Even good Religious men and women find it hard to believe this. “Is it true,” they ask, “that a former Jesuit Superior General lived and died as an Assistant Librarian in a college?” However hard it may be to believe, that is the truth.
Peter Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, who was one of the most successful Generals of the Society of Jesus, having been at the helm for 25 years from 1983 to 2008, died on 26 Nov 2016 in a hospital in Lebanon. The day he was buried – 30 November – happened to be his 88th birthday.
Born in Druten, Netherlands on 30 November, 1928, Fr. Kolvenbach joined the Jesuits in 1948 at the age of 20. After finishing his studies in philosophy he volunteered to work in Lebanon, where he studied theology and was ordained a priest of the Armenian Catholic Church in 1961. A linguist and a scholar who knew several languages, he taught in several universities around the world –in Lebanon, Paris, and The Hague. He served as Vice Provincial of the Middle East before being made the Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
Extremely painful events happened after 1981 when the then Jesuit General, the well-known Fr Pedro Arrupe, suffered a paralytic stroke. But Pope John Paul II refused to permit him to resign. In an unprecedented move, the Pope appointed his own Delegate to look after the administration. After two years the Papal Delegate called for a General Congregation in 1983, which elected Fr Kolvenbach the Superior General. He was the first one from an Eastern Rite to be elected to the top post.
His lifestyle and daily schedule put many to shame. Fr Michael Amaladoss, SJ, who lived with him at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome as one of the General’s advisors, says, “He would rise very early to spend a considerable amount of time in prayer. He never left any work on his table when he went to bed. So he had his mornings free for prayer. He used to travel with one or two changes of inner linen, which he used to wash himself. Once when he visited India a Jesuit found his vests were torn and he had to coax him to buy a pair of new ones. His room was bare, except for a table and two chairs. Apart from a small tape recorder which he used to listen to news and to learn languages, a book which he was reading and the day’s files, there would be nothing on his table.”
His meals were meager and he would not touch alcohol – not even wine. When he wanted to visit other houses in Rome he usually walked.
People feel moved when they learn what happened when he wanted to resign. He was nearly seventy-three, and he realized his health was deteriorating. Fr Julian Fernandes, SJ, who too lived with him as an advisor, describes what happened: “Against his wish, but humbly obedient to his advisors and to the house superior, he was hospitalized and underwent prolonged treatment. In his prayerful discernment over the following months he came to the conclusion that at the age of 75 he would submit his resignation. Having discussed it in confidence with his close council, he went to seek Pope John Paul II’s approval. The Pope, by then himself seriously handicapped by Parkinson’s, had deep trust in him and was reluctant to have a new Jesuit General to deal with. Kolvenbach returned to the Jesuit curia and repeated to the council what the Pope, citing the Ignatian rule that the General is “ad vitam”(for life), had told him: “Trust in the Lord and continue serving the Society and the Church.” “Seeing the Pope himself in that condition,” he confided to us, “what more could I say?”
It was five years later when he was eighty the new Pope Benedict XVI allowed him to resign. When the General Congregation accepted his resignation, he went back to Lebanon with just one suitcase and chose to be the Assistant Librarian at the Jesuit college.
May his example shine brightly when the darkness brought upon by mindless consumerism does not allow us to see what is valuable and what is not, what is really needed and what is not!
– Fr M. A. Joe Antony SJ is at present editor, Jivan, the magazine of South Asian Jesuits and the executive secretary of and advisor to the Provincial Superior of Jesuits in Tamil Nadu. For 20 years he edited the New Leader and gave it a new life and reputation.
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