Reflection

It may seem presumptuous on my part to write about the reception and implementation of Decree Four (“The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice”) of General Congregation 32. I was eight years old when GC 32 promulgated Decree Four, and I would not enter the Society of Jesus for another eleven years after it came into force as the clear and definitive articulation of the contemporary mission of the Society of Jesus.

Looking back at the earliest moments of my Jesuit life, my first encounter with the decree happened in the sanitized context of novitiate formation. Essentially, the encounter consisted of a cursory reading of the text and a passing commentary on its meaning and implications. Neither the reading nor the commentary captured and conveyed the radical spirit of the decree. Both were detached from the lived reality that informed its formulation and promulgation. Even when the death of the UCA martyrs in El Salvador – three years after I entered the novitiate – jolted the Society’s consciousness of the bloody cost of the option for the service of faith of which the promotion of justice was a constitutive dimension, still, such events seemed remote and exceptional, notwithstanding the conviction of many Jesuits that the UCA tragedy was an inevitable collateral of the Society’s commitment to faith that does justice. Although subsequent history – even as recent as the brutal murder of Fr. Frans Van der Lugt, SJ, in worn-torn Syria – has validated this conviction, the thinking and actions of my Jesuit peers at the time did not quite glow with the fire or the spirit of Decree Four. Its stirring rhetoric and rousing appeal oftentimes sounded more like jingles and slogans than a clarion call to faith lived through justice.

I recall a short-lived immersion community at the heart of the notorious Kibera slum that nearly abuts the Jesuit theologate in Nairobi, Kenya. It consisted of a few scholastics living in the midst of impoverished slum-dwellers while studying theology. Even though it was celebrated as a concrete manifestation of the preferential option of the poor that is a constitutive element of Decree Four, it failed to impress many of my peers, for whom theology was more speculative than practical. As proof of the nominal success of that experimental insertion community, its closure barely registered a whimper of protest or lamentation among students and teachers of theology. For a considerable period of time, little if anything would change in the way the decree was received and implemented by Jesuits of my generation.

By the foregoing remarks I am not suggesting that Decree Four has had no impact in Africa. Rather, there is a trajectory of comprehension, a process of appreciation and uneven evidence of the actualization of the tenets of Decree Four. At the risk of generalizing, I believe that Africa has had to look back to discover the core message and practical implications of Decree Four for Jesuit apostolic life and ministry. From this retrospective perspective, Decree Four appears less as an event in a remote and receding past than an unfolding process that unceasingly reinvigorates and challenges the authenticity and orientation of Jesuit life and ministry now and in the future. Thus, understood as a process of history and not exclusively as an event in history – pivotal as it may have been – Decree Four has set off a chain of events that shaped and defined the landscape of the social apostolate and mission of the Society in Africa. The following three examples serve to illustrate the impact and enduring legacy of Decree Four in the Society in Africa.

To begin with, since 1975, across the continent and its islands, Jesuits have initiated an assortment of social apostolates and ministries, variously categorized as “Faith and Justice”, “Justice and Peace”, “Development and Peace”, “Human Rights and Justice”… Irrespective of the nomenclature or the variety of permutation and combination, the interests of these apostolates are as a diverse as the issues they deal with are pressing. The list would include Jesuit-led advocacy for equitable and just management of natural resources in Chad and DR Congo, constitutional reform in Zambia and Kenya, peace and reconciliation in South Sudan and Kenya, and civic and political education in Zimbabwe and Côte d’Ivoire. To this we must add the related issues of ecology, governance, human rights, gender and corruption.

Second, in addition to these centres for advocacy and action, a related but distinct phenomenon is the emergence of educational institutions for research and reflection on the twin issues of faith and justice. These institutions incorporate theological ethics with social science methodologies, analysis and research to create a wider body of reflection on faith and justice. The outcomes of their research and analysis – delivered via a variety of platforms, such as conferences, workshops, seminars, colloquiums and publications – contribute a unique perspective to socioeconomic and political issues that affect the continent. It should be noted that such approaches derive from and are nurtured by the values of catholic social teaching and the principles, guidelines and criteria enumerated in Decree Four as refined and reinterpreted over the last four decades by subsequent General Congregations. Two examples that come to mind here are Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR) in Nairobi, Kenya, and Centre de Recherhe et d’ Action pour la Paix(CERAP) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Like the centres referred to in the preceding paragraph, these educational institutions have the distinction of creating a collaborative network with other institutions that are interested in global ethical issues and how they affect local communities. Essentially, both models of social apostolate could be identified as faith-based civil society organizations inspired by Decree Four.

A third example concerns initiatives that seek to integrate elements of the service of the faith and the promotion of justice into Jesuit ministry. It is now commonly assumed that Jesuit commitment to justice ought not to operate parallel to or counteract other Jesuit apostolates and works. In schools, parishes and spirituality centres across Africa and Madagascar, numerous programmes exist that seek to realize the ideals of Decree Four through outreach programmes to marginalized communities, re-appropriation of the experience of Ignatian spirituality, attention to the plight of the oppressed and effective improvement of the condition of poor, displaced and sick people.

In Africa there is no dearth of issues that underscore the contemporary relevance of Decree Four. A short list would include violent conflicts, ethnic tension, leadership deficit, poor governance, sectarian violence and religious intolerance. These issues continue to distort the dignity and worth of women and men on the continent. In light of these challenges, two points need to be underlined as a critique of the reception and implementation of Decree Four in Africa.

First, although I would be hard-pressed to provide indisputable empirical evidence for this claim, the perception is strong that social justice tends to be approached from a predominantly theoretical and intellectual perspective. In making this observation I am not suggesting that this approach is not valid, but, rather, that it is limited, hence the need to maintain a constructive balance between theory and praxis in actualizing the mission of the service of faith and the promotion of justice.

Second, to reprise a point that I have made above, communities of insertion that seemed to be the hallmark of the implementation of Decree Four have all but disappeared. There is a danger here of losing the critical anchor of the authenticity and radicalness of this decree, namely the principle of preferential option for poor, oppressed and marginalized people expressed in concrete acts of solidarity with them. Father Adolfo Nicolás, SJ, has alerted the Society to this reality in his De Statureport of July 2012.

In sum, a balanced assessment of the four decades of the promulgation and implementation of Decree Four ought to see the developments discussed in this brief essay as examples of historical, contextual and practical outcomes of the groundbreaking formulation of Jesuit mission by GC 32. Like the rest of the Society of Jesus, Decree Four has had its share of martyrs and discontents in Africa.

Recently, I met an African Jesuit who introduced himself proudly as a “man of Decree Four,” by which he meant that the ideals and objectives of the decree inspired his vocation to the Society of Jesus. I am convinced that the impetus and momentum generated by Decree Four continue to galvanize Jesuit life and ministry on the continent, albeit the ways of understanding and expressing it have evolved over the four decades of its existence. Decree Four serves as a basic grammar that undergirds the articulation of Jesuit life and mission in the 21st century. To use a vivid metaphor from GC 35, forty years on, perhaps Decree Four would be best understood and appreciated as a fire that has kindled other fires.

Original English