One of the responsibilities of the Secretary of the Society of Jesus is to present each year to Father General, to the Jesuits and to those associated with the Society, a statistical portrait of the status of the religious Order. Fr. Antoine Kerhuel is currently in charge of this task, assisted by the Vice-Secretary and the IT team.

As of 1 January, 2022, there were 14,439 Jesuits in the world. They were broken down as follows: 583 novices, 2,587 scholastics, 837 brothers and 10,432 priests.

The geographical distribution can be summarised as follows: South Asia (India and surrounding countries): 3,955; Asia-Pacific: 1,481; Africa: 1,712; Europe (including Central and Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Southern Europe): 3,386; North America (specifically Canada and the United States): 2,046; Latin America (including Mexico and the Caribbean): 1,859.

The Secretary mentioned that during the year 2021 several changes had taken place in the configuration of the Provinces and Regions, namely:

• the establishment of the Province of Central Europe (ECE), including the Dependent Regions of Austria, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia, Switzerland;

• the establishment of the Southern Africa Province (SAP);

• the establishment of Myanmar as a Dependent Region of the Philippine Province.

In total, the Jesuits are currently spread over 64 Provinces, 3 independent Regions and 10 dependent Regions.

As of 1 January 2021, there were 14,818 Jesuits; as of 1 January, 2022: 14,439.

The pandemic may have had an effect on the decline in the number of Jesuits, as many have succumbed to the disease on all continents. It may also have been difficult to enter the Society during periods of confinement or travel restrictions.

We hereby share with you one of the charts prepared by the Secretariat. It contains revealing statistics both on the geographical distribution of the members of the Society and on the medium and long term trends if we look carefully at where the novices and scholastics are located in greater numbers.