My Pilgrimage in Mission Jacques Dupuis, S.J

Human Community," includes several studies that amplify this Mission," International BulletinofMissionaryResearch 23, no. 4 (Octo theme. See also Gerrie ter Haar,HalfwaytoParadise: AfricanChristians ber 1999): 162. in Europe (Cardiff: Cardiff Academic Press, 1998). 21. Ted Ward, "Repositioning Mission Agencies for the Twenty-first 17. A recent press release from the Council of African Christian Century," International Bulletin ofMissionary Research 23,no. 4 (October Communities in Europe claims that "there are more than three 1999): 150. million Christians of African origin living in Europe" (International 22. Walls, MissionaryMovement, p. 258. Reviewof Mission 89, no. 354 [July 2000]: 304). 23. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (London: SPCK, 18. James F. Engel and William A. Dyrness, Changing the Mind of 1989), p. 223. Missions: Where Have We Gone Wrong? (Downers Grove, Ill.: 24. Smith, "Junction or Terminus?" p. 90. InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 42. 25. lowe this thought to Kai Funkschmidt, who offered a reflection 19. Paul E. Pierson, "Local Churches in Mission: What's Behind the along these lines at the annual conference of the Churches ImpatiencewithTraditionalMissionAgencies?"International Bulletin Commission on Mission, Durham, September 2000. ofMissionaryResearch 22, no. 4 (October 1998): 148. 26. Saayman, "Missionary by Its Very Nature," p. 20. 20. Stanley W. Green, "How Mennonites Repositioned a Traditional My Pilgrimage in Mission Jacques Dupuis, S.J. was born on December 5, 1923, in Huppaye in the prov humanities were especially rich in academic as well as cultural I ince of Brabant, Belgium. I come from a well-to-do family pursuits. The students and the Jesuit fathers who were teaching with a long tradition of liberal professions. My father was an them enjoyed excellent human relations, amounting to a deep engineerwholaterbecamechiefmanagerof an importantfactory friendship. This setting influenced my vocation. I developed at of heavy metallurgy. My mother came from a family with a once a priestly and a Jesuit vocation in the most natural fashion. tradition of notaries. In his professional workmyfather was very Both came together and were practically inseparable. demanding on himself and on others; he was a perfectionist who Eventually I joined the Society of Jesus in September 1941, did not tolerate mediocrity. But he was at the same time very during the war and under the Germanoccupation. The first years human in his dealings with more than a thousand subordinates, of training were hard, especially with the restrictions and pre and an example to them of professional honesty and conscien carious conditions imposed by the war. Those years consisted in tiousness. He was extremely just in his dealings with all and, two years of novitiate done in Arlon, two years of classical notwithstanding the high demands he made, managed to endear studies in Namur, and three years of philosophy in Louvain. himself to those under his direction. My mother was nothing During those years I developed the wish to go to India as a short of a saint. Her meekness, attention to all, and boundless missionary. Nooneis ever sent to the "foreignmissions" who has generosity made her an ideal mother. I always thought that my not clearly expressed to the superiors a desire to go and work parents complemented each other wonderfully well. They man there. I had been for a long time attracted to India because of its aged to build a most closely united family. We were four children rich cultural and religious heritage, but without thinking from at home, I myself being the third, with a brother and a sister the beginning in terms of a missionary vocation. Gradually, before me, and a brother after me. The first three of us followed however, I began to think that God was calling me to that precise each other very closely in age and were really educated together; vocation. I informed my superiors of my desire to enroll for the the younger brother followed me by seven years. Calcutta Mission of the society. I was confident that the authen Though born in Huppaye, I spent the whole of my youth in ticity of my vocation would eventually be confirmed by the Charleroi, in the province of Hainaut, which was in those days superiors' approval of my request, and I rejoiced greatly when one of the biggest industrial centers of Belgium, called the black they notified me of their approval. country because of the many coal mines and factories, with their mountain-like heaps of coal refuse and blast furnaces forming Growth in India the horizon. This is where my father exercised his profession. This is also where in 1929, at the age of five, I entered the Jesuit In December 1948 I said farewell to my family and proceeded to College du Sacre-Coeur, where I would spend twelve years of my destination in our Calcutta