Pre-order C-J's memoirs

A new book by veteran Jesuit, Fr Michael Campbell-Johnston SJ, will be available from its publisher, The Way Books, from 26 November. Just Faith: A Jesuit Striving for Social Justice is based on C-J's annual letters over several decades.  Fr Tim Curtis SJ, the Director of Jesuit Missions (JM), reviews it in the forthcoming edition of Jesuits and Friends.  Here is what he wrote:

Fr Michael Campbell-Johnston's 60 years in the Society of Jesus spans a time of great change in the Church and in the world. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Society has completely rethought its mission - the way in which it is called to respond to the needs those who surround us. Nowhere has the change been more marked than in the sphere of the social apostolate of the Society. Fr Michael, or C-J to his friends, was in key positions to shape this new thinking and this book is important, not just as the story of one Jesuit, but as a story which reflects the history of the whole Society.

The book is based on 24 annual letters that C-J sent to a wide circle of friends, so that they could catch up with his activities each Christmas. However, he has supplemented these extracts with a narrative that tells a larger story. C-J's journey from Barbados and Guyana, where he set up a centre for social reflection, to El Salvador, where he was given the opportunity to see life from the perspective of the poor, to Rome, where he was a key adviser to Fr General Arrupe in the sphere of social ministries, to Mount Street, where he became the Provincial of the British Province, set him on a course which was to radically challenge our way of thinking and proceeding.

C-J is able to draw on his many rich life experiences to transform the book from being a dull litany of places and meetings into an exciting reliving of the transformation that has brought us to where we are now. He seems to be equally at home in the slums of El Salvador learning from the poor, as he was in our sumptuous parish in Barbados where he had to preach to Tony Blair.

I not only enjoyed the book, but it has inspired me to reflect on my own small part in the mission of the Society.

Just Faith by Michael Campbell-Johnston SJ will be available from The Way Books from 26 November.  Price £10.  Pre-order now by visiting www.theway.org.uk/comersus/store/comersus_welcome.asp (direct link below).


 The Way Books