Fr Pedro Arrupe's Cause for Canonisation underway

Jul 17th, 2018

Source: Jesuit News Service

The Society of Jesus has taken the first steps towards the beatification cause of Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, who was Superior General from 1965 to 1983.

Fr General Arturo Sosa SJ announced this at the International Association of Jesuit Universities meeting in Bilbao, Spain when he addressed the 300 Jesuit and lay participants. "We are still at the beginning of the process, but the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, Angelo de Donatis, has given the approval that the Diocese of Rome open the process of beatification".

Fr Sosa described Fr Arrupe as "a man of truth rooted in Christ and dedicated to the mission, whose greatest miracle is that we are here today". He asked for prayers for Fr Arrupe's cause and the collaboration of anyone with useful information about religious devotion to the former Superior General.

In 2013, after the Ignatius Feast Day Mass with the Jesuits in the Church of the Gesù, Pope Francis prayed at the tomb of Fr Pedro Arrupe, laying a bouquet of flowers on the pavement and touching the gravestone and image in what then Fr General Adolfo Nicolás described as "an intense moment of deep prayer and gratitude".

This massive task of compiling a list of 120 witnesses, especially those who personally knew Fr Arrupe, should "be finished in about a year," Fr Pascual Cebollada SJ, General Postulator of the Society of Jesus, told Catholic News Service on July 13.

Fr Cebollada, who is responsible for overseeing the sainthood causes of Jesuits, will also collect all of Fr Arrupe's writings. Once he has the list of potential witnesses and all the writings, the formal opening of Fr Arrupe's sainthood cause will be opened by the Diocese of Rome, which is the diocese where Fr Arrupe died.

"I can tell you that these witnesses will be from various places: from Spain where he was born; Japan where he was first sent by his superiors; and from Rome where he lived the last years of his life," Fr Cebollada said.

Fr Arrupe was the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus. Born in Spain in 1907, he entered the Society in 1927 and was ordained in 1936. He then went to Japan as a missionary in 1938. He was master of novices at the Jesuit novitiate in Hiroshima in 1945 when the United States dropped the atomic bomb, almost entirely destroying the city. Fr Arrupe had studied medicine before joining the Society and he repurposed the novitiate into a makeshift hospital. His life and world view were profoundly affected by the experience.

In 1958, Fr Arrupe was appointed Provincial of the Japanese Province, then in 1965, General Congregation 31 elected him Superior General. French Jesuit Maurice Giuliani exhorted the electors with these words: "We need a General with vision for the universal good in the world and able to cooperate in the redemption of that world". Fr Arrupe matched that profile.

While he was Superior General, Fr Arrupe encouraged his brothers and collaborators in ministry to heed the call of the Second Vatican Council to return to the Society's roots and to follow the "preferential option for the poor". General Congregation 32 Decree 4 (1974 to 1975) defined the Society's mission today as "the service of faith and the promotion of justice".

One of his most famous initiatives was the founding of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in 1980 to meet the humanitarian and educational needs of the Vietnamese boat people. He wrote, "The help needed is not only material: in a special way the Society of Jesus is being called to render a service that is human, pedagogical and spiritual". JRS Asia Pacific was set up the following year.