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Jesuit Superior, Nicolas, Appointed Head of Religious Orders

By Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican Insider
May 17, 2013

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/inquiries-and-interviews/detail/articolo/nicolas-religiosi-religious-religiosos-24920/

Fr. Adolfo Nicolas

Fr. Adolfo Nicolas (Superior General of the Society of Jesus since 2008) is the new President of the International Union of Superiors General. The UISG represents the superior generals of more than 200 male religious congregations.

In 2006 and 2009, when the Vatican would not do anything its Salesian Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone was not okay with, his fellow Salesian Fr. Pascual Chavez Villanueva, Rector Major of the Society of St. John Bosco, served two mandates as head of the Union. Not long after the first Jesuit in history was elected Pope, the world leader of the Society of Jesus has now been appointed as head of the UISG.

Up until now, Fr. Nicolas was Vice President of the Superiors General and replaces the Franciscan Jose Rodriguez Carballo (the organisation’s top man for just one year), who was appointed Secretary of the Vatican Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The new Vice President will be elected during the General Assembly which has been scheduled for November. The Union of Superiors General is an institution of pontifical tight, founded by the Congregation for Religious.

Its purpose is to promote the life and mission of individual institutes that work in service of the Church, so as to make their collaboration more efficient and contact with the Holy See and the hierarchy more fruitful.” All superiors general of religious institutes or societies of apostolic life of pontifical right are members of the UISG. Superiors general of institutes of diocesan right can join the Union as adjunct members. The UISG’s supreme body is the general assembly which is required to meet at least once a year. It is responsible for electing the UISG council, which acts as an executive body, comprising a president, vice-president and ten advisors. The superiors general, who are members of the UISG, hold an assembly twice a year to discuss problems and issues of common interest. The UISG also works through the various Commissions, some of them permanent, others established ad hoc, on an as-needed basis.

Fr. Nicolas was nicknamed the “black pope” because of the colour of his cassock, because he has been elected to his position for life, just like the Pope and because as the Jesuit superior, he is the leader of the largest and most powerful religious order in the world. His long experience in Asia -a land that is proving fertile for evangelisation - and his ability to “govern” are qualities the Society of Jesus sought back in January 2008 when Nicolas was appointed as leader of the world’s 19.200 Jesuits. His training and pastoral experience were gained in Asia, especially Japan.

The Spanish theologian is the second out of the order’s 29 successors to come from the Land of the Rising Sun, after the missionary Pedro Arrupe (one of the witnesses of the Hiroshima tragedy). Nicolas was born in Palencia, Spain, in 1936. He has a degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University and in 1971 he completed the Master of Sacred Theology at Sophia University in Tokyo, where he went onto become a professor of Systematic Theology. He was director of the Pastoral Institute in Manila from 1978 to 1984 and between 1991 and 1993 he was rector of theologate in Tokyo. He was Provincial of the Jesuit Province of Tokyo between 1993 and 1999.

The, between 2004 and 2007, the new “black pope” was President of the Jesuit Conference of Provincials for Eastern Asia and Oceania. He is highly esteemed within the Jesuit order and the Vatican, partly because of the good job he did as Secretary of the last General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. During the meeting, Fr. Kolvenbach managed to ensure the Jesuits returned to more moderate positions.

 

 

 

 

 




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