Mission. The departure was very schooling-six in primary school and six in the humanities, or painful, less for those who went than for those who stayed. As far secondary school. All I know I have learned from the Jesuits: at as I was concerned, I was seeing my dream fulfilled and my the College du Sacre-Coeur to begin with, and with the Jesuits vocation followed, however hard it was to depart. It was much later when I joined the Society of Jesus. At the Jesuit College I harder and more painful for the family that one left behind. In received an exquisite education. The six years of Greco-Latin those days a vocation for the foreign missions in India meant that one left family and country once for all; there wouldbe no return. The bridges were being burned. And so, when the time came, I Jacques Dupuis, S.].,taughtsystematictheology in India(1959-84) andat the Gregorian Universityin Rome(1984-98) andwasconsultantto thePontifical said farewell to my father (my mother had already died), ex Council forInterreligious Dialogue (1985-95). His recent publications include pressing mytrustthatwe would meetagain in heaven, whenand Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis Books, 1997) if both of us got there. I expressed the same hope when I took and Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue leave of my brothers and my sister. (Orbis Books, 2002). Arriving at Calcutta produced a cultural shock. Enormous 168 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 27, No.4 crowds of people were walking the streets of a city that was returned to India, where I started teaching theology, first in already then the most crowded city of the country; the sick and Kurseong, in the Himalayas, and later in Delhi. My first years of the dying were lying on the streets, whom the sisters of Mother teaching coincided with the years of preparation for the Second Teresa, walking the streets two by two every morning, would Vatican Council (1959-61) and those when it took place (1962 come and pick up, to bring to a home where they could die a 65).The council constitutedan enormouschallengein all spheres dignified death. But there was too, especially among the poor connected with theological training and teaching, starting with and the underprivileged, in the slums and in the backyards, an the liturgical reform that was being initiated, passing on to a new enormous potential of human solidarity and mutual help. In an notion of the church, from a perfect society to the people of God, immortal manner Collins and Lapierre have described in The and a reversal of perspectives on the mystery of the church, from City of Joy this unique character of Calcutta, where concord, pyramidal and hierarchical to communal and sacramental; more mutual comprehension, and charity seemed to be the privileged gift of the poorand the needy. There was also an immense human and cultural heritage to be discovered slowly, and a rich historic past on which this heritage was built. From the outset I was The world's religious conquered by this city of contrasts, which I then supposed would traditions represent not the become my home for the rest of my life. search of people for God My first station in Calcutta was in the school department of ourJesuits' Saint Xavier's College, which numbered more than a but God's search for them. thousand students in the school and several thousand in the university college department. For two years I taught subjects, in English, totally unfamiliar to me and for which, through hard important still, perhaps, in the Indian context, there was a new work, I kept myself from day to day one lesson ahead of the attitude toward the other religious traditions, recommending students: such courses as the history of England and of the British dialogue and collaboration. It would take time to assimilate all Empire in India, or else of English literature. The time when the these new insights and to sort out their concrete applications, yet school programs would be thoroughly revised, to be adapted to there was a desire not to waste time in making a start but rather the Indian culture and situation, had not yet come. This situation to forge ahead. Growing attention came to be given in teaching contrasted with the ideas I had already formed in my mind about and in pastoral and liturgical practice to the religious traditions adaptation to local culture, which would later be called of India. They were integrated on the theoretical level into the inculturation. But I had to make the best of it. More interestingly, various subjects of which the theological curriculum was made the course of religion for the Christian students (who were a up, and on the practical level into common worship. During all small minority) and of "moral science," as it was called, for the that time, from 1959 till 1984, I became involved on the national others, were entrusted to me in the higher classes.

Load more