Father Sanson reflects on Father Arrupe: ‘A Heartfelt Priest for a Heartless World’

The name Pedro Arrupe may not be familiar to many people, but he lived a long, faithful life and left his mark on both the Jesuits and the world. And he has a connection to Cleveland.

Father Bob Sanson, a retired priest in the diocese who is a longtime canon lawyer, canon law professor and was pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Strongsville, shared his thoughts about Father Arrupe during a recent presentation to the First Friday Forum of Lorain County. He recalled finding a book about the Jesuit priest on the shelves of the Jesuit Retreat Center in Parma. Intrigued, he read it and began a quest to learn more about the man whose cause for beatification – he was declared a servant of God – was opened in 2018.

The Diocese of Rome closed its inquiry in the cause for beatification in 2024 and sent more than 10,000 pages of documentation – much of it in Japanese – to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Father Sanson said it likely will be at least another 10 years before a determination is made on whether Father Arrupe may be declared venerable, the next step in the path to canonization.

“He was known as a heartfelt priest for a heartless world,” Father Sanson said. He also was called the second founder of the Society of Jesus.

Born in 1907 in Bilbao, Spain – the same place as St. Ignatius, who founded the Jesuits – Father Arrupe attended Catholic schools. At age 16, he moved to Madrid to study medicine and visited the poor in their homes.

He lost both parents within a decade – his mother in 1916 and his father in 1926. After his father’s death, he and his four sisters traveled to Lourdes, France where, as a medical student, he joined doctors in evaluating “miraculous” healings.

“That experience led him to abandon his nearly completed medical studies,” Father Sanson said. The next year, Arrupe entered the Society of Jesus.

Things were turbulent in Spain 1931-1939, and the Jesuits were expelled by the government. Arrupe continued his formation in the Netherlands and Belgium, then he was sent to Kansas, where he was ordained on July 30, 1936.

The new priest was sent to Cleveland in 1937, where he lived at St. Stanislaus Jesuit Formation Center in Parma (now the Jesuit Retreat Center), the first place in the country to offer retreats for laity.

In 1938, as World War II approached, he was sent as a missionary to Japan, living in a Jesuit novitiate outside Hiroshima – a city that would become infamous a few years later.

Father Arrupe was arrested on Dec. 8, 1941 while celebrating Mass. He was imprisoned on suspicion of espionage and endured harsh interrogation and solitary confinement before being released a month later.

In 1942, as the war continued, he was appointed Jesuit superior and novice master. Then, three years later – Aug. 6, 1945 – the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. He and his novices were within the blast zone but survived. He led them four miles into the city, where they located and brought about 40 victims back to the novitiate, which they converted into a field hospital.

After the war, Father Sanson said Father Arrupe was appointed the first Jesuit provincial of Japan in 1958. He was elected superior general of the order in 1965, serving 18 years in Rome until his resignation in 1983 after a debilitating stroke.

During his years as superior general, death squads in El Salvador threatened to kill all 47 Jesuits in the country unless they left within a month. In 1979, Father Rutilio Grande, SJ, was assassinated in El Salvador. The following year, Archbishop (now St.) Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass and four churchwomen, including Clevelanders Sister Dorothy Kazel, OSU, and lay missionary Jean Donovan, were killed in El Salvador. In 1989, six Jesuits – including one who was a close friend of Father Arrupe – their housekeeper and her daughter were assassinated in El Salvador.

Father Arrupe founded the Jesuit Refugee Service in 1980 to assist displaced people worldwide.

He died on Feb. 5, 1983 in Rome – on the anniversary of the 26 martyrs of Japan.

“His final words were, ‘for the present, ‘amen.’ For the future, ‘alleluia,’” Father Sanson said.

Father Sanson will discuss Father Arrupe Oct. 12 during a presentation to Theology on the Rocks West at the West Side Irish American Club, 8559 Jennins Road, Olmsted Township. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the program begins at 7 p.m. Cost is $15, which includes light appetizers. Click here for reservations or more information.