At this year’s meeting of the British Province of Jesuits, attended by 170 Jesuits and lay collaborators, 11 men were honoured for their many years of service to the Society of Jesus and its mission.

A Jubilarians Mass was held in the chapel at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, where the Province meeting took place. This was followed by a special dinner in the Hadden Dining Room, which included a toast and speeches.

We interviewed one of the Jubilarians, Fr Tim Curtis SJ, who has spent 50 years in the Society of Jesus. He said:

“I always knew I was going to be a priest. Apparently when I was four, I was celebrating Mass for my sister’s dolls, making a chasuble out of a Sketchley dry-cleaning bag. And so, it was just always a given that I would be a priest.

“But then when I was six, Pope John XXIII was elected pope, so I decided, no, I won’t be a priest anymore. I’m going to be the pope. And my desire, my ambition, came true two years ago because Stonyhurst put on a production of Sister Act and they needed someone to be the pope. And so, I went on and I was the pope for two minutes”.

You can watch the short interview with Fr Tim below.

Br Ken Vance SJ, who is marking his 60th year as a Jesuit, said:

“Having grown up in St Francis Xavier's parish, Liverpool, when it was the largest parish in England with over 13,000 Catholics, I joined the Jesuits in 1965, just as the Second Vatican Council was ending. Little did I expect the church I knew during my formative years to change so dramatically. However, those changes gave a new dynamism to the Church and to the Society of Jesus.

The roles of the three Jesuit Brothers, who were part of the Liverpool Jesuit community, were also to change. My sixty years in the Society of Jesus have provided many new opportunities and adventures in the service of the Lord. I am thankful for those Brothers’ inspirational example, as men who were close to the local people, and to the developments within the Society which have enabled Jesuit Brothers to make an even greater contribution to the work of the Jesuits and to the Church.”

The Society of Jesus traces its origins to 1534, when St Ignatius of Loyola and his first companions in Paris made private vows of poverty and service. It was officially approved as a religious order by Pope Paul III in 1540. Today, it remains the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with more than 16,000 members worldwide, engaged in education, pastoral ministry, and missionary work.

The full list of Jesuit Jubilarians is included below.

Want to become a Jesuit? Please visit our Vocations website: https://www.jesuitvocations.uk/.