Identity, Ideology, Faith

[Dr. John Dayal]

[JOHN DASYAL'S NOTE: I present thids article by my frien Dr Ambrose
Pinto, Society of Jesus, as an important ideological inoput to the
debate within Christian society in India on issues of Governance,
Policy and Civil Society.]

Jesuit Heritage and The weight of history

Ambrose Pinto(1) SJ
[Ambrose Pinto SJ has been the director of the Indian Social Institute
(New Delhi) and is presently the Principal of St. Joseph's

College, Bangalore.]

When the Congregation meets in 2008 our past heritage is likely to be
the background against which choices will be made. A glance

at our history shows that it consists of both lights and shadows, and
when the Society of Jesus looks critically at its own Jesuit past,

it acknowledges publicly that it is a body of sinners invited to be
saints. To put it differently: our past is not altogether dark, but

neither is it as glorious as it has been made out to be. We may
reasonably hope that when the Congregation meets in 2008 to decide

on priorities for the future, our men will not interpret the present
with reference only to the sinful past. The strategy of recalling the

past to support present choices becomes problematic if a part of our
past is sinful and is acknowledged to be so. The need of the

Congregation to solicit historical legitimacy is real, but if
legitimacy is drawn merely from the past it may lead to some
contentious

concerns and problematic choices. Our tradition may not help us to get
insights into the contemporary situation or inspire us to take

courageous action.
While it is true that in the ultimate analysis we cannot totally
relate the past to the present, and that the distant past may not
really

be a guide to act in the present, it is also equally true that the
past is not to be denied. Our identity as persons and Jesuits is

influenced by the past. St. Ignatius was a Basque and a Spaniard. He
had multiple identities. Besides being a Basque, he was a

soldier, a European, a Christian, a product of the feudal system and a
person who looked at the world from a European perspective.

All these influenced him in the writing of the Exercises and the
Constitution. Like Ignatius, all Jesuits have multiple identities.
Similarly,

as an Indian Jesuit, I too have a regional, local, national,
religious, professional, linguistic and caste identity. Though not
wholly

determining my way of thinking and acting, these multiple identities
make up my world and influence my thinking, acting and

behaving. It is through the prism of these identities that I
understand my being and the world around me. Jesuits need to become

aware of them and make an effort to transcend their limitations and
narrowness.
Multiple identities and contexts
I have no problems living with these multiple identities even
though one has to constantly negotiate with the identities of others
for

harmonious living. Identities do not have to be conflictual. When I
vote in the Indian elections, in spite of my religious identity as a

believer, I may vote for a party that may even deny the presence of
God. If our value systems are similar, the fact that I am a

Christian and a Jesuit need not conflict with my opting for an atheist
political party for the simple reason that a party without a belief

system may be more in consonance with my value system and the larger
concerns that have been derived from my faith than any

other. As long as a group represents the substance of my options, I
have no problems with its religious identity.
All said and done, religion plays only a minor role in the public
realm. If India has to be defined in terms of religion, 80 per cent
of

the country's population are Hindus. Yet the President of the Country
is a Muslim; the Prime Minister a Sikh, and the leader of the

ruling party is an Italian-born Catholic; the country has no problems
with their religious identities. It merely indicates that the
religious

domain does not have to overwhelm the total arena of life. If it did,
how do we explain the breakdown of the Holy Roman Empire?

Closer home, both Pakistan and Bangladesh were once one country, but
they split into two countries in spite of a common religion.

