Pedro Arrupe

Pedro Arrupe Gondra, SJ (14 November 1907 – 5 February 1991) was a Spanish Basque priest who served as the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983.

He has been called a second founder of the Society, as he led the Jesuits in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, especially with regard to faith that does justice and preferential option for the poor.

In 1923, he moved to Madrid to attend the Medical School of the Universidad Complutense.

There he met Severo Ochoa, who later won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

In 1926, Arrupe's father died, an event which filled him with great sadness.

In the summer of the same year he went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes with his four sisters.

The experiences he gathered from Lourdes were fundamental for his future life.

In the conversations with Jean-Claude Dietsch, SJ he described his experiences as follows:

Subsequent to these gathered findings, Arrupe decided not continue his medical studies.

On 15 January 1927, he joined the Society of Jesus.

He was unable to pursue his studies for the priesthood in Spain, since the Jesuits had been expelled by the Spanish Republican government (1931–1939).

One of his teachers was Juan Negrín, a pioneer in physiology, who would become Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic during the Civil War (1936–1939).

Arrupe received the top prize in the first year anatomy course.

Accordingly, the young Arrupe did his studies in the Netherlands and Belgium and at Saint Louis University School of Divinity in St. Marys, Kansas, where he was ordained in 1936.

Arrupe then completed a doctorate in Medical Ethics.

After his doctorate, Arrupe was sent to work as a missionary in Japan.

His early years as missionary were very frustrating for him.

No matter what he did, what he organised, people did not attend, and few if any converted to Christianity.

When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in Hawaii on 7 December 1941, it was 8 December in Japan.

Arrupe was celebrating the Eucharist for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception when he was arrested and imprisoned for a time, being suspected of espionage.

On Christmas Eve, Arrupe heard people gathering outside his cell door and presumed that the time for him to be executed had arrived.

However, to his utter surprise, he discovered that some fellow Catholics, ignoring all danger, had come to sing him Christmas carols.

Upon this realization, Arrupe recalled that he burst into tears.

His attitude of profound prayer and his lack of offensive behaviour gained him the respect of his jailers and judges, and he was set free within a month.

Arrupe was appointed Jesuit superior and novice master in Japan in 1942, and was living in suburban Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell in August 1945.

He was one of eight Jesuits who were within the blast zone of the bomb, and all eight survived the destruction, protected by a hillock which separated the novitiate from the center of Hiroshima.

Arrupe described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."

Arrupe used his medical skills to help those who were wounded or dying.

The Jesuit novitiate was converted into a makeshift hospital where between 150 and 200 people received care.

Arrupe recalled, "The chapel, half destroyed, was overflowing with the wounded, who were lying on the floor very near to one another, suffering terribly, twisted with pain."

Stationed as novice master outside Hiroshima in 1945, Arrupe used his medical background as a first responder to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

In 1958, Arrupe was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan, a position he held until being elected Father General in 1965.

Prior to being elected Father General, Arrupe made a visit to Latin America and, on one occasion, was celebrating the Eucharist in a suburban slum.

He was deeply moved at the devotion and respect the people had for Christ, in the midst of their abject poverty.

After the service, a man invited Arrupe to his hovel, where he told him that he was so grateful for his visit and that he wanted to share the only gift he had, that of watching the setting sun together.

Arrupe reflected, "He gave me his hand. As I was leaving, I thought: 'I have met very few hearts that are so kind.'"

In 1983, a paralysis from a stroke caused him to resign from office.

He lived on until 1991, when he died in the local Jesuit infirmary.

His cause for sainthood was opened by the Jesuits and the Diocese of Rome in 2018.

Pedro Arrupe attended school at the Santiago Apostol High School in Bilbao.