Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the31st-35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, edited by John W. Padberg SJ

Between 1965 and 2008 Jesuits held five general congregations. Such a congregation is the ultimate governing body of the Society of Jesus. it meets especially for two purposes, to elect, if necessary, a new superior general and to deal with matter of greater importance for the whole Society. This is the book for someone who wants to know in depth want more than two hundred Jesuit representatives from all over the world at each of those congregations understood as the way in which Jesuits would carry out their mission to the church and to the world.

General Congregation 31 in 1965-66 took place in the context of the second Vatican Council. It elected Fr. Pedro Arrupe, at the time superior of the Jesuits in Japan, as the Superior General of the Society and it tool seriously the recommendations of Vatican II to religious congregations to return to their sources of their inspiration and to bring up to date the structures of their communities and their apostolates. General Congregation 31 in 1974-75 affirmed in a special way the apostolic life of the Society of Jesus through its famous statement that the 'mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.'

The illness of Fr. General Arrupe occasioned General Congregation 33 in 1983. It elected Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as the new Superior General of the Society. He was a Dutchman who had spent most of his life working in the Near East, specifically in Lebanon. General Congregation 34 in 1995 both strongly affirmed the mission statement of the Society about faith and justice and broadened it to include interreligious dialogue and inculturation. Fr. Kolvenbach convoked General Congregation 35 for the year 2008 in order to submit his resignation for health reasons. The congregation elected as the new general Fr. Adolfo Nicolįs, a Spaniard who had spent most of his life in Japan and in other Jesuit works in South East Asia. That last congregation dealt with rediscovering the identity of charism of the Society, challenges to the Jesuit mission today, obedience in the life of the Society, governance in the Society and collaboration with the laity at the heart of the mission of the Society.

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