Father Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General of the Society of Jesus between 2008 and 2016

Today, May 20, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, a Spanish Jesuit who was Superior General of the Society of Jesus between 2008 and 2016, died in Tokyo. Fr. Nicolás was 84 years old. This is what Father Arturo Sosa has just said in a letter to all the Jesuits.
 
Fr. Nicolás, "whom many affectionately called Adolfo, and the Jesuits of Asia Pacific, Nico," says in the letter Fr. Arturo, had been born in Palencia in 1936, entered the novitiate of the Jesuits of Aranjuez in 1953 At the age of 24 he was sent to Japan. From that time until his election as Superior General in 2008, he worked in Asia, especially in Japan and the Philippines, holding various positions, including Provincial of Japan during the 1990s, or moderator of the Jesuit Provincials of East Asia and Oceania. For ten years he lived in the Philippines, serving as director of the Far Eastern Institute of Pastoral Care (EAPI) and as President of the Conference of Provincials of East Asia and Oceania. After resigning as General of the Company, he was spiritual director at the EAPI and the Arrupe International Residence in Manila. He also worked with immigrant and disadvantaged populations in a parish in Tokyo.
 
In 2008, after the resignation of Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, he was elected by the General Congregation 35 as Superior General of the Jesuits, becoming the twenty-ninth successor of St. Ignatius and the seventh Jesuit of Spanish nationality to occupy. this charge. To his generality he contributed his knowledge and sensitivity of Eastern cultures, spirituality in dialogue with other religions and reaffirmed the priority commitment to the promotion of justice and reconciliation.
 
Throughout these years he led a work of intense restructuring of the European and American Jesuit provinces and, above all, repeatedly insisted on the need to combat superficiality, working from depth and creativity. Throughout his rule he encouraged the Jesuits to rediscover the universal dimension of the Society of Jesus and to foster collaboration with others, believers or not. Some of the accents of his generality were work for the most disadvantaged, ecology, reconciliation, and work for peace as an inalienable principle; as well as the education of young people.
 
In 2014, at the age of 78, he announced his willingness to submit his resignation, which he did before the 36th General Congregation, held in Rome in 2016.