Availability for Mission
Our special vow of obedience to the Pope means we are available for mission wherever the Holy Father wishes to send us and wherever the need is greatest. We work as pastors, teachers, and chaplains. We are also doctors, lawyers, and astronomers, among many other roles in Church and society. In our varied ministries, we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and care for the whole person: body, mind, and soul.
As Pope Paul VI said – a text repeated by subsequent Popes
“Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, at the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there has been and there is confrontation between the burning exigencies of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, here also there have been, and there are, Jesuits.”
(Pope Paul VI, Address to General Congregation 32, 3 December 1974, repeated by Pope Benedict in his address to GC35 and by Pope Francis in documents sent prior to GC36).
As Pope Paul VI said – a text repeated by subsequent Popes
“Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, at the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there has been and there is confrontation between the burning exigencies of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, here also there have been, and there are, Jesuits.”
(Pope Paul VI, Address to General Congregation 32, 3 December 1974, repeated by Pope Benedict in his address to GC35 and by Pope Francis in documents sent prior to GC36).