3. A case study

Shortly after Vatican II, a new position was created at the General Curia of the Society of Jesus, similar to coordinator or promoter of justice and peace.

The role, now called "Social Justice Secretary," has three aspects: to assist Father General in the whole social area; to coordinate and support the social sector which includes social ministries of every sort such as human promotion, development, conscientization, training, human rights, social research, advocacy; and to care for the promotion of justice which should be a mark of the entire Jesuit charisma.

Having worked at the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto for ten years and, after the murder of the Jesuits in El Salvador in 1989, for two years at the Human Rights Institute of the Central American University, in 1992 I came to Rome as the fourth Social Justice Secretary. I would like to share a brief history of the social sector, for which I am responsible, as a case study in recovering and relocating charisma.

When in 1540 and 1550 the Formula of the Institute first defines the end or purpose of the Society of Jesus, it includes elements such as these: "to strive especially for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine ... to reconcile the estranged, compassionately assist and serve those who are in prisons or hospitals, and indeed to perform any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good." Does this not suffice to describe everything for which, 450 years later, the Social Justice Secretary should be responsible?

The industrial revolutions of 19th century Europe and America and of the 20th century elsewhere have initiated social and cultural changes which are so deep and far-reaching that they cannot help but affect the very essence of every ecclesial mission. This epochal change is first reflected in official Church teaching only a little more than a hundred years ago, with Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum, when the Church begins to discover her mission of evangelizing not just individuals or communities but modern society itself: to criticize unjust structures, to defend basic human rights, to call people to transform society in the light of the Gospel.

The new Church thinking and praxis slowly took hold. For example, in an important Instruction in 1949, Father General John-Baptist Janssens defined the aim of the social apostolate like this: "to provide most men, and indeed all of them insofar as earthly conditions allow, with that abundance or at least sufficiency of goods, both temporal and spiritual, even of the natural order, that man needs lest he feel himself depressed and despised." How different from the Formula of 1540, especially at first sight, and yet how compatible and faithful!

With Vatican II and the election of Father Pedro Arrupe as General, a decree of 1965 took the trouble to state emphatically that "the social apostolate is fully in harmony with the apostolic end of the Society of Jesus." This means that some questioned whether this exercise of social concern was really faithful to our charisma.

In 1975 the 32nd General Congregation made a solemn "ricollocazione" called "Decree 4": it reformulated the mission of the Society of Jesus as "the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement, since reconciliation with God demands men's reconciliation with one another." As in many Religious Congregations, this option provided a great impetus to exciting initiatives of human promotion and liberation; it thrust the social effort into the limelight; it generated tensions and conflicts, as traditional ministries felt under-rated, threatened, or harshly judged; and it gave birth to martyrs, the first one only two years later, in 1977. Has martyrdom not always been taken as sealing charisms with divine approval?

In 1989 the Berlin Wall collapsed and the 20th century came to an end, and from unforeseen new perspectives we began to re-read our experience since Vatican II. For example, in 1995 the 34th General Congregation asked pardon for our failures in serving faith and promoting justice and gave thanks for the blessings which this option for the poor has brought us. The Congregation reaffirmed and deepened our mission: the service of faith which promotes the justice of God's Kingdom, in dialogue with cultures and religions.

The same Congregation legislated that the social apostolate flows from the overall mission of the Society and has as its specific goal "to build, by means of every endeavour, a fuller expression of justice and charity into the structures of human life in common." Contained in this soft-spoken expression is an audacious, indeed evangelical hope and a counter-cultural (not to say revolutionary) commitment!

The moment seemed ripe for the social apostolate to undertake a thoroughgoing review and renewal, bravely called "Initiative 1995-2005". An apparently innocent question, as if asked by an outsider, launched this process: "How do you Jesuits in social ministry bring the Good News to society? Please describe your vision, the work you do, the life you lead." The quasi-naiveté of the questioning was in fact seeking a high degree of intelligibility or communicability while bringing every aspect of the social sector under scrutiny.

All over the Society, some Jesuits began asking about our work and our vision, in the light of the Gospel. How do we live in community and among the poor? How do we read social reality, and in what ways does our social effort transform both culture and structures? How do we work with our colleagues?

In over thirty meetings around the world, the questions stimulated debate and discoveries, initial answers began to be formulated, and out of all the raw material the major areas of concern emerged: the spirituality and vision of our social apostolate (why?); the contexts we work in (where?); and the means and methods we use (how?).

An international Congress in June 1997 explored these topics which have now been distilled into a handbook, Characteristics of the Social Apostolate of the Society of Jesus (1998). By characteristics we mean the essential concerns ¾ the so-called "questions which cannot not be asked" and the "tensions to be maintained" ¾ which our social ministries must permanently face if they are to be both socially and culturally effective and evangelically expressive of the Good News.

This is the case study which I would like to present when asked, as sometimes happens, to convince some that our social apostolate is authentically Jesuit and to show others how it meets the scandalous sufferings and urgent demands of the poor everywhere.