The Society of Jesus is undergoing a new process of reorganization in Spain marked by the decrease in the number of religious and the scarcity of vocations. In just three months, the Jesuits have announced the closure of five communities and stable works in different parts of the country, a decision that the order itself attributes to the impossibility of maintaining its presence with the current personnel.
The most symbolic case has been that of Murcia, where on June 16 an uninterrupted presence of almost five centuries came to an end. According to El Debate, the provincial of Spain, Father Enric Puiggròs SJ, signed together with the bishop of Cartagena, Mons. José Manuel Lorca Planes, the agreement that ends the stable Jesuit community in the city, acknowledging that “for now” it is no longer possible to maintain a religious community there.
The first Jesuits arrived in Murcia in 1555, barely fifteen years after the founding of the Society of Jesus by St. Ignatius of Loyola and still during the lifetime of its founder. The closure of this community constitutes one of the most significant decisions within the current reorganization process of the Jesuit province of Spain.
At the farewell event, Puiggròs explained that the decision responds to the reorganization process that the order has been developing for years as a consequence of the reduction in the number of available religious.
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