April 29, 1936～May 20, 2020
By Robert Chiesa SJ
As 30th Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr Adolfo Nicolás will continue to live on in the history of the Society. His more than eight years of service as General, his six years as Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute, and three and a half years as President of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania have been described by his close associates during those periods. Only his life’s story as seen from the vantage point of the Japan Province can be recounted here.
Adolfo Nicolás Pachón was born in Villamuriel de Cerrato in Palencia, Spain on April 29, 1936, was baptized soon after on May 3, and confirmed on December 11 of the same year. Immediately after graduating from secondary education at the top of his class (el principe del colegio), he entered the Toledo Province of the Society at Aranjuez, Madrid, on September 14, 1953. After first vows he remained at Aranjuez for humanistic studies (1955~58) and then studied philosophy at the Colegio de San Ignacio in Alcalá de Henares (1958~60). After a few months polishing his English at Weston College (near Boston) in the United States, he arrived in Japan on February 26, 1961. On finishing two years at the Jesuit language school in Yokosuka (Taura), he remained there for a year of regency, teaching the basics of Japanese language to another group of newcomers to Japan (1963~64).
He did his basic theology course in Tokyo (Kamishakujii, 1964~68) and was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Shirayanagi in St Ignatius Church, Tokyo, on March 17, 1967. While studying in Tokyo, his intellectual brilliance and theological acumen marked him out for further studies toward a doctorate in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome (1968~71). Before returning to Japan, he did his tertianship program in Alacalá de Henares under Fr José Arroyo (May~September 1971).
Back in Japan, he taught dogmatic theology to Jesuits at the Kamishakujii Theologate and diocesan seminarians of the Interdiocesan Seminary for 7 years (1971~78). During this time, he pronounced his final vows in the Kamishakujii community on October 5, 1976. The same year he published a 466-page book entitled Kibō no Chihei (Horizon of Hope) with the subtitle “The meaning of the religious life today.” This was followed the next year by a 115-page booklet Kokkai—Yurushi no Hiseki (Confession—The Sacrament of Forgiveness). Around this time, he began to assert the need to live in small communities in ordinary neighborhoods. In 1977 he and two others (Fr Yamada, Br Cique) moved into a small house in Nishinippori, Arakawa Ward, Tokyo.
But before long came his first assignment outside Japan, when he was summoned to take over as Superior and Director of the interprovincial East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila for six years (1978~84). While there, to mention one thing he himself said much later, “I began teaching sacramental theology because nobody was teaching it. I thought that sacraments were a very important area of pastoral theology, so I began teaching about the sacraments and developed my own theology of the symbol.”
After a half-year sabbatical, he was back in Japan and began teaching theology again, living first in Kamishakujii (1985~88), then at Miki Heim (1988~91), a house for men involved in the socio-pastoral apostolate on the site of the present Wakamiya Scholasticate. While continuing to teach theology, he also served as Province Consultor and Provincial Assistant for the Socio-Pastoral Apostolate. In March 1991 he was appointed Rector of the Kamishakujii Scholasticate and then Provincial in March 1993. While he was Rector at Kamishakujii, a program was inaugurated whereby 10 scholastics from Japan along with 12 from Korea took part in a month-long experience of English study, villa, homestay and other exposure in the Philippines (summer 1992).
As Provincial, he initiated several Forums. The first was held at the Kamishakujii Scholasticate in August 1994 and was limited to younger members of the Province. This led to a Forum for 27 Jesuits working in the four schools, held at the Passionists’ Takarazuka Retreat House at the end of 1995. In August 1996, a Province Forum with 45 in attendance was held at Yugawara. From various proposals made during these assemblies, a Parish Apostolate Committee was set up in July 1997 and the Jesuit Secondary Education Committee (JSEC) for the four schools in November of the same year. One concrete result of the latter was that 2 years later a lay teacher was able to take over as principal. Fr Nicolás was also committed to advancing the social apostolate and gave witness to that preference by commuting to the office from a small house in Adachi Ward, where he lived with Fr Andō.
It was while attending the 34th General Congregation as Provincial in 1995 that he was elected Secretary of the Congregation and his name and organizational prowess became better known throughout the Society. He had also been a member of the coetus praevius for that Congregation. After GC34, while the documents and decrees of the 34th General Congregation were being studied in the Province, copious reflections and guidelines for implementation were provided month after month in the Province Newsletter. A booklet on adaptation to the Japan Province was drawn up and distributed.
At a GC34 retreat held in Naka-Karuizawa, attended by 26 men in August 1997, with no special director in charge, the retreatants themselves took turns providing input. The following month a meeting of 14 “junior” priests and brothers was held in Amagi Sansō, Izu, at which Fr Provincial Nicolás gave the opening orientation. A series of workshops in Ignatian Spirituality was also being conducted during these years. He also oversaw a number of building projects, prominent among them being St Ignatius Church in Tokyo and the Xavier Memorial Church in Yamaguchi.
His successor as Provincial, Fr Matsumoto, said of him in the Province News for April 1999: “Thanks to his sunny character, keen perceptiveness, and clear-cut judgment, the members of the Japan Province have been able to enjoy six wonderful years.”