India has managed to live with multiple linguistic, ethnic and
religious identities.
As an Indian Jesuit, I cannot live with merely one identity - the
universal identity of a Jesuit. In fact, I am of the opinion that it
is

difficult to conceive of a uniform, universal and single identity for
all Jesuits. The Jesuit identity is only one among many other

identities. In fact, it is an identity that we take after assuming
many other identities. I was not born a Jesuit. One may even say that,
at

least till the beginning of my religious life, my local, regional,
religious, linguistic and cultural identities, all of them rooted in
the past,

shaped me more strongly than my Jesuit identity. It is true that I
cannot live merely with them, but on the other hand, neither can I
live

wholly without them. Other identities may have impacted me more than
the religious. The problem is this: how will the Congregation

inspire Jesuits to live with their multiple identities at a time when
there is a growing consciousness among people and communities of

their distinctiveness? This, I would think, is a challenge for the
Congregation.
If the Congregation merely refers to the past and the grace of
the founder and works at a common document, it may not be able

to look at the world as it is. St. Ignatius was relevant then to that
part of the world, which was caught up with the Reformation. His

Counter-Reformation was to bring people back into the faith. However,
the situation was not the same in other parts of the world at

that time. Today too, the contexts and world reality are different in
different parts of the world. It is no longer a world determined by

the Enlightenment, Renaissance or Reformation alone. There are
developed and developing countries. Besides affluence, there is

starvation, death, hunger and oppression in more countries and within
many countries. The Congregation may not be able to prioritise

choices for the present which are passively determined by the past.
The evolving multiple identities of Jesuits spread over different

parts of the world must play a decisive role in decision-making while
responding to mission. There may be occasions when the single

Jesuit identity defined and later developed at its origin comes into
conflict with the particular identity of Jesuits living within a
region

or Assistancy, as well as across regions and Assistancies. More
pronounced differences may exist between Northern and Southern

regions or Assistancies.
It is important, therefore, for our understanding of the Society
of Jesus, to position Jesuits against the social and economic

backgrounds from which they hail. Jesuits from North America, and
Europe are Jesuits with a Jesuit identity that shares certain traits.

This is equally true for Indians or Africans. In a globalised world,
the values and the ethos of capitalism have shaped the identity of

Jesuits all over the world. Other Jesuits the world over may have been
more influenced by 'socialistic' ways of thinking and acting.

These different cultural backgrounds and identities make it difficult
to speak of a single Jesuit identity determined from the past.
We may also mention the opinion of those who feel that, while
Christian ethics is not premised on private property, the capitalist

world has always taught, defended and protected private property as
part of Christian ethics. It took many years for Catholic Social

Teaching to adopt a more balanced view towards private property. A
similar phenomenon seems to have occurred as regards

'individualism'. The concept of individual sin, indulgences and a host
of other religious practices have kept religion at the level of the

individual without any social implication. This 'individualism' played
a role in the development of the capitalist ethos and in fostering

certain forms of Christianity in Europe.
In other words, we belong to our countries and carry the baggage
of our socio-economic locations. What does this translate into,

in reality? While the capitalist value system of excessive
individualism, unlimited freedom, consumerism, combined with a certain
kind

of ethnic or social superiority, is likely to be a part of some
Jesuits, other Jesuits may share a more egalitarian and socialistic
vision of

society. We are all inheritors of our legacies and we cannot escape
them. There is a need to respond to these diversities if we are to

be relevant in mission. Given the fact of our conditioning, a total
inner freedom may not be easy to possess or acquire.
If, then, the Society of Jesus is a diverse body of people who
have internalised different value systems and attitudes, it follows

that it may be difficult to arrive at a single Jesuit identity or even
a common mission. As long as the contexts are not the same, the

Jesuit mission will vary from place to place, from country to country.
To define Jesuits across the world with a single identity or

mission is to negate the local, regional and national characteristics.
In India, the Hindutva movement has attempted to define the

country with a single identity. There are other single identity-
mongers right across the world, from Christian fanatics to Islamic

extremists and communalists. The consequences of such definitions are
attacks on smaller traditions and plural ways of life and a

growing intolerance. Surely, the Jesuit way of life must have a
universal human dimension without being uniform. To achieve

universality coupled with diversity in Jesuit identity we need to
proceed through discussions and debates.

