Fr Jean Yves Calvez SJ

January 26, 2010 in General, News

jean_yves_calvez_01Renowned French theologian and philosopher Jean-Yves Calvez SJ died in Paris on 11 January, aged 82. For half a century he was well established as a deep and innovative thinker on issues relating to the Church’s social teaching. Soon after his ordination he wrote an influential account of the philosophy of Karl Marx, and in the years leading up to the Council he edited collections of Church documents on social issues. As Assistant to Jesuit Fr General Pedro Arrupe,  Fr Calvez did much to promote the notion that familiarity and solidarity with the poor are an essential dimension of Jesuit life. At a personal level, he was (in the words of the editor of Études, a Jesuit journal which Fr Calvez himself once edited) “a  man of extraordinary modesty” who had little time for honours and awards.