Father General Arturo Sosa has appointed Bart van Emmerik SJ, as the Regional Superior of the Independent Region of the European Low Countries (ELC), one of the 15 provinces and 1 region that conforms the JCEP.

Fr van Emmerik currently serves as the socius of the ELC Region and as delegate for spirituality. He also facilitates processes of communal discernment within the Ignatian Network and in other religious groups and communities.

Born on 21 October 1962 in Haarlem, Netherlands, Fr van Emmerik entered the Society of Jesus on 19 September 1982. He was ordained a priest on 9 October 1993. He completed his Tertianship in Boston in 2000 and pronounced his Final Vows in 2001.

After studying philosophy in Louvain and earning a master’s degree in theology in Amsterdam, he served as a pastoral minister in a parish near The Hague from 1994 to 1999. Following his Tertianship, he worked as a hospital chaplain in Delft from 2000 to 2002. He also served as ecclesial assistant of the Christian Life Community (CLC) in the Netherlands from 2000 to 2015 and as assistant of Marriage Encounter from 2000 to 2018.

Work in spirituality has remained a consistent part of his apostolic ministry. He was a staff member at the retreat house Godsheide in Hasselt from 2002 to 2006, and later at the Oude Abdij in Drongen from 2007 to 2013. From 2013 to 2019, he was the director of Het Ignatiushuis, the spirituality center in Amsterdam, and the co-founder of a department for facilitation of communal discernment. 

Bark van Emmerik SJ has been the socius of ELC Region since 2020.