Father Arrupe; ‘Black Pope’ Led Jesuit Order

Father Pedro Arrupe, the Spanish “black pope” who headed the powerful Jesuit order during a period of major social upheaval from 1965 to 1983, has died in Rome. He was 83.

He died Tuesday of cardiopulmonary failure at the Jesuit headquarters near the Vatican. Arrupe had been ill for many months, and had been inactive since suffering a crippling stroke in 1981. Attendants said he had not recognized Pope John Paul II during a papal visit Sunday.

Arrupe was the first person to resign as superior general of the Society of Jesuits, which calls its leader the “black pope” because of his black cassock and his election for life. The 450-year-old order is the largest in the Roman Catholic Church.

Arrupe was elected head of the order at a time when many members, particularly those in Latin America, were becoming social activists contrary to papal wishes. While recognizing papal authority, Arrupe pushed for improving world conditions.

“We must fight with all our strength for a more just, more human and, in our view, more Christian world,” he said in 1975. “The great task of the company today is to be the voice of those who have no voice, especially in Africa, India and Latin America.”

Under his leadership, many Jesuits dissented with papal pronouncements on birth control, priestly celibacy and the ban on women priests.

Born in Bilbao in Spain’s Basque region, Pedro de Arrupe y Gondra was the son of a wealthy architect and newspaper publisher. He entered the University of Madrid to study medicine, but switched to theology after observing the city’s poverty.

When the Spanish government outlawed the Jesuits in 1931, Arrupe studied in other European countries and in the United States. He was ordained at St. Mary’s Seminary in Kansas in 1936.

At his request, Arrupe was sent to Japan in 1938 and remained for 27 years, turning a small Jesuit missionary post into a flourishing province. He led a rescue party into Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped on Aug. 6, 1945, and later wrote about his experiences.

Arrupe’s conservative Dutch successor, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, will preside over his funeral Mass on Saturday in the Jesuits’ principal church, the Church of Jesus in central Rome.