Age
17/11/2010
Page: 15
By: Barney Zwartz
Section: General News
Region: Melbourne Circulation: 202100
Type: Capital City Daily
Size: 1497.00 sq.cms
Frequency: MTWTFS-
Religious orders may be in decline,
but the Jesuits are confident they
will always have a meaningful role to
play. Barney Zwartz reports.
HEN 17-yearold Bill Uren
joined the
Society of Jesus
straight from
school in 1954
the religious
order was at the height of its influence: prestigious, powerful, with a
reputation as the Pope's men, it was
busily shaping young minds in Australia's leading Catholic schools.
The Jesuits, as they are better
known, had become very monastic,
recalls Uren, now 73, rector of
Newman College at Melbourne University and one of the leading
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Australian Catholic thinkers of his
generation.
"It was almost an enclosed order,
we were only allowed out to the
doctor or dentist, and [to have] a
visitor once a month. Then we got
an enlightened director who sent us
out to uni. That was a shock."
It took Uren 14 years to be finally
ordained: two as a novice, three as a
scholastic, five years at university
some years working as a teacher,
then three years studying theology
Uren was one of 14 novices in
1954; 53 years later, in 2007, Alan
Wong was one of two. The training
that Wong, 31, is undergoing today
Page 1 of 3
Jesuits Andy Hamilton and Alan
Wong. Chris Middleton (below) with
students at St Aloysius College.
PICTURE SIMON ALENKA
is similarly rigorous, but the order
into which he will be ordained looks
very different.
It is less than half the size, and
the great institutions it founded
from schools such as Xavier College
to welfare agencies such as Jesuit
Social Services barely contain a
Jesuit priest. Members today tend to
be specialists working in secular
institutions or generalists administering the order and its ministries.
Jesuit Social Services has a staff
of 150, of whom only one is a Jesuit
a part-time chaplain. St Aloysius
school in Sydney has two Jesuits
and two trainees in a teaching staff
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Age
17/11/2010
Page: 15
By: Barney Zwartz
Section: General News
Region: Melbourne Circulation: 202100
Type: Capital City Daily
Size: 1497.00 sq.cms
Frequency: MTWTFS-
of more than 100. In what sense
these remain distinctively Jesuit is a
question the order is tackling. If the
future lies, as the Jesuits believe, in
partnership with lay people, how
will they preserve the particular
Jesuit spirituality, which focuses on
finding the sacred in the mundane
and secular?
The 1960s were the highpoint for
the Jesuits, as for all Australia's religious orders. But then the world
changed with the pill, the sexual
revolution, feminism, civil rights, a
loss of trust in institutions, the
glorification of self and the
emphasis on personal autonomy,
and consequently the church
changed, too. The Catholic Church
experienced the great reforming
council of Vatican II, sweeping in
the winds of change and bringing a
great re-examination.
According to a report launched
on Monday on 161 Australian Catholic religious orders, the peak was
1966, with 19,413 members. Today
the total in 161 orders is down to
8422, and, notably, the median age
is 73. Many of these orders will be
extinct in 15 years, at least in Australia, with several already down to
their last two or three members.
Attrition is thinning the ranks of
all religious orders. The report noted
that from 1997 to 2009, 401 new
members joined Australian orders,
although a quarter left again. But in
the same period 2531 members died
and 483 resigned.
The Jesuits are not immune.
Today the order has 404 members,
less than half the 1963 peak. But as
one of the four great historic religious orders (with the Benedictines,
Dominicans and Franciscans) they
know they will survive. Today it is
the largest single order, with nearly
20,000 members worldwide in January 2007. Founded by Ignatius of
Loyola in 1540, and including nearly
50 saints among their number, the
Jesuits were noted as missionaries,
scholars and especially teachers.
"Give me the child until he is seven
and I will give you the man," is the
aphorism famously, if falsely, attributed to Francis Xavier. The order
still runs Australia's most prestigious
Catholic schools, but Jesuits are disappearing from the classrooms.
