-1629) and founded in Antwerp by Father Jean Bolland (1596-1665), it is still carried on today by a number of Belgian Jesuits. Francis gave his blessing and wrote on the honor book the following words, “Que el Señor los siga acompañando en la tarea de hacer conocer la historia de la Iglesia y de sus Santos. Con mi bendición. Fraternalmente, Francisco.”[2]
[1]. This text can be found at www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/it/speeches/1974/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19741203_esortazione-compagnia-gesu.html
[2]. “May the Lord continue to accompany you in the task of making known the history of the Church and its saints. With my blessing. Fraternally, Francis.”
By Antonio Spadaro, sj