7/16/20: A Message from Provincial Scott Santarosa, S.J.

July 16, 2020
 
Dear Directors of Works and members of the Jesuits West Family,
Greetings of peace to you.

It has been a great challenge to be a leader in these past several months. For me, the Coronavirus has brought sudden, radical shifts in my schedule and way of doing work. Just when I think I understand the implications and make adjustments, I am forced to admit that I was wrong. Further, the pandemic has exposed some truths that have been humbling for me and my Jesuit brothers to accept. Among them, we realize we are not as affected as are the majority of people, and therefore we feel we not in the kind of solidarity with the poor and marginalized as we had hoped to be. In this context the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis awoke much of the country and even the world to the racism that is endemic to our society. I myself have had to contend with my own awakening, admitting that I am the beneficiary of privileges as a white man. As a result of these tumultuous challenges, most of the time I do not know what to say—to Jesuits, to you as Directors of Works, or to anyone.  

One Jesuit recently reminded me that shame and confusion are graces in the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises, as these can lead us to new places of honesty and a desire to change. Our Catholic faith reminds us through scriptures that we are always called to conversion, to a deeper place of truth with ourselves and with God. I experience these—shame, confusion—and I do indeed hope that they lead me to a new place. When I started as Provincial, with a mixture of feelings in my heart, I found so much solace in this passage from the Prophet Isaiah:

I will lead the blind on their journey;
by paths unknown I will guide them.
I will turn darkness into light before them,
and make crooked ways straight.  (Is 42:16)

I imagine each of you also has a mixture of feelings in your heart. I hope you can embrace whatever is in your heart in these days as part of the “path unknown” that will lead you into the light. I even hope that you can admit your own vulnerability to those you lead. Who knows how God will use that vulnerability to draw surprises out of yourselves and others?

Even in the midst of the confusing mixture of feelings I have, I write today to share with you some sense of where I believe the Spirit is moving us in these challenging times. I write after having listened to various voices throughout the Province through numerous conversations with Jesuits, and especially after four listening sessions with Jesuits; after participating in the Faith Doing Justice Discernment Series with over 200 Arrupe Delegates and Discerners; and after a time of reflection and retreat with members of our own Province Equity and Inclusion Committee. In and through these days I have had various conversations with Directors of Works, who have shared their own struggle to figure out finances, and how to move forward in uncertain times during this ongoing pandemic, and yet share the urgency to foster deep reflection and action on race this year. My ardent prayer in these times has been that we can all be responsible to this Moment. 
 
As I hear these voices, I feel strongly that these are some of the ways we are being called by the Spirit:

1. To pray together – At the beginning of the 2019-20 year, I invited Directors of Works to engage in some form of the Spiritual Exercises together in regions. I issued the same invitation to the Jesuits in their Communities. I firmly believe in these uncertain times we need to invest more fully in one another, sharing both how the Good Spirit and the Enemy of our Nature are working upon us. It is my persistent hope that sharing the fruit of our prayer will help us grow in trust of one another, and thereby help us grow as communities of discernment.

 

2. To use our collective power for the good – Our Province has flourishing and influential apostolates. Our apostolates even enjoy a certain privilege. We have a responsibility to use our voice to influence decision-makers in our society to act on behalf of justice: for the poor, for people of color, for those too often left out. My experience of the Ignite summer organizing training for Jesuit students, and the recent Prayer Vigil of the Jesuit Works of the State of Washington (who on a Zoom call with two elected officials had over 500 members of the Washington Jesuit family calling for COVID relief funding for our undocumented brothers and sisters) has confirmed for me the importance of this work for our Province. 

 

3. To fully embrace the Jesuits West Collaborative Organizing for Racial Equity (CORE) – The 5month conversation process for Arrupe Delegates and Discerners concluded with a clear articulation of the need to work on racial equity. I am therefore happy to announce Jesuits West CORE:  Collaborative Organizing for Racial Equity as the work that will unite our Province social ministry organizing efforts. I know that many of you are worrying about the financial feasibility of your organizations, while facing urgent calls to do deep, transformational work on race in the coming years. I hope that the Directors of Works will see this as a way that the Province truly sanctions the work you are already doing on anti-racism, and that our common work through the Collaborative can help  achieve larger results that your own constituencies might be asking of you. The group of Arrupe Delegates and Discerners has assembled a team of people from within the institutions of our Province to form a toolkit and covenant that will serve as a resource and common call in this work. They have also recommended that we challenge ourselves to see if we among the collective works of the Province can achieve a common goal of 10,000 CORE Actions for Equity. These actions could take any form of calling for specific changes to policies in the public sphere that impact racial equity, such as calls to voters, letters to elected officials, or registering people to vote. This number feels ambitious and exciting, but it is also based in reality. Our Washington Discernment group mentioned above recruited nearly 200 people to write to legislators regarding a fund for undocumented Washingtonians, and then recruited 500 people to attend their rally. Their work alone constitutes 700 actions gets us 7% of the way to our goal without even starting the school year! Next week you will receive a full report on the Faith Doing Justice Discernment Series. In the meantime, please reach out to your own Arrupe Delegates to get more information about what this work could look like in your region. I am confident that it will be a help to you as you lead your institution in these times of awakening to racial injustice.

 

4. To continue the Dialogue with Descendants of persons held in slavery – The U.S. Provincials have been contending with our own history as a former slave-holding institution. This dialogue has been truly humbling. Talk about shame and confusion! The folks around the table have agreed to hold this dialogue in confidentiality for now, and more will be revealed in the future. Suffice it to say, I believe it is vital that as members of the Society of Jesus we continue to learn about our history with the sin of racism. For us in the west, this also means honest reflection on our relationships with Native Peoples and others, and how those relationships need further reconciliation. 

 

5. To broaden ownership of equity and inclusion as our way of proceeding – Just as Jesuit institutions have done their own internal work on anti-racism, so also these past two years the Jesuits of Jesuits West have engaged this work. Jesuits West is blessed with a diversity in its Jesuit members—more than half of the men in formation are men of color. More and more, we are called to practice responsible stewardship of this gift of the diversity of our Jesuit brothers, and the diversity of the human family in the West we are called to serve.

 
I feel strongly that these are the concrete ways the Spirit is calling us, and I hope you will feel the same. I look forward to continuing the conversation about how we as Jesuits West can work powerfully to use our many resources and talents to bring about God’s Kingdom in real ways here in the western ten states.

Please know I appreciate you, your generosity in leadership, your faith, your perseverance, and your care for one another. It humbles me that you are so deeply committed to the Society of Jesus. I thank you for your time and care with this letter. May we commend ourselves to Jesus, to walk with Him, to trust Him. May we ask Mary his Mother to lead us closer to her Son, to carry his cross with him and with His People in these times.

Please know of my prayers for you, and I thank you for your prayers for me.

Gratefully yours,

Scott Santarosa, S.J.
Provincial