The biggest change is in the
nature of the work. After World
War II, 60 per cent of all members
of religious orders (overwhelmingly
women) worked in education, with
the rest mostly in nursing or social
welfare. Today Australia's most famCopyright Agency Ltd (CAL) licenced copy.
ous Jesuit is jurist and theologian
Frank Brennan, who headed the
public consultation into a human
rights charter. Poet Peter Steele has
an international reputation as do
composer Christopher Willcock,
New Testament theologian Brendan
Byrne and Old Testament specialist
Anthony Campbell, while Andy
Hamilton, who founded the Eureka
Street magazine, is a gentle and perceptive cultural commentator.
The Jesuits are still expanding in
their ministries, but recognise the
future lies in partnership with lay
professionals. Jesuit Social Services'
150 staff across Australia work with
disadvantaged families and communities, especially young people in
the justice system or with multiple
and complex problems such as
mental health, drug abuse and family breakdown. With just one parttime Jesuit left, in chaplain Ian
Dillon, just how Jesuit can the
agency remain?
"Our underpinnings, who we are,
what we do and how we go about it
are infused by the Jesuit ethos, and
we are missioned by the Jesuit provincial [the Australian leader] to do
this work in the name of the Jesuits
as part of the Jesuit enterprise," says
director Julie Edwards.
"We focus on being contemplative in action. It shapes our practice.
We make sure our people know the
ground we walk on, this is who we
are and these are our virtues."
She says few staff are even Catholic, but the agency has made its
Jesuit roots more explicit to ensure
it doesn't drift from that core. "We've
done work to make sure our Ignatian
heritage is accessible, contemporary
and useful. It's important. And the
thing is, it works."
St Aloysius principal Chris
Middleton, a Jesuit priest, says that
when he was at school many students had five HSC subjects taught
by Jesuits. "The world has moved on
and schools are very different places
now. They are far more professional,
more specialised, the pressure is
greater. The Catholic ghetto culture
is long gone."
Even so, Jesuits were hugely
important in creating a Catholic professional class in medicine, law,
politics and media, Middleton
believes. "Jesuit schools were very
important in preparing people like
[Gustav] Nossal in science or [Tony]
Abbott in politics, having people not
suspicious of reason or the modern
world. We created Catholics who
looked outwards rather than putting
Page 2 of 3
up the barriers."
Meanwhile, the school makes a
sustained effort to have lay staff
share Jesuit spirituality, and many
have done the Ignatian spiritual
exercises.
Frank Brennan hopes that Jesuit
schools continue to help pupils take
away an intelligent and acute reading of their faith. "But the Howard
cabinet had nine Jesuit alumni,
including Tim Fischer, Tony Abbott,
Peter McGauran, Joe Hockey,
Richard Alston and Christopher
Fyne
it didn't seem to work
there."
It did work with Alan Wong at
St Aloysius. What triggered his call
was the death of his grandparents in
2002, but the foundation was laid at
school, he says. "I remember when I
was 13 or 14 and we were chatting
about life, and I asked my father,
'Why are these Jesuits teaching us
kids when they could be heading up
companies?' He said that was the
sacrifice they decided to make
because there's a bigger goal, to
teach the gospel and try to renew
the face of the earth."
When his grandparents died,
Wong, an electrical engineer, went
back to church and found it a homecoming. His parents were
ambivalent when he entered the
novitiate in 2007. "They feel this
deep sense of loss that there won't
be grandchildren. My work colleagues were very shocked why
would someone take this path? I was
working in a corporate structure
where money was the main driver
for most people, so taking a vow of
poverty was something they couldn't
understand, let alone a vow of chastity in this sexualised world."
But in one way he is a thoroughly
modern religious. "The older generation [of Jesuits] didn't have to learn
to collaborate, but men like me have
had experience in the corporate
world. I've had male and female
bosses."