Debate: our way of proceeding
Leaving aside then the colonial past with its legacy of conquest
and triumphalism, and its use of the spiritual to legitimise

exploitative decisions, we have to take decisions in the changed
situation collectively, by reasoning. The divine right theory has

created more problems than solutions in administration and governance.
We are confronted with unjust social and economic orders

in all countries of the world, but especially in Africa and Asia. Many
of these countries, formerly colonies, have been recently freed.

The mission of the Jesuits in these countries is to struggle with
people to establish a just social order, to address the needs of
groups

and communities for whom nobody cares. To respond to realities here,
one needs awareness and reflection, intense debate and

decisions. Choices and priorities arrived at through such debate are
bound to be more vibrant and relevant.
We must admit that awareness of powerless groups was not part of
our tradition. The Society of Jesus, when it was founded, was

an elitist group connected with the establishment, associated with
centres of power and pomp which cared not at all for the rights of

communities and groups. The poor were the target of our mission and
not our companions in pilgrimage. We must acknowledge that

we run the risk of making a myth of our "glorious" past which can now
rob us of the desire to radicalize our mission by asking us to

hold on to the past. Arrupe, through his prophetic leadership, helped
us to announce and denounce unjust structures so that we may

add our mite to the creation of a just world. Fr. Kolvenbach has
brought the multi-cultural and multi-religious dimensions into the

mission. There have been heroic lives too in this Society of ours,
those who have provided inspiration and example. There is a need

to further the mission offered by these heroes by being totally open
to the reality outside of us.
What do I expect from the Congregation and the next leadership? I
expect it to be able to look back at history without allowing

the past to govern our actions in the present. The past has to be
recognised. But it cannot be permitted to guide us totally. The

problem with the past is that it has been predominantly Euro-centric:
it has tended to look at the rest of the world as somehow

inferior. The way we view reality is seldom objective; all that we see
and evaluate, our past as well as the future, is mediated by our

particular position. Europeans looked at Asia-African countries from
their particular position. Many shared the opinion that these

countries needed to learn their culture in order to be civilised. A
European culture was imposed then through the march of armies.

Today it is done through trade. If all cultures and people are to be
treated as equal, this needs to change. The particular position the

Society of Jesus holds should locate us in relation to the people at
large, especially in the African and Asian reality.
The Congregation needs to adopt "practical reason" as the mode of
procedure if the Society of Jesus has to be renewed and

vitalized. Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate, asserts in his recent book
The Argumentative Indian that practical reason is important for

argumentation, and he attributes India's success in democracy,
secularism, and social movements to this capacity for argument. The

Society of Jesus too has such a tradition of argumentation. It is this
tradition that made us different from other religious orders when

we were founded. The Congregation should have recourse to this and be
guided by reasoning to arrive at choices and priorities. St.

Ignatius has a greater relevance today precisely because of his
rationalistic and reasoning tradition. This tradition can still shed
light

on our present concerns and help us to define ourselves differently.
As a Society, we are more multicultural now than we were at any
other time, and this is likely to be felt in the forthcoming

Congregation more than ever before. Multiculturalism is all about
treating people as equals. There are no high or low, superior or

inferior traditions. All traditions have their strengths and
weaknesses. Non-discrimination is a part of this multiculturalism.
The

members of the Congregation have always had freedom. That freedom is
essential for preserving multiculturalism. However, there

may be a need for a change of pedagogy. The Congregation may have to
give up traditionalism and opt instead for the pursuit of

reason by addressing contemporary social and political realities. The
membership of the Society in terms of geographical location has

changed. The debates and discussions in the congregation too are bound
to change. I repeat: we have a long and robust tradition of

disagreement, dissent and debate in the Society. There is a need to
revive that tradition to make all Jesuits participants. That
tradition

can help and serve us in our mission as a powerful vehicle for
altering the inequities of class, gender, caste and other social
divisions

and make our contribution to that "other world" preached by Jesus.

Ambrose Pinto SJ
Principal of St. Joseph's College
P.B. 27094, Lal Bagh Road
Bangalore 560 027
INDIA
<p_am...@hotmail.com>