Catholic Social Learning: Educating the Faith That Does Justice

2. Ignatian Pedagogy and the Faith That Does Justice

2 Ignatian Pedagogy and the Faith That Does Justice When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), the first teaching order in the Church,1 is known for producing both master teachers and, in the second half of the sixteenth century, the world’s first school system, ‘‘one of the most successful . . . the Western world has ever seen.’’2 Although Ignatius of Loyola had no intention of becoming, in effect, a superintendent of schools when he founded the order in 1540, by the time of his death in 1556, he was overseeing 35 schools still in operation of the 40 he had approved; by the end of the century, when the famous Ratio Studiorum (Plan of Studies for Jesuit schools) was published , some 245 schools for boys and young men had been founded (p. 224; see note 2). That number had increased to 845 in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa by 1773 when the Society was suppressed. When Pope Pius VII restored the Society in 1814, he wrote that he did so ‘‘‘so that the Catholic Church could have, once again, the benefit of their [the Jesuits’] educational experience.’’’3 At the turn of the millennium, some 2,000 schools for both boys and girls, men and women, were operating under Jesuit auspices in 56 countries worldwide , involving 10,000 Jesuits, nearly 100,000 lay collaborators, and more than 1.5 million students (p. 230). From Fe y Alegrı́a primary schools for the poor in Latin America, to the ‘‘Nativity’’ model middle schools and the new Cristo Rey high schools for the disadvantaged in the United States, to college preparatory high schools and colleges and universities throughout the Americas , the Jesuits are a formidable force in education.4 Especially since 兩 21 兩 22 兩 Foundations its 32nd General Congregation in 1975, when the Society formally and famously, in Decree 4 of its proceedings, named its mission as ‘‘the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement ,’’ Jesuit education has become a formidable force for education for justice.5 That this is true for Jesuit higher education in the United States is demonstrated in the following section. ‘‘The Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education’’ In early 1999, to prepare for the twenty-fifth anniversary of that momentous decision, the presidents of Boston College, University of Detroit Mercy, and Santa Clara University called upon all 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States to participate in local, regional, and national conversations on what had been done and learned in that quarter of a century of ‘‘The Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education.’’6 Each school prepared a self-study for presentation at one of three conferences held later that year at the campuses of the initiating presidents. One year later, in October 2000, all 28 schools sent delegations to a national conference hosted by Santa Clara University on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. Follow -up meetings have been held at Loyola University Chicago in 2002, at John Carroll University in Cleveland in 2005, and at Fairfield University in 2009. I have been honored to be the chair of the Creighton delegations to all the conferences we’ve attended, and therefore also the editor/author of ‘‘Education for Justice at Creighton University Since 1975: A Self-Study.’’7 Undoubtedly, the highlight of all these proceedings was the keynote address on October 6, 2000, at Santa Clara by the Rev. PeterHans Kolvenbach, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus. Like Justice in the World, the document produced by the 1971 Synod of Bishops in Rome, it gives a tantalizing glimpse of a pedagogy adequate to the demands of teaching justice, of Catholic social learning. But before examining that address, we should review its principal recent antecedents.8 Ignatian Pedagogy and the Faith That Does Justice 兩 23 Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., and ‘‘Men and Women for Others’’ (1973) Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., like Ignatius of Loyola a Basque, is often referred to as the ‘‘second founder’’ of the Society of Jesus.9 As his successor Fr. Kolvenbach writes, ‘‘as the Jesuit General from 1965 to 1983, Father Arrupe led his brother Jesuits through a challenging period of renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council.’’10 Kevin Burke, S...