Author and teacher Michael
McGirr, who was a Jesuit for 21
years, says what will keep the order
going is "the deep roots the spirituality is really fertile soil. What
they do is much less than what they
are. The essence of Jesuit spirituality
is that you can do anything. The
secret of Jesuit spirituality is finding
God in all things, so there's an
endless range of possibilities."
Former Jesuit Jack de Groot, head
of Catholic aid agency Caritas, is
slightly sceptical of this notion. The
Jesuit spirituality is attractive
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Age
17/11/2010
Page: 15
By: Barney Zwartz
Section: General News
Region: Melbourne Circulation: 202100
Type: Capital City Daily
Size: 1497.00 sq.cms
Frequency: MTWTFS-
"people are redeemed by God to do
good things. It's a large vision with a
bit of risk-taking and adventure, and
intellectual rigour and robustness"
but he thinks there is a myth and
mystique about Jesuits, which they
trade on and encourage.
He says they struggle to collaborate and that they have lost
inspiration as they lose control of
their enterprises.
Jesuit provincial Steve Curtin
acknowledges there is some justice
in de Groot's criticism. "We are
doing more now than we've ever
done," he says. "There's lay leadership in a lot of areas. It's an evolving
partnership, but it's not easy for
Jesuits to learn to work collaboratively. We've been trained to take the
initiative and be out on the front
line without a lot of support or help.
Teamwork has not been our forte."
And though fewer Jesuits are directly involved, there is still a strong
sense of Jesuit responsibility and
ownership, Curtin insists, partly
because they are still involved in
governing roles.
Many Jesuits The Age spoke to
admitted pain and a sense of loss
but, as Curtin observes, it is grief at
the diminution of numbers rather
than the changing nature of their
work. "I don't think we've registered
-
til
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yet any sense of loss that might
come with a change of role. Jesuits
don't see their role as changing all
that radically, because the core identity is the same."
Curtin, 53, has spent a large part
of his life in management, which he
never expected. He thought he
would be a pastor, and still thinks of
himself that way after all, management can be pastoral. Even
though Jesuit roles may change,
their identity will not, he says.
"Jesuits can move from one thing
to another time after time because
our identity isn't caught up with
what we do so much as who we are,
and that's a helpful distinction. I'm
more than what I do, and the identity is with God, and I take that with
me wherever I go. I don't have to
have a career, I have a religious life."
Jesuit historian Michael Head
says the life span of a religious order
is about 150 years. Most go out of
existence or reinvent themselves, as
the Jesuits have more than once in
their 470-year history, which has
included persecution and being
suppressed by the Pope.
"Societies formed to look after
the poor have been hit by demographic changes and the state taking
much of that role."
Head says the Jesuits have sur-
Page 3 of 3
vived the upheaval of Vatican II
better than most. They, like much of
the church, were divided between
those who thought the order should
concentrate on schools and parishes,
and those who thought it should
be much more involved in social
ministry.
"It could have been devastating.
Greg O'Kelly, now bishop of Port
Pine, said all ministries are Jesuit
ministries, all motivated by the same
principles. He got people to understand the unifying features, not the
divisive ones," Head says. "Many
Jesuit ministries began then: Jesuit
Social Services, Jesuit Refugee
Services, Jesuit Mission."
Compromise is inevitable, but
Jesuits accept that.
For Frank Brennan, who has
moved in the highest political and
religious echelons, "one of the privileges of being a Jesuit is that you
have the capacity and opportunity to
eyeball both the decision makers
and the marginalised who are
affected by the decision makers. It
stops you becoming sanctimonious
and gives you some principled
criteria to apply to the world of
compromise."
Barney Zwartz is religion editor.
1
416
Jesuit schools were very important in having
people not suspicious of reason or the modern
world. We created Catholics who looked
outwards rather than putting up the barriers.
Chris Middleton
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Ref: 00083346453