Company's very first issue carried some breaking news. As we were getting volume 1, number 1 ready–learning about typesetting, art direction, paper weight, and postal regulations, the Jesuits worldwide were preparing for the order's 33rd general congregation, which was to elect a new superior general.

On August 7, 1981, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, superior general since 1965, suffered a stroke in Rome's airport while returning from a trip to Asia. In an extraordinary move, Pope John Paul II soon afterwards named Fr. Paolo Dezza, SJ, as his delegate to oversee the Society's administration. The general congregation would restore the normal Jesuit structure.

Company was ready to go to press with its first issue in September 1983 with a cover story that gave background on the general congregation–what it was, who was going. But we held a page for a major story—who was to be the 29th superior general. That news came in on September 13, when the congregation elected Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach. A trip downtown secured us a wire-service photo of the man who has led the Society of Jesus from that day until now.

Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, and Company magazine have both been on the job for 20 years.

In these 20 years, Fr. Kolvenbach has guided the Society through challenges, disappointments, and bold initiatives as well as through the year-in and year-out process of serving God's people.

In the United States and in Western Europe, the challenges include adjusting to smaller numbers of Jesuits to respond to ever-growing demands and requests, and articulating a vision for Jesuit ministry when there are simply fewer Jesuits than there were before. In Eastern Europe, the major challenge has been how to live in freedom after communism's collapse—what to start, what to restore, what to let go. In the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and South America, the challenge is overseeing growth and facing massive poverty, hunger, and hopelessness.

While the superior general is elected for life, local superiors generally serve for six years. With about 90 provinces and independent regions, Fr. Kolvenbach appoints about 15 superiors for them each year; then there are local rectors and superiors in each province.

Beyond such regular office work, he has also overseen another general congregation—the 34th—in 1995 and other worldwide meetings. He travels to major Jesuit meetings and events all over the world. And he finds time to write letters, either for a special occasion like a canonization or on important topics in Jesuit life; in one series he has articulated a vision for each phase of the Jesuit formation process.

To inspire, to administer, to plan, to react, to teach, to manage, to pray —these are abilities a general congregation looks for when choosing a superior general. It also wants a man who is at home in the world of Church hierarchy and refugee camps. It wants a man who can give endless tough hours to an endless worthy task. At a recent meeting a Jesuit scholastic asked him, "Father General? Do you take holidays?" Fr. Kolvenbach's response was, "Yes; every night."

Fr. Edward W. Schmidt, SJ, is Company magazine's business manager. In a letter dated January 1, 2003, Fr. Kolvenbach listed his five apostolic priorities for Jesuit ministry. These include venerable works such as education, particularly the major universities in Rome. He also put emphasis on places with long Jesuit association but with new needs and new possibilities: Africa, with its devastating famine and health issues, and China, where numbers and challenges alike call for superlatives. And they include the issue of the migration of refugees, a concern for centuries but today one growing ever more acute and more pressing.

The Jesuit general has a vast information network that helps him evaluate situations, work out possibilities, and make decisions. Through this he makes sure that the Society remains faithful to its basic identity and tradition while adapting always to the demands of ministry in the modern world. Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, 54 years old when the Jesuit congregation chose him to lead the Society in 1983, a veteran of work in Europe and in the Middle East, has been a faithful servant of this crucial mission.