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THREE WORDS THAT CHANGED JESUIT EDUCATION

How a 1973 speech by Rev. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., first incensed, then inspired,
generations.
March 1st, 2023 by Holy Cross Magazine

<< Previous Page 1/3 Next >>




Rev. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., offers a child a shoe shine in Quito, Ecuador, in 1971.




Fr. Arrupe’s first Mass, celebrated in Valkenburg, Holland, in 1936; on the
cover of TIME Magazine on April 23, 1973.




Fr. Arrupe with Mother Theresa in 1982 in Rome.





“First, let me ask this question: Have we Jesuits educated you for justice?”

On July 31, 1973, Rev. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., superior general of the Society of
Jesus, stood before a large group of Jesuit-educated alumni gathered at a
conference in Spain and posed this question. The answer, he said as the room
grew tense, was: “No, we have not.”

To the alumni seated before him (all men at that time), Fr. Arrupe called for
Jesuit education to put a renewed focus on what he coined the formation of “men
for others.” Graduates should be “completely convinced that love of God which
does not issue in justice for others is a farce,” he frankly stated.

Fr. Arrupe called on the audience to “live much more simply … draw no profit
whatever from clearly unjust sources … and be agents of change in society: not
merely resisting unjust structures and arrangements, but actively undertaking to
reform them.” He had great hope they could do this, he encouraged, because
Jesuit education, despite its failings, had always emphasized “openness to new
challenges.” He promised to work alongside them to change, like two classmates
“sitting together on the same school bench.”

Many were shocked by the speech, given on the annual feast day of St. Ignatius.
Some even quit their alumni associations. But, ultimately, Fr. Arrupe was proven
correct that Jesuit education, if nothing else, had instilled a willingness to
adapt. Today, the phrase “men and women for and with others,” which evolved from
that 1973 speech, is ubiquitous in Jesuit education. It has profoundly shaped
the more than 3,700 Jesuit schools and higher education institutions that exist
around the globe, including Holy Cross. Ask Jesuit-educated students or alumni
to describe the aims of their education, and chances are good that phrase will
be uttered. And it is one that continues to prompt deep conversations about the
moral obligation to create a more just world.

Fr. Arrupe’s first Mass, celebrated in Valkenburg, Holland, in 1936; on the
cover of TIME Magazine on April 23, 1973.


ARRUPE: SECOND FOUNDER OF THE JESUITS

“There’s a commitment that Arrupe shows in his speech to not being afraid to ask
serious and probing questions about ourselves and the goal of our education and
society,” says Rev. Timothy O’Brien, S.J., ’06, associate vice president for
mission at Holy Cross. “Part of what he was encouraging was a spiritual
discipline of unflinching self-examination that is still with us. The enduring
weight or power of this question is precisely that we’re not done yet.”

To speak this way was shocking, Fr. O’Brien says of the 1973 speech: “Fr. Arrupe
was speaking to a room full of people educated by Jesuits in Europe, in schools
that often drew from the privileged, wealthy elite. He was asking the privileged
to challenge their own privilege — that still has a lot of resistance today. He
was calling people to a critical examination and a real clarity about what it
means to be educated by the Society of Jesus.”

Born in 1907, Fr. Arrupe, like St. Ignatius, was from the Basque region of
Spain. A top medical student, he left training to become a Jesuit and was a
missionary in Japan when World War II began. As a foreigner, he was arrested on
suspicion of espionage. After 33 days, he was cleared and released, with the
time in solitary confinement only deepening his faith. In 1945, he witnessed the
U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and used his medical training to treat
survivors in the aftermath at his novitiate just outside the Japanese city.

In 1965, Fr. Arrupe was named superior general, the highest office in the order,
and tasked with guiding the Society of Jesus following Vatican II, which
represented a seismic shift in the Catholic Church. “Vatican II was a moment of
the Church opening to the modern world, rather than positioning itself in
opposition to it, and Fr. Arrupe was the Society’s standard bearer in that
process,” Fr. O’Brien says. “People often refer to him as ‘the second founder of
the Society of Jesus.'”

Today, “for and with others” is so entrenched at Holy Cross that it’s often
considered a motto of sorts or even (falsely, albeit understandably) attributed
to Ignatius himself. When meeting with students during orientation in the fall,
Fr. O’Brien says many expected to see the phrase in the College’s mission
statement: “That speaks to what they think they’re doing here and who we are
trying to form them to be.”


