More On SG #30

New Jesuit Superior Seen as "Optimal Choice"
Postulator General Says Election Gives Hope for Future
By Antonio Gaspari

ROME, JAN. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).-

The election of Father Adolfo Nicolás as general superior of the Jesuits was the "optimal choice," according to the order's postulator general.Father Paolo Molinari, who is also a former professor of theology, told ZENIT that Father Nicolás, 71, "has excellent theological formation and a great missionary spirit. The Holy Spirit blew hard and the fathers let themselves be guided by the Spirit." "Coming from the Toledo-Castiglia region, a land that is historically solid in its Christian identity, he is an optimal theologian, and when the Society asked for missionary volunteers for Japan, Nicolás was among the first to offer himself," Father Molinari explained. The postulator general of the Society of Jesus said that "Japan is a difficult nation for evangelization, but Father Nicolás was prepared, he acquired much experience in the work of inculturation understood as evangelization done well." "From the point of view of government too," Father Molinari added, "the new general was provincial and also coordinator of all the heads of the provinces of southern Asia from Myanmar (Burma) to East Timor, passing through Korea and Vietnam to the new province of China." Moreover, according to the Jesuit theologian, "in regard to his kind of formation and the service he has done, he seems precisely to respond to the indications of the Holy Father, Benedict XVI. Certainly he will help us to rediscover and reinforce the Christian roots of Europe and to witness to Christ in the whole world." "He is an optimal choice" Father Molinari added, "that gives good hope for the future."

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