Question about the Jesuit vow of poverty

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Hello,

So I had a question about the Jesuits. I never thought I’d consider such a vocation, but I “may” be. I specifically like the Jesuits. I like there strong academic focus. I too am an academic. I would consider myself to be a more “progressive” catholic. I even like what I’ve read about some of the Jesuit thinkers…what I’ve read about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is inspiring. I attend a Jesuit parish.

There are questions I just feel weird about asking a Jesuit priest. For starters…they have a vow of poverty. I know this doesn’t mean they live in poverty, but what does it mean?

Does it mean you have no salary?

What happens if you get a major inheritance? Do you have to hand it over to your order?

What if you go into the Jesuits owning real estate or investments?

Any help on these questions would be appreciated. Any relevant links would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
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From what I know from my Jesuit friend…

Depending on what you do, you may or may not have a salary…Whatever you earn would go to the order. For example, if you taught at a high school or college, your salary would go to the Jesuits, not to you. If you write a book the royalties go to the order.

You wouldn’t receive an inheritance. If someone left you one it would go to the order, but knowing that most people probably wouldn’t leave it to you.

You would sell your property before entering.

On the other side, you would not be destitute. The Jesuits provide housing, clothes, whatever other needs you have. You may have to share a car but if you need one you’ll have access to one. Your basic needs are provided for but you won’t live luxuriously. On the other hand, you won’t have to worry that your car needs repairs or your rent just went up. Things balance out.
 
Thanks for response…I only have nice things to say to about the Jesuits…for a while there I really thought about looking seriously into becoming one. There spirituality has helped me a great deal…the daily examen and imagination prayer as well as the understanding of desolation and consolation and the forces that push you in both directions. I deeply admire their commitment to education. These aspects are what attracted me.

However, at this point the I would have to say that I don’t see how the vow of poverty can work with what I see as the Jesuits primary mission in the United States. That is to run their 26 colleges and universities as well as their many high schools, etc.

The issue is this. What does it “realistically” take to be a professor with a PhD at any university in the US. I would say wealth, and the freedom to use that wealth to pursue education is a big part of it. For students who get through undergrad, often their family is paying. Even in many masters and doctoral programs, students are paying tuition for the first semester or two. Finally, even when you have a phd, there are periods were you self-fund so you actually have time to write journal papers. This can be in very well funded fields like engineering too. Often these costs are very difficult to explain to people…I don’t bother to even try.

For the Jesuits to have trained professors, they would have to be putting a lot of money into training certain priests/brothers, or they would need to take novitiates who are highly educated to begin with and are likely from well-off backgrounds. Not many families would be happy to have paid for part of their son’s STEM education and have them become a Jesuit…this is sad to say.

Any thoughts from anybody. Has this issue ever been discussed anywhere or written about?
 
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Education is indeed a form of wealth that isn’t touched by a vow of poverty. And yes, the Jesuits do pay for an advanced education if that’s what someone’s mission requires. This kind of vow is quite different from being a poor person. I’ll ask my friend if he has any comments when I speak with him.
 
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Instead of the Jesuit brother/priest paying for everything himself like housing, education etc the order pays the bills as well as receiving the salary. Sometimes the Jesuit brother/priest receives X money from the order to pay for personal things like shampoo or he just uses the card which is debited the local group of Jesuits where he resides. Or one of the brothers is in charge of doing the grocery shopping and hygiene products. If he needs new pants or shoes then he lets the local superior know and is given funds so that he can buy new pants or shoes. If they are given a gift card then someone else or a different local group in the order might need that more and is given it.

If there are laws in the country where it says that children will receive X% of the inheritance when a parent dies then they will have arranged before vows where the “money” will go. It could be to the order or likely a charity of some kind.

When our new Jesuit priests were ordained they didn’t want any gifts but if people wanted to give them something then they were told to donate to a charity that the Catholic Church is running. The collection during the ordination mass was given to that charity as well. I gave them a card saying that I would pray for them on X day of the week for the rest of my life and put money in the collection.