WORDS TO LIVE BY AT HOLY CROSS

“Arrupe’s speech has shaped Holy Cross profoundly,” says Marybeth Kearns-Barrett
’84, director of the Office of College Chaplains, noting that it planted a seed
linking faith and justice. “Schools were particularly fertile soil for his
message because young people are looking for meaning and purpose in their
lives.” As a student at Holy Cross in the early 1980s, Kearns-Barrett says the
phrase itself was relatively new. “I first encountered it on the Spiritual
Exercises retreat,” she says. “We still make Fr. Arrupe’s speech available for
people on the Exercises.”

While “for and with others” may have taken some time to become fully entrenched,
it captured something long in the air at Holy Cross, Kearns-Barrett says. In
1973, at the time of Fr. Arrupe’s address, students had already been serving the
greater Worcester community for five years through Student Programs for Urban
Development (SPUD). “The civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement
were shaping the College,” she notes. “We also had this great tradition of [Rev.
Robert Manning, S.J.’s Theology of Liberation course] being taught here. And our
Chaplains’ Office and the religious studies department have long emphasized the
inextricable link between faith and justice.”

Holy Cross is historically one of the country’s top producers of graduates
entering the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and typically sees 7% to 8% of graduating
classes commit to full-time service programs like JVC. Alumni age 50 and older
are also consistently well-represented in the Ignatian Volunteer Corps.

The Very Rev. Joseph M. O’Keefe, S.J., ’76, provincial of the USA East Province
of the Society of Jesus, describes his years as a Holy Cross student in the
1970s as the “Arrupe era” — an experience that ultimately led him to his
vocation. “The thing that sticks out in my mind is the orientation of faith that
does justice. Whatever you’re involved in: How do you build up the common good?
How committed are you to the community you live in? It’s a generosity of spirit
and a profound care for other people.”

Fr. O’Keefe says, at its best, “for and with others” impacts how people live
their careers. For example, how do leaders treat their employees? For 25 years,
Fr. O’Keefe taught future educators and policymakers studying education at
Boston College, and Fr. Arrupe’s words guided his formation of these
professionals. “Jesuit education doesn’t just prepare people to make a living,”
Fr. O’Keefe says. “It prepares people to make a life of purpose, a life worth
living.”

He sees aspects of Fr. Arrupe’s legacy alive in today’s Church. Pope Francis
often visits Fr. Arrupe’s grave, and Fr. O’Keefe says there is a deep
consistency of message between the two men: “There is a focus on what it means
to live out your faith.” Fr. O’Keefe imagines that Fr. Arrupe, if alive today,
would support the pope’s stance on climate change and its threat to the Earth
and those on the margins: “Arrupe was a man who could read the signs of the time
… Being in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped had such a big impact on
him in terms of his commitment to faith, justice, peace and an end to war.

“In a world and a culture that is so deeply divided, [Arrupe’s words challenge
us] to be with others — and to be with those with whom you don’t necessarily
agree,” Fr. O’Keefe continues. “How can we focus on the common good and building
a more just society?”

Fr. Arrupe with Mother Theresa in 1982 in Rome.


A MESSAGE THAT CONTINUES TO CHALLENGE

Fr. O’Brien cautions against simplifying Fr. Arrupe’s words into a
compartmentalized focus on service, which risks losing some of their original
meaning: “As my own journey in the Jesuits and Jesuit education has continued,
there’s a much deeper realization that the idea of — ‘I come to you and serve,
then I go back to my enclave of privilege and feel good about having served’ —
is not helpful.”

In alignment with the Jesuit tradition of self-examination, the phrase has
evolved, and continues to evolve, with the times. “It has taken on a life of its
own in the networks of Jesuit education,” Fr. O’Brien says. Today, it is
commonly followed by the words, “and with,” forming the longer phrase, “for and
with others.” “This puts an emphasis on solidarity, rather than on a savior
complex,” he explains.

“There’s something about the way the phrase can be adapted that has made it
stick,” Kearns-Barrett notes. “For example, some of our students are beginning
to ask us to say, ‘people for and with others’ or ‘people for and with
creation.’ Ultimately, the phrase reminds us that Jesuit higher education isn’t
just for ourselves. Instead of giving us a claim on the world, our education
gives the world a claim on us.”

“There is a deep hunger among our students for the education that they’re
receiving on this hillside to be relevant not just to themselves, but to the
world and to its challenges,” Fr. O’Brien reflects. “And there is a deep
idealism, a deep hope, in our students that realizes they will be the source of
future progress in the world for justice. In the face of so many challenges, I
think they find in Arrupe’s phrase a simple way of expressing that desire.”

Written by Meredith Fidrocki for the Winter 2023 issue of Holy Cross Magazine.



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