| Admin_History | Following the closure of St Aidan's College in 1973, the Superior General (Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ) expressed concerns that the Society lacked an apostolic policy in South Africa. Accordingly, the 1970s marked a new direction for the Jesuits in South Africa. The Johannesburg community was established in the early 1970s with a house in Forest Town and in 1973 responsibility for the parish of Holy Trinity in the central suburb of Braamfontein. The Jesuit House at 2 Sherwood Road, Forest Town, was initially purchased to support Fr Jack Gillick's work with the Fons Vitae Institute and marked the start of a Jesuit presence in Johannesburg. The Sisters of the Assumption had approached the English Provincial, Fr Terence Corrigan SJ, for support for the Fons Vitae Institute, specifically a priest theologian to oversee spiritual formation in the post-novitiate course for young sisters.
In 1978, Fr Arrupe created the Vice-Province of Zimbabwe. South Africa remained a region of the English Province and in 1979 Fr Robert Carty SJ was appointed Superior based at the newly acquired headquarters at Murrary House in Belgravia, Johannesburg.
Since 2011, the Johannesburg community has been based at Ignatius House in Auckland Park. Ignatius Park also hosts the offices of the Regional Superior and the Jesuit Institute of South Africa. The Johannesburg community runs the chaplaincies at the nearby universities of Witwatersrand and Johannesburg, the parish of Holy Trinity in Braamfontein and the parish of St Martin de Porres in Orlando West, Soweto. |