Beatification of Jesuit general one step closer

The beatification process for the former Jesuit general Pedro Arrupe (1907-1991) has taken an important hurdle. The diocesan phase of the process will be completed on 14 November, the Vicariate of Rome announced on Wednesday. The beatification process was formally opened in 2019 at the request of the Jesuits.

Arrupe was born in 1907 in the Basque Country and joined the Jesuit order in 1927 after studying medicine. He went to Japan as a missionary in 1938. From 1942, he worked as a novice master in Hiroshima, where he witnessed the dropping of the atomic bomb and subsequently turned his order's novitiate into a field hospital. In 1965, shortly before the end of the Second Vatican Council, he was elected Superior General of the order.

Term of office ended with a crisis

When a stroke incapacitated Arrupe in 1981, Pope John Paul II appointed a "personal delegate" to lead the order, plunging the Jesuits into a serious crisis that only ended in 1983 with the election of a successor. Arrupe died in Rome in 1991.

A beatification is preceded by a precisely defined ecclesiastical investigation procedure. The relevant diocese must collect information about the person's life and death and provide evidence of a miracle or martyrdom as well as virtue and a "reputation for holiness". Once the procedure has been completed, the files are forwarded to the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. It checks the authenticity of the documents and witness statements and, if necessary, obtains expert opinions on miracles. Once the process has been successfully completed, the Pope declares that the deceased may be declared blessed and publicly honoured. (KNA)