Fr Brian McCoy SJ
Provincial, Australian Jesuit Province
Which General Congregation is most significant to the Jesuits in Australia and why?
I am struck by what Pope Francis said in his homily at the canonisation of Peter Faber, January 3, 2014: “We are men in tension; we are also contradictory and inconsistent men, sinners, all.
But men who want to walk under the gaze of Jesus. We are little, we are sinners, but we want to militate under the standard of the Cross of the Society conferred with the name of Jesus.”
When Francis reminded us that we were sinners, I was taken back to GC 32 Decree 2, Jesuits Today, which states that to be a Jesuit today is “to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus” and, at the same time, to be a companion to Jesus is to “to engage, under the standard of the Cross, in the crucial struggle of our time: the struggle for faith and that struggle for justice which it includes”.
As sinners we become aware of the need for humility before God. We live in a world that is largely dominated by men, a world that inflicts violence, most of it supported and perpetrated by men.
GC 32, Decree 2 and later Decree 4, Our Mission Today: The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice, changed my generation. It kindled in us a new sense of being in the world. It spoke of an integrated struggle, faith with justice.
What many men are struggling with today is to be men in relationship with Jesus. As Jesuits, how do we integrate spirituality and justice, our faith and lives in the world? We were struggling 50 years ago with this and we are still engaging with that struggle to live the truth of that today.
What is one thing you hope for from GC 36?
I hope that GC 36 will recognise what it means for Jesuits to be men, males in a world where almost every day it seems there is more and more violence condoned, supported and perpetrated by men.
As a religious community of men, we Jesuits, myself included, cannot avoid facing the violence done by men in our world. Some would say that this violence is increasing. Nor can we deny the violence some Jesuits and others within our Jesuit-run institutions have perpetrated against children. Nor can we avoid our involvement in not speaking up strongly enough against violence done to women. There is also the violence men have brought upon the earth, not just by war but by economic vandalism and greed.
In GC 34 we have Decree 14, Jesuits and the Situation of Women in the Church and Civil Society, an important document that reflected on our relationship towards women but we do not yet have a document reflecting on what it means to be men. As men, we can find within ourselves a tendency to dominate and be in control. We belong to a church where men hold the power. Pope Francis has reminded us as religious that a sign of our consecrated life is prophecy. As Jesuits we are called to a prophetic mission and in order to be prophetic, we need to face what it means to be men.
To be a Jesuit, a man who seeks to walk ‘under the gaze of Jesus’ and ‘under the standard of the Cross’ means being humble, not seeking to control and hold onto power. It means being strong and protective, gentle and forgiving, willing and wanting to be a companion and servant with Christ.
If we Jesuits can embrace this journey, this deeper reflection on what it means to be men in our world and in our different cultures, I am hoping a new humility will emerge to support a stronger role and voice of women in the Church, a stronger presence of them on our boards and councils, and our being companions with them. It will be taking one more important step forward in implementing Decrees 2 and 4 of GC 34.