The Extreme Oath of the Jesuits:
I promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.
The Society of Jesus is to hold the first plenary session of its 36th General Congregation at the Jesuit Curia in Rome on October 3rd.
The Congregation will last until it has completed its business which is to discuss the renewal of Jesuit life and mission within the complexities of the current world scenario; and to discuss renewal of governance.
A General Congregation represents the supreme governing body of the Jesuit order. It has only taken place 35 times since the Society was founded in 1540 by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
During this congregation 215 Jesuits from around the globe will gather to elect a new Superior General as Father Adolfo Nicolas has announced his intention to resign.
Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni spoke to Jesuit Father Patrick Mulemi, Director of the Communications and Public Relations Office of the Society of Jesus, about how he expects the General Congregation to play out.
Asked what is the inspiration behind the Logo for GC 36 which reads ‘Rowing into the Deep’ Fr Mulemi explains it comes from Pope Francis’ message to the Jesuits upon the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Society of Jesus in 2014 in the Church of the Gesù in Rome.
“He invited us to row, he invited us to keep rolling and he invited us to row along with him ‘to weather the storms’” he says.
He also says that in a way the logo reflects the complexity of the world today and the challenges faced by the Jesuits although the atmosphere in which they are about to gather is of utmost serenity.
Fr Mulemi explains that the ‘postulata’ (petitions/requests received from province congregations) have already been presented to the Congregation from different parts of the world and they reflect the different challenges, the different works, the different intentions and the direction people want the Society to take in different parts of the globe.
“That’s what we are going to be looking at especially in the first week of the Congregation: looking at the state of the Society and what Jesuits in different parts of the world are saying; how they are experiencing the Society, the Church; and more in general, how they are experiencing the ministry. So all that is going to have a play in the general direction the Congregation takes” he says.
The Extreme Oath of the Jesuits:
I promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus
