Jesuits in Science

A recent article on the Jesuit identity and science can be found on Paul Gabor’s personal home page (which also contains a number of other articles, mainly in Czech as well as in French and English). It is organised around the question: Is Jesuit involvement in science an expression of the Jesuit identity itself, i.e. of the Order’s charisma, or is it a result of external influences?

Summary: The problem of Jesuit science is not so much small numbers but rather a lack of interest within the Church. Recently there was a positive shift when, among Jesuits, it became unnecessary to justify scientific apostolate with pragmatic, pastoral, pedagogical and other extraneous reasons because it was accepted as a legitimate goal in its own right. Although there is very little written support for such a claim, I believe that many Jesuit scientists in the past as well as today lived their research as a spiritual quest. Science, and especially physics, is a spiritual exercise in Hadot’s sense with a considerable sapiential potential, leading to a specific form of spirituality. There is an unmistakable affinity between it and Ignatian spirituality.

The article will appear in print in the proceedings of the Bohemia Jesuitica conference, Prague, April 2006.