Some anecdotes from Fr Arrupe’s life, taken from Hedwig Lewis, Pedro Arrupe Treasury, Gujarat Sahitya Prakash 2007.
“Do you believe I can succeed in learning the tea ceremony in three weeks?” Arrupe asked. Koto-an, a professor with a doctorate on the ceremony, answered him: “If you stay at it, you will get to know the essentials in three years.”
Jo Hayazoe, a novice, would assist Fr Arrupe with his catechism classes. Jo noticed an old man who had been present for the classes for over six months, and who would do nothing but stare at Fr Arrupe’s face. One day Hayazoe asked the old fellow: “Do you understand what the priest is saying?” The old man explained that he was deaf. “I’ve been looking at his eyes all the time. They don’t lie. What he believes in, I believe.”
“One secret of Fr Arrupe’s energy”, reveals one of his close associates, Fr Robert Rush SJ, “was his ability to catnap anytime, anywhere: in automobiles, and on airplanes. He would turn to his companion and say, ‘Excuse me, but I have to do my duty to the Society.’ Soon he would be sleeping peacefully and would arrive at his destination refreshed and ready to give himself completely.”
Fr Eduardo Briceño, the Regional Assistant for Latin America, once suggested to the General: “Why don’t you take a rest?” Fr Arrupe replied, in his characteristic manner: “I don’t need a rest. If I went to Villa Cavaletti (the Jesuit holiday house) I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Sanchez Coelho did an acrylic painting of Fr Arrupe from a photograph for the cover of Time magazine. It showed a lively face, young and smiling. The magazine issue’s appearance coincided with the death of Picasso. Two old ladies were passing a news-stand. One picked up a copy depicting the smiling face of Arrupe. “It doesn’t look at all like Picasso!” she commented.
In June 1978 at the airport of Rome he was suddenly surrounded by twelve policemen who were waiting for him in three cars. They told him that he was the only ‘Vatican Man’ on the blacklist of the Red Brigade which had killed Aldo Moro and warned him of the danger of being kidnapped. “If they demand ransom for me”, he replied, “don’t give them more than ten lire for me.”
“One of Fr Arrupe’s characteristics”, observed Fr Vincent O’Keefe SJ, “was an absorption in persons that contrasted sharply with his lack of interest in buildings and scenery. It is said that during a trip to Egypt he was caught up in a conversation about Jesuits and their apostolates there. As the car in which he was travelling moved along, one of his aides pointed excitedly to the pyramids. Pausing in mid-sentence, Don Pedro looked for a moment, murmured something and nodded his head in appreciation, and then plunged right back into the conversation.” He came several times to India but never asked to be taken to see the Taj Mahal. [There is a ‘karma belief’ in India that those who, being able to come and visit it, don’t, are condemned to be sweepers of the Taj Mahal in their next birth. We might search for Fr Arrupe somewhere in Agra.]
In a writing of his, quoted on p. 132 of the same book, Fr Arrupe described “by exclusion”, that is, defining what a Jesuit should not be, five types of Jesuits, as follows:
“I realise that none of the rough drafts I will offer actually exist as such. But in these ideal types I have conventionally grouped a variety of external traits that, in differing degrees and in a thousand different combinations, can be found in specific Jesuits.
The first type is the full-time protestor. No doubt, denunciation can be a prophetic and evangelical duty. But it is equally true that one must know how, when, about what and whom, and in what form to denounce, and in virtue of what principles, so that the protest will be truly evangelical and constructive.
The second type is the professionalist who lets himself be totally absorbed by the secular aspects of his profession, even though it may have an undoubted apostolic value. He should not let his work put him in a practically independent life, disconnected from any community and any dependence on a Superior. Excessive professionalisation can lead to a secularism that suffocates the spiritual life and all priestly work.
A third type is the irresponsible Jesuit who sees no real value in such things as order, keeping appointments, the value of money, moderation in his recreation, etc. Often he has an unjustified allergy toward any check on his output of work, whether in studies or any other activity.
A fourth type is the political activist, which is something quite different from the social apostle. He may have a sincere desire of being ‘incarnated’ among the poor and oppressed and of getting rid of unjust structures. But when the struggle for justice involves him, not in his legitimate field of Christian criticism and assistance and sharing, but in political and even party matters, sometimes with a total abandoning of his priestly mission, his political or labour-union activities is hardly evangelical and he is hardly living and acting as one sent by the Society.
Finally, there is the fanatically traditionalist type of Jesuit who builds his life around the symbols and practices of a bygone era: his mannerisms, the rigid schedule of his life, the formation of his personal and liturgical practices and spirituality. This Jesuit listens avidly to any pessimistic news; he acidly criticises the younger generations, whose values he is unable to accept and whose defects, real or imagined, he endlessly bemoans. He would never in the world have a bank account, but he quite possibly is well taken care of by like-minded and obsequious families. In his heart he has never accepted GC 31 and GC 32, nor even Vatican II.
All these models are, I repeat, only rough sketches that in real life will very likely have redeeming features in any particular case. None the less, even after making due allowances and admitting good will, these types are simply unacceptable because they do not at all reflect the Society’s way of proceeding.”
