Networking and the Jesuit 4th Vow

I’m sure you know that we, the Jesuits, have a fourth vow. Beyond the three classic religious vows – poverty, chastity, and obedience – the Society of Jesus has this unique characteristic of a fourth vow of obedience to the Pope. This frequently misunderstood link with the Pontiff of Rome is not just an expression of loyalty to the Pope – that’s for sure – but an excellent intuition of Ignatius to express a dedication to a worldwide and unconditioned ministry. There is no way of talking about networking, universal mission and the global dimension of our ministries without referring to this direct link to the Bishop of the universal Church. The Jesuits, through this special vow, want to share this aspect of the Pope’s ministry: its universality and global scope.
This is a long way to say that our commitment to ministry any place in the world for God’s greater service has a structural expression through this vow. This is why we say that this is a missionary vow, a vow of mobility, to travel for the sake of the ministry, a vow of readiness to travel anywhere in the world searching for the greater glory of God.
For Arrupe this vow was the “principle and foundation” of the Society, a condition of its structure, through which the Jesuits achieve greater availability and offer the Church a better service. Maybe I’m obsessed with global networks but experts in the history of the Society like John O’Malley, William A. Barry or even the sociologist José Casanova emphasize this interpretation. Through this vow, the Jesuits keep the global vision in all its ministries, become global players for the Church, and in this framework, networking starts to happen for the good of the mission. Interesting.
Last week, in Madrid, together with 7 other companions, I pronounced my last vows in the Society of Jesus. May this 4th vow really make us radically available, ready to be local and rooted but also globally engaged and co-responsible with the universal mission. AMDG.
Photo from Flickr by jmjrio2013 under Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).