Superior General Arturo Sosa has convoked the 72^nd Congregation of Procurators, bringing representatives from across the Society of Jesus to Indonesia in October 2027. The gathering will examine how the Society’s structures must be reshaped to carry its mission forward – and vote on whether to call for a General Congregation, the highest governing body of the order.

“The Society of Jesus has continued to live out the process of allowing itself to be guided by the Holy Spirit”, Father Sosa writes in a letter to major superiors, “in order to respond more effectively to its mission of reconciliation and justice.”

The congregation begins on the afternoon of 11 October 2027 and is expected to last approximately six days. Delegates are asked to arrive by 6 October for days of retreat together, a time Father Sosa says to “scrutinize more deeply the signs by which the Holy Spirit is guiding the Society” before deliberations begin.

he most recent Congregation of Procurators was held in Loyola, Spain, in 2023, and before that in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2012. Meeting in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, continues this global pattern – situating this moment of discernment within a region where the Church is growing, and living and working in a richly diverse, multifaith society is an everyday reality.

In preparation for the congregation, each Jesuit province is to hold an assembly to elect a Procurator and assess the state of Jesuit life and mission in its context; regions and missions that are not full provinces designate a Relator for the same purpose. The elected Procurators and Relators must submit their reports to the Jesuit Curia by 1 March 2027.

From receiving a mission to organising for it

Since the 36^th General Congregation in 2016, the Society has been working to clarify where it is called to serve and how it needs to be organised to do so. In its decree on governance, that congregation named discernment, collaboration and networking as the lenses through which the Society should examine its governance, noting that “attention to these perspectives helps to streamline governance and make it more flexible and apostolically effective.”

In the years since, that work has been carried forward through the Universal Apostolic Preferences (2019-2029) – global priorities that emerged from a two-year process of discernment across the Society, confirmed by Pope Francis and reaffirmed by Pope Leo XIV. These have guided Jesuit life and work across the world: showing the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment, walking with the poor and excluded, accompanying young people, and caring for our common home.

Having named those priorities, Father Sosa now turns to what needs to change in how the Society is organised to carry out its mission, calling for “the adaptation of its forms of apostolic governance and the necessary renewal of apostolates.”

To ground that reflection, delegates elected by their provinces are asked to visit communities and apostolic works in their region and report on what they observe, with particular attention to how these three lenses are shaping the Society’s work in practice across its ministries, among them schools and universities, ministries to refugees, parishes and retreat houses, as well as communications, research and interreligious dialogue. This pattern of local visits and listening before coming together as a body to deliberate has long been part of the Society’s way of proceeding ahead of a Congregation of Procurators, and it reflects the synodal approach now at the heart of the Catholic Church’s renewal.

Synodality, collaboration and inclusion

Synodality – a way of proceeding marked by listening and shared responsibility – was central to Pope Francis’s pontificate. Pope Leo XIV has made clear it remains a priority for his papacy, calling for more agile, transparent, inclusive and accountable structures and ministries, responsive to the Gospel.

Father Sosa takes up that call within the life of the Society, asking in his letter convoking the congregation: “How do we live synodality in the Society and how can we contribute to the growth of a synodal Church?”

He also raises concrete questions about how responsibility is shared in the Society, including what it means in practice to share mission with lay partners, asking: “What is the specific contribution of the collaboration of women in the life and mission of the Society of Jesus?” and “How are we integrating the participation in the apostolates of the Society of believers of other religions or non-believers?”