Pope Benedict XVI with Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, Superior General

To mark the visit of Pope Benedict XVI we publish below key extracts from his Holiness's address to the Jesuits in 2008 in which he affirmed the Society in its mission and challenged it to remain faithful to its charism and history. As the Pope has said to us, 'The Church needs you...' so we say to men considering a vocation to the Society - we urgently need men of faith and deep generosity and giftedness to continue our work of service to the Church and the world.

 I…ardently hope that…. the entire Society of Jesus will be able to live out with renewed dynamism and fervour the mission for which the Spirit willed it in the Church and has preserved it for more than four and a half centuries with extraordinary apostolic fruitfulness. Today, in the ecclesial and social context that marks the beginning of the millennium, I would like to encourage you and your confreres to continue on the path of this mission in full fidelity to your original charism. As my Predecessors have said to you on various occasions, the Church needs you, relies on you and continues to turn to you with trust, particularly to reach those physical and spiritual places which others do not reach or have difficulty reaching. [2]

It is not oceans of immense distances that challenge the heralds of the gospel but the boundaries resulting from an erroneous or superficial vision of God and man that stands between faith and human knowledge, faith and modern science, faith and the commitment to justice. [3]

In its history, the Society of Jesus has lived extraordinary experiences of proclamation and encounter between the gospel and world cultures – it suffices to think of Matteo Ricci in China, Roberto De Nobili in India or of the ‘Reductions’ in Latin America. And you are rightly proud of them. I feel it is my duty today to urge you to set out once again in the tracks of your predecessors, with the same courage and intelligence but also with an equally profound motivation of faith and enthusiasm to serve the Lord and his Church.

However, while you seek to recognise the signs of God’s presence and work in every corner of the world, even beyond the bounds of the visible Church, while you strive to build bridges of understanding and dialogue with those who do not belong to the Church or have difficulty accepting her outlook or messages, at the same time you must loyally take on the Church’s fundamental duty to remain faithful to her mandate and to adhere totally to the Word of God and to the Magisterium’s task of preserving the integral truth and unity of Catholic doctrine. This not only applies to the personal commitment of individual Jesuits: since you are working as members of an apostolic body, you must also take care that your work and your institutions always maintain a clear and explicit identity, so that the goal of your apostolic activity is neither ambiguous nor obscure and that many others may share in your ideals and join you effectively and enthusiastically, collaborating in your commitment to serve God and man. [5]

Pope Benedict XVI with the Jesuit Provincials and delegates of GC 35

I [ask] you for a renewed commitment to promoting and defending Catholic doctrine, ‘especially its key points, under severe attack today by the secular culture’… The themes, continuously discussed and called into question today, of salvation of all humanity in Christ, of sexual morality, of marriage and the family, must be explored and illumined in the context of contemporary reality but preserving that harmony with the Magisterium which avoids causing confusion and dismay among the people of God. [6]

I … invite you today to reflect in order to rediscover the fullest meaning of your characteristic ‘Fourth Vow’ of obedience to the Successor of Peter … .

I encourage you to continue and to renew you mission among the poor and with the poor …. For us, the option for the poor is not ideological but is born from the gospel. [8]

I ask you to focus special attention on that ministry of Spiritual Exercises … . The Exercises are not only the source of your spirituality and the matrix of your Constitutions but also a gift which the Spirit of the Lord has made to the entire Church… The Spiritual Exercises are a particularly precious means and method with which to seek God, within us, around us and in all things, to know his will and to put it into practice. [9]

In this spirit of obedience to God’s will, to Jesus Christ, which also becomes humble obedience to the Church, I ask you to continue carrying out your Congregation’s work and I join you in the prayer St. Ignatius taught us the end of the Exercises – a prayer which to me always seems to sublime in the sense that I hardly dare to say it, yet me must always be able to return to it:

Take, Lord, and receive, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and all my will – all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord. Give me love of yourself and your grace, for that is enough for me.