Khadija Magardie It is not difficult to find Dr Alan Peter, despite the sheer vastness that is Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto.
“You mean the white moruti [Sesotho for doctor] who lives in Soweto?” people will say, and point you in whatever direction the youthful, friendly doctor may be doing his daily rounds. The nursing staff and doctors at the hospital remonstrate that they never treat Peter differently. But while they share coffee breaks
together, and discuss patients’ conditions over lunch, they lead vastly different lives after work. Dr Peter (34), also known as Father Peter, is a Jesuit priest. And when other doctors go home every day to their partners and families, he returns to the mission in Orlando, Soweto, which has been his home and the centre of his life for the past four years. In keeping with the age-old tradition of the Jesuits, priests like Peter are less likely to be found ministering in parishes, as “normal priests” do, than they are to be found working in the community. Their motto is Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam – Latin for “For the Greater Glory of God”. For Jesuits this means that virtually any area of work could be their apostolate, or calling. This is evident if one considers that in South Africa, Jesuits work as teachers, business administrators, historians, musicians, refugee counsellors and doctors. Jesuits are often perceived as being particularly militant, a notion encouraged by movies like The Mission in which a group of Jesuits in Paraguay fought, literally, to keep slave traders at bay. It is also perhaps aided by the association between Jesuits and so-called “liberation theology” in Latin America in the 1960s. The famous Jesuit priest, Camillo Torres, once said: “The Catholic who is not a revolutionary is living in mortal sin.” “This reputation is somewhat exaggerated,” says Anthony Egan, historian, Jesuit, and former University of the Witwatersrand political studies lecturer.
Egan is currently studying at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States, with Jesuits whose backgrounds include economics, law and the armed forces. Egan says the promotion of justice has always been a cornerstone of Jesuit teachings. The order has a strong following – with about 22 000 men in 120 countries. It outstrips all other orders within the Catholic Church. And while there has been talk of a grim future for the priesthood, with overall numbers of priests dropping, there has also been an increase in seminary enrolments in the developing world, especially Africa.
The order’s founder, Ignatius of Loyola, a former soldier and minor noble, taught that the life of Jesus should be followed holistically and not limited to spirituality. Training is lengthy and intense. After being accepted, trainees, or novitiates, have to spend up to six years studying, working in a variety of professions from hospital orderly to chaplain, and undergoing spiritual training before taking final vows. After taking final vows, Jesuits must give their personal savings and inheritance away, and assume the life of the order. Father Peter’s interaction with colleagues is aided by an animated ability to pepper his conversations with a motley of dialects, from Yiddish to Sesotho to a near perfectly
accented Arabic. “Young people may find this life difficult, especially chastity,” he says, but the benefit of being part of many families far outweighs perceived negatives.
Sick and dying patients are often grateful for the presence of a priest to hear their last confessions, or simply to offer support. And after the recent death of the wife of a senior staff member, Peter was asked to perform the funeral service. He says this was a chance to bring the message of the church into the hospital. “For what was perhaps a first time for many, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Christians all worshipped together, in the same church pew,” he says. Peter admits that many may find his life’s choices “stupid”, more so because he, as a doctor, could live a lucrative life in private practice. “Like anything in life, it has got to do with your reasons for doing things, which also means that anyone thinking of religious orders should also question their motivation,” he says. “At the end of the day, we want people who can do God’s work – we don’t want refugees from life.”