Pedro Arrupe et la presse

Abstract

This article examines the figure Pedro Arrupe, superior general of the Society of Jesus for 16 years, from 1965 to 1981, from a particular point of view: the media. Italian, French, Spanish, German, American and British newspapers are examined. In the multimedia society which has been developing since the 1960’s, newspapers played a key role: an unprecedented situation. The article shows how Pedro Arrupe, while carrying out a Copernican revolution in the Society of Jesus, succeeded in making that understood in a world around him that until then had paid little attention to ecclesiastical realities and were especially uninclined to form a different image of the Jesuits, a symbol of the Counter Reformation and pioneers of the Church after the Council of Trent. Thus, newspapers and magazines soon described the turnaround with interest and, moreover, sought to provide their readers, whether on the right or left, with an understandable image. Arrupe therefore succeeded in giving an interpretation of the recent history of the Church and of the Society of Jesus, while eliciting interest and respect, not only in the media nearest to him but also in the Anglo-Saxon press, one that is usually more distant and sceptical about such themes. A successful operation that made Pedro Arrupe one of the most remarkable personages in the 20th century Church.