Five North American Jesuit provinces to send novices to Detroit, California to begin formation, get acclimated to society life
DETROIT — The Society of Jesus — commonly known as the Jesuits — in the United States and Canada will bring together its five current novitiates spread throughout the continent into two new novitiates starting in 2028, which one of the new novitiates to be located in Detroit.
The Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, which includes five Jesuit provinces in North America, announced the change in a letter sent July 9 to members of the religious community.
According to the letter, which was signed by the leaders of the five North American provinces, the Detroit-based novitiate will be located at Lansing-Reilly Hall, the Jesuit residence on the campus of the University of Detroit Mercy.
In addition to hosting the novices from the Midwest Province — which is based in Chicago — the Detroit novitiate will also host novitiates from the United States Eastern Province and the Canada Province. The Midwest Province is based in Chicago.
The other novitiate will be based in Culver City, California, the current location of the novitiate for the Jesuits' West Province, which will also host novices from the U.S. Central and Southern provinces.
The "multi-province" model, as the society's leadership calls it, would "allow us to maintain robust cohorts of novices and provide them with the best formators we could," the provincials said in the letter.
Both novitiates are expected to accommodate up to 30 novices, with the sites ready by summer 2028.
Previously, each of the five provinces had its own novitiates where novices were sent for two years of spiritual formation. The Midwest Province’s novitiate is currently located in St. Paul, Minn.
Fr. Joseph Daoust, SJ, superior of the Detroit Jesuit community, told Detroit Catholic the rearrangement of novitiates will ensure each location has an adequate number of novices for a proper formation experience, and it will free up other members of the Jesuits for different works in the society.
“Running five novitiates takes an awful lot of Jesuit staff of very good people,” Fr. Daoust said. “You have to have three or four Jesuits in each of the novitiates, who usually are more senior Jesuits who serve as the formators of the novices. If we could put the novices in only two novitiates rather than five, we would save an awful lot of very valuable manpower for other works of the Society of Jesus.”
Fr. Daoust added that the number of novices entering each of the five current novitiates fluctuates "quite a bit" from year to year, with anywhere from one to 12 new novices per year.
Consolidation will allow the Jesuits to maintain steady numbers in each of the two new novitiates, including the opportunity to move novices back and forth between novitiates as necessary.
Novitiates host novices for their first two years of formation in a religious community.
“It’s two years of religious formation in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola,” Fr. Daoust said. “It takes two years of formation before they can make permanent vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. So the men living here are not technically religious in the full sense; they haven’t taken vows, and they can leave at any time if they want. But they’re here to be trained in order to become vowed Jesuits, members of the Society of Jesus.”
Novices go through various Jesuit experiences, including a 30-day silent retreat, apostolic immersion experiences at various Jesuit ministries throughout the country and the world, and extensive study of the Jesuit constitutions and Ignatian spirituality.
Lansing-Reilly Hall was built in 1926-27 as one of the first buildings on the now-University of Detroit Mercy's McNichols campus to serve as the primary residence for the Detroit Jesuit community.
“As a religious building, with its iconography and the relationship of the rooms, and the common room to do things like pray and eat together and have classes, it really fits the needs of what you need for a novitiate,” Fr. Daoust said. “It’s a natural building built for religious life, and it’s in great shape. It’s one of the most beautiful buildings on campus.”
Fr. Daoust cited the Jesuits’ presence in Detroit — including at the University of Detroit Mercy, University of Detroit Jesuit High School, Loyola High School, Gesu Parish, SS. Peter and Paul (Jesuit) Parish, the Manresa Retreat Center and the Pope Francis Center and Bridge Housing Facility — as other advantages for moving the novitiate to Detroit.
“It’s a real gift to have all these Jesuit experiences nearby to show the novices what Jesuit ministry is like,” Fr. Daoust said. “Also, to have the academic resources of a university at their disposal, the use of the fitness center, being in the heart of a city where care for those on the margins is so important — it’s what makes Lansing-Reilly Hall such a great choice.”
Fr. Daoust said some slight modifications will be necessary to house up to 30 novices plus staff on a regular basis, including switching from double to single rooms and minor plumbing and electrical updates to the 100-year-old building.
The 18 vowed Jesuits currently living at Lansing-Reilly Hall are making arrangements to relocate to other nearby residences, including the rectory at Gesu Parish, the residences of University of Detroit Jesuit High School, and a home in the Boston-Edison neighborhood near the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Moving the novitiate to Detroit also comes as the Society of Jesus prepares to celebrate its 150th anniversary in the city.
In 1876, then-Detroit Bishop Caspar H. Borgess invited the Society of Jesus to come to the city and establish Detroit College, even going as far as to gift the Jesuits Detroit’s Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul on Jefferson Avenue — which today still stands as SS. Peter and Paul (Jesuit) Parish, Detroit's oldest still-in-use church building.
On July 31, the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Detroit's Jesuit community will celebrate its 150th anniversary with a special Mass celebrated by Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, CSsR — a Detroit native currently serving as archbishop of Newark, N.J. — as well as Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger, at SS. Peter and Paul Parish.
“The Mass is a chance for the Jesuits to say they’re grateful for being able to be in ministry for Detroit,” Fr. Daoust said. “It's a city that has had its problems, but it's a city that has great resilience. We're very grateful for the, for the city of Detroit and for the Archdiocese of Detroit, which has such a rich Catholic history.”
When the new novitiate begins in 2028, novices from all over the country will get to experience these blessings, too, Fr. Daoust said.
“I think it's going to make it a much richer experience for the novices in their first two years because it'll be a consistent large community of novices, and even the interchange between the different provinces is going to be enriching, too,” Fr. Daoust said.
“They'll see what life is like for Jesuits in the university, in parish life, in our two high schools, all of them in a city that is very much devoted to working with people on the margins.”