When my parish priest had to return to his native country he said that he didn’t want any gifts but would be happy if we gave the money to his religious order instead as it would indirectly benefit him but also help them send missionaries in the future.

This is typical for all religious orders.
 
jack63 said:
Does it mean you have no salary?

What happens if you get a major inheritance? Do you have to hand it over to your order?

What if you go into the Jesuits owning real estate or investments?
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I don’t know the specific answer for the Jesuits. You’d get a pretty good idea if you read their constitutions.

In general though, the rules of most religious orders would not allow you to hold on to real estate, inheritance, or any investments or lump sums. You would have the option to hand them over to the order, or to give them to someone to hold in trust until you make solemn profession, at which point you could give them to family.

I know a professional footballer who joined the Dominicans in Ireland. He just gave his money away to his mother.

In terms of salary, most religious get a stipend for their personal use each week/month. If they do a job with a salary that often is used for them and some goes to the priory where they live.

Essentially, the whole spirit of poverty is not that you have nothing that is yours, but that you should be willing to give up control of your possesions if required by the community.
 
Jesuits–like most women and men religious these days–are mature adults and treated as such. The member works out a budget in discernment with the community. Obviously, the budget for a professor is going to be different from that for a retired person, or for someone whose ministry does not involve books, travel, etc. But the idea behind the vow of poverty is not to be attached to goods, or to be into materialism. I don’t know a single modern religious who asks for money to buy a pair of pants, for instance! But the discernment would include a clothing budget, as well as money for necessities (which would vary depending on the expectations of one’s ministry and lifestyle). Most religious I know, for instance, have credit or debit cards. But that doesn’t mean they can spend indiscriminately.

Read Sandra Schneiders’ “Selling All,” one volume of her 3-volume work on Religious Life in the New MIllennium, which focuses specifically on the vow of poverty. But the reason one goes through formation is not only to understand the vows, but to understand specifically how they are lived out in the congregation to which one is called.
 
Thank you everybody…these are all really excellent responses…better than I had expected.

I briefly looked up the “Selling All” on Amazon. It is interesting that this question has certainly been struggled with before. I do like the idea of a “trust”. I had thought about that. There are a number of ways to set up a trust. My family certainly uses “trusts” set up by lawyers etc.

I would struggle with this question on many levels.
  1. On the most basic level, I would consider selling my real estate to be ridiculously poor money management. Holding the real estate in a trust might be an option instead of “Selling All”. Really poor money management can’t be the goal of the “vow of poverty”.
  2. What if something goes wrong. For example, I’ve personally known people who leave their order after years.
  3. I struggle with giving this type of money to anybody. Apart from just simple “greed”, there is a stewardship responsibility that comes with money. You may want to give it away, but on some level, it is your responsibility that the person you give it to uses it wisely.
  4. As for the Jesuits, it always been the Jesuits that voice the opinion that “priests should be married”. This is includes everybody from Pope Francis, Rev. Michael Garanzini, and historically there have been many Jesuits to voice this. In the context of their vow of poverty, this is baffling.
 
When you make vows in a religious order, it is the order that is responsible for your welfare, as in feeding, clothing and caring for you from then on until you die a natural death. This is what poverty means.

A Jesuit friend of mine sold and/or gave away everything he owned before he made vows in the Society of Jesus. He was a high earner and the tax authorities were giving him a hard time when he sent in the next tax report as he had zero income and zero assets. They treated him like a criminal and couldn’t understand why and how he could act the way he did!

Marrying a priest would be a pretty lonely marriage as he would be gone for 60-80 hours/week and always on call.
 
HeDa…I have no doubt the IRS was weirded out 😋. Thanks for the info. I’ve been audited before.

Most professionals deal with 60-80 hour weeks and are always on call.

…but like anything…more money…more problems…
 
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I have a difficult question to ask. You’re selling everything and giving it to the order. What if there’s corruption in the order? And what happens if you want to quit the order?
 
