Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach S.J. was born in 1928, joined the Jesuits in 1948, was ordained in 1961, and served as Superior General from 1983-2008. After resigning, he returned to his beloved Lebanon and became assistant librarian at the Université de Saint-Joseph in Beirut, where he died on 26 November 2016, a few days short of his 88th birthday.

Any catalogue of his gifts, qualities and virtues would be very long. Kolvenbach was reserved, intensely private by temperament, more a “monk” one might say than a typically active and outgoing Jesuit. He developed great asceticism and spirituality, rising very early in the morning to pray and to celebrate the Divine Liturgy (the Mass) according to the Armenian rite.

Many were impressed by his enormous intelligence and, most famously, his prodigious memory. Although I never asked him about this, I’m convinced he used a memory palace, a technique going back to ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric and perfected by the early Jesuits. Everyone and everything had a tag. But sometimes an erroneous epithet got attached to someone’s name, and then it seemed my job to try (not always successfully) to correct it.

The General’s co-workers at the Jesuit Curia remember his humility, his holiness, his integrity, his patience and serenity, his sense of humour, his skilful diplomacy. An essential talent was the ability to face a problem, see it through to a resolution, and then put it away … he didn’t let it linger and drag him down. He was deeply dedicated to dialogue, meeting early each morning with all his Councillors or Assistants in order to share the news and consider the day’s issues in common.

On 13 September 1983, at the age of 55, Fr Kolvenbach was elected Superior General of the Society of Jesus. The next day, he wrote to the whole Society:

The Lord wishes to make use of our Society to announce to the men and women of today’s world—with a pastoral preference for those who suffer injustices in this world—the Good News of the Kingdom in a way that speaks to their culture and condition of life. He wants us in this way to serve His Church and the vicar of Christ, Pope John Paul II.

An expression which may have been Kolvenbach’s favourite and which certainly sums up the leadership which he offered to the Society of Jesus is “creative fidelity”. He explained the term in an important address to the World-Wide Gathering of Provincials of the Society of Jesus at Loyola, Spain, on 22.09.2000, the turn of the millennium:

Our experience of Ignatius is not that of a founder who builds on stable and enduring underpinnings, but of an animator, an inspirer who sends us out on one of the possible paths toward God… For Ignatius the Society's foundation was not a rule or a doctrine, an organizational chart or an organization, but a source of living water which, in discerning the Spirit, gushes up ceaselessly anew, cooling and revitalizing for a greater service of God and God's kingdom of love. [1]

But in promoting “creative fidelity”, had he been forced to choose, I feel that Kolvenbach would have chosen the faithful part, while expecting those around him to supply the creativity … and giving them his fullest support.

When asked for a characteristic insight, many commentators choose these words of Fr Kolvenbach’s:

When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity, which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection… [Everyone] should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose, and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed.[2]

From within, he was convinced, would we be authentically moved to reach out to others in need. The contrast, which he did not appreciate, was “shouting”.

In 1996, the General allowed me to recruit an Italian regent to help organize the Social Apostolate Congress of the following year. A few months after Giacomo Costa S.J. began, Fr Kolvenbach asked me how he was doing. “Fine,” I said. “And what about languages?” he asked. “He speaks all of them” I said, meaning English, French, Italian and Spanish, “like you do.” “And how do I speak?” asked Fr Kolvenbach. “With impunity,” I replied (which delighted him, this life-long linguist). And he shared his joy: “The mistakes of one time become the norms of the next; that’s how languages develop.”

In 1993, Louisa Blair, a Canadian writer, did a book-length interview book with Fr. Kolvenbach.[3] When she heard about his death, she wrote: “How well I remember being promised 15 minutes to talk to him and then spending more than an hour with him in a little cabin at Anderson Lake in Northern Ontario.” Little did she know that he never gave spontaneous interviews, insisting on questions in advance which were answered in writing (not always directly by him). “Such an infinitely deep and thoughtful man,” Louisa went on: “I remember waking up at 4 am and seeing his light already on, because he was praying. So we have another good man rooting for us in heaven now.”

When I gratefully think of him, my first association is with Jesus admiring the reliable householder: "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old" (Matthew 13:51). And after that the Lord will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant – having been trustworthy [in] many great things, come and enter into the joy of your Master!” (Matthew 25:23).

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Michael Czerny S.J. served Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as Secretary for the Social Apostolate at the Jesuit Curia in Rome, 1992-2002.

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[1] “Creative Fidelity in Mission” 

[2] Keynote Address at Santa Clara University's Justice Conference, 6.10.2000

[3] Louisa Blair with Martin Royackers S.J. and Robert Chodos, New Vigor for the Church: Conversations on the global challenges of our times, 1993.