After finishing his term as Provincial, he took a year’s sabbatical at the EAPI (April 1999~March 2000), then returned to the lecture room, teaching pastoral theology. He lived again in the Adachi House for Socio-Pastoral Work and was a team member of the Catholic Tokyo International Center (CTIC) servicing needs of the growing number of Catholics from abroad, especially from Asia. During this time he printed several pamphlets for use in preparing children for the sacraments.
In August 2004 he was elected President of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania (JCEAO, later renamed the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP), centered in Manila. Fr Mark Raper said of him that as President of the Conference, he moved easily and with authority in many cultures as educator, theologian, pastor, and leader. He was at home in the Manila slums of Navotas and the Cambodian villages of Battambang.
This position took him away from Japan again and focused a spotlight on him which issued in his being elected Superior General of the Society during the 35th General Congregation on January 19, 2008, a post he continued to fill until reaching the age of 80 and being allowed to retire as General once his successor Fr Arturo Sosa was elected Superior General on October 14, 2016. The story of those more than 8 years has to be left to more knowledgeable hands. However, we can all read the encomium by Fr Federico Lombardi included among the official documentation of GC36. We recall here a few of his words of appreciation.
“You have constantly reminded us of the universal character of our mission, beyond the narrow confines of regions, nations or provinces, and invited us to spiritual depth, to avoid the risk of mediocrity and superficiality. ‘Universality’ and ‘depth’ are two words that we often heard from you and that we will not forget. …
“In these years, under your guidance and your encouragement, the great work of restructuring of Provinces in different parts of the world took place. … The General Curia was a laboratory of very dynamic and creative experimentation in new ways of serving the universal Society.”
Fr Lombardi also mentions that, during Fr Nicolás’ term as General, a Congregation of Procurators was held in Africa for the first time (Nairobi, 2012) and that the second centenary of the Restoration of the Society (2014) led to further self-understanding of our identity and mission. On the surprising election of the first Jesuit Pope (in 2013):
“You were able to establish with Pope Francis a relationship of direct and friendly communication, the benefits of which the whole Society immediately experienced. You did so with that characteristic simplicity and discretion of yours, that has spared the Society and all of us any difficulty in the novelty of the situation.”
We can surely hope for an eventual collection of his more memorable letters to the Society and his many inspiring lectures at various dedications and commemorations around the world during his years as General of the Society.
During a well-deserved sabbatical in Spain after retiring as Superior General, he received a thorough health check. Commenting on the state of his health at the time, he noted with characteristic humor: “Everything in OK—from the neck down.” But it was not really so. He was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, an uncommon disability that affects movement, walking and balance, speech, swallowing, and vision. The effects of this condition had already begun to appear in Rome.
He desired to return to Manila, so the Provincial of Japan, Fr Renzo De Luca, assigned the former Fr General to spiritual ministry at the EAPI and the Arrupe International Residence in Manila from February 2017. While there, he visited Japan in mid-August that year to direct a province retreat. Back in Manila, with repeated falls and steadily increasing speech impairment, it was thought better to have him come back to Japan and live in Loyola House, where he arrived on August 6, 2018.
One of the last interviews he was able to give was in October and November 2018 with Scholastic Christian Mukadi (of the Central Africa Province, now a missionary in Japan). Many parts of the conversation (in English) were irretrievable from the recording, but here are two interesting observations made in that interview:
About his appointment to Japan:
“I didn’t choose Japan. Japan was suggested to me by Father General. I wrote a letter to Father in which I told him that I wanted to volunteer for the missions anywhere and asked him to feel free to appoint me wherever he wanted. At the same time, the Provincial wanted me to study philosophy and mathematics*. One day the Provincial called me and told me, ‘Father General has appointed you for the mission to Japan.’ I said okay, and afterwards said to myself, ‘My goodness, if I go to Japan, I will have to study all my life!’”
*[in the school of engineering which is now part of the University of Comillas]
About challenges for the Church and the Society:
“The biggest challenge for the Church and the Society of Jesus today is the need to rethink all of Christian theology. The thought of the Church is too Eurocentric, and we cannot have true Christianity only with one vision of the world. If we want to have true Christianity, we need to find a true place for traditional African and Oriental religions. We need to understand how Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, shows himself through all traditions and cultures.”
After repeated loss of equilibrium and resultant falls within Loyola House, he was hospitalized in September 2019, mainly for digestive pneumonia. Later, in October, he was transferred to a hospital specializing in brain nerves and eventually to hospice care at a Catholic hospital in Tokyo, where he spent several months bedridden. He was conscious but able to respond only minimally to visitors. With the outbreak of the new coronavirus and the closing of hospitals to visitors, he was left even without the consolation of meeting his Jesuit brothers. He was finally called to the Lord late in the afternoon of May 20, 2020. The cause of death was given as progressive supranuclear palsy. He was 84 years old and had been a Jesuit for 66 years.
“Well done, my good and faithful servant. …
Come, share your master’s joy.” (Matthew 25:21)
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