Curious11…yes these are difficult questions that I too am struggling with. A legal trust would be a possibility.

On one level I believe some of these orders do profoundly good work. On another level, some have been hit with lawsuits that have nearly bankrupted them in the last decade. With that being said, I know it due to members who did things in the 1960’s and the lawsuits came decades after.
 
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jack63 said:
On one level I believe some of these orders do profoundly good work
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The Jesuits have done and continue to do many things that are worthy of the claim to be a society of Jesus Christ.

But of course I am always afraid of the rotten apples that all (both religious and secular) baskets contain. I could not join such an order without reflecting closely on these issues
 
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There could be corruption anywhere and everywhere. A father gambling with the family’s money, mother spending on herself instead of feeding the children etc. Taking other things into perspective, like the breadwinner in the family being paralysed in a car accident and can’t provide for the family for a very long time. You solve problems together in the family. The same in the religious order.

I believe you can choose who to give your assets to and it doesn’t have to be the religious order. But it has to be done before final vows in most orders. By that time, you have been with the order for at least 5-6 years. (The Jesuit make final vows after Noviciate but the vows are not “officially” received in the order until some 7 or more years have passed. I don’t know how they explain it in English.)

“Money, money, money, is so funny, in a rich man´s world.” Does that sound familiar? More ABBA fans out there?
 
HeDa said:
A father gambling with the family’s money, mother spending on herself instead of feeding the children
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But it’s not quite the same. If your parents are very bad, social services intervene, not so if you’re an adult in a religious order. And your father may gamble your money, but you’re still not selling everything you have. I don’t see it as exactly comparable.

It just seems like it’s hard to leave the order once your life literally depends on it and you have no wealth of your own. What if you want to leave the order when you’re too old to get a mortgage to buy a home, for example? All I’m saying is the OP should think very clearly about this, I think you can spend about 5 years with the order
Before taking final vows. I suggest you make very good use of them
 
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Wow! I feel like I’m witnessing Luke 18:18-30 or Matthew 19:16-30.
 
But that was Jesus the rich man rejected. He was not corrupt, while humans can be
 
As difficult as it is, I would say try not to judge these questions and concerns. I wish I could have Jesus around to ask questions about these extremely difficult questions; however,…
The Jesuit make final vows after Novitiate but the vows are not “officially” received in the order until some 7 or more years have passed. I don’t know how they explain it in English.
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If you have anymore info or a link about this, I would be very interested.
 
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When a person takes their final vows for a religious order, they are making a lifetime commitment to the community. If poverty is part of their charism, you are making a commitment to a life of poverty. God and your religious order will provide for your needs.

If this makes you reticent, you are not ready to profess your final vows. I’d imagine this is one reason becoming a Jesuit takes many years.

The good news is that you can contact the Jesuits and go through discernment with them.

I doubt the Jesuits are going to change their views on poverty. It seems to be working well for them. 🙂 However, you might change your views on the matter. You will never know without talking to their vocations director.
 
I mean this in no way to offend you, but these seems very problematic to me.
  1. You shouldn’t worry in the least about any real estate or money you might give up by joining a religious order! Give all your worries up to God! You are mirroring the rich young man who wanted to follow Jesus’ call, but didn’t because he did not want to give up entirely what he possessed.
  2. You can’t enter a religious order thinking something might go wrong, and you might one day leave. This is so inconsiderate to the corpus of your vocation; God! It is not your vocation to decide, your only decision is to accept God’s call to where and who he wants you to be. The Catholic cannot enter into marriage wondering, "What is something goes wrong, for example, I’ve purposely known people who abandon their marriage after years.
  3. It is perfectly fine to struggle with giving your money away! Pray about it, and your struggle shall be overcome.
  4. The Jesuits view on doctrine and discipline should not be surprising since you lean towards the progressive side. A great deal of Jesuits are in no way orthodox. Many desire the doing a way with priestly celibacy, accepting homosexuality and divorce in the Church, among other things.
 
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