Construction is well underway for the Arrupe Jesuit Community, the new Jesuit residence on Lapsley Lane. Jesuits on campus hope the new space will be a central point for the working Jesuits of Philadelphia and provide a collaborative hub for Jesuits and their lay colleagues across ministries.

The new building will include 15 bedrooms, common living areas, a chapel, a dining area and hospitality spaces. The residence will house actively working Jesuits from St. Joe’s, St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Gesu School and Old St. Joseph’s Church, bringing together key Jesuit institutions in Philadelphia.

Gene Geinzer, S.J., who will be the rector of the new Jesuit community, hopes the residence will allow better interaction between the four ministries.

“We want to develop a certain amount of synergy between the university parish and the high school and the grade school,” Geinzer said.

Brendan Lally, S.J., current rector of the Jesuit community, noted the geographical separation of different Jesuit ministries and educational institutions and the current efforts of the Jesuit provinces to consolidate forces.

“Things started small there, it expanded, the university community was established and so forth,” Lally said. “So there’s an attempt in different areas to kind of pull things together, to work more efficiently and also to have more apostolic interaction among our institutions.”

In the early days of St. Joe’s, the college and the Prep were connected and both shared the same location of Old St. Joseph’s Church on Willings Alley. As the college and prep expanded they separated and relocated—St. Joe’s eventually moving to its current location on City Avenue in West Philly and the Prep to Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia.

The new building is being funded by the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, which oversees the Philadelphia Jesuit community, on land leased by the university.

Mike Gabriele, director of communications of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, said St. Joe’s made perfect sense for a new Jesuit community, where Jesuits and lay colleagues can collaborate on ministering to the dynamic needs of the city.

“A unique aspect of the Jesuit order is their tradition of living and collaborating in community,” Gabriele said in an email to The Hawk. “Regardless of whether a Jesuit’s mission is as a pastor, teacher, administrator, campus minister, counselor or even an artist or physician, he is supported by, and breaks bread with, his brother Jesuits from other apostolates and ministries.”

A focus of the community will be to encourage collaborative Jesuit-lay interactions.

“The new Arrupe Jesuit Community will be a collaborative hub for priests and brothers across Philadelphia, a place of spiritual conversation and communal discernment amongst themselves and their lay partners, including faculty and students at SJU,” Gabriele said.

The space will have an academic focus in addition to its efforts to serve the needs of the Church in Philadelphia, Geinzer said. The first floor of the building consists of a gathering space, a living room and dining room, which he imagines will be spaces for gathering of Jesuit faculty, colleagues and students. Geinzer said St. Joe’s students and their Jesuit professors will perhaps meet for lunch, while Jesuits from the Prep and Gesu School will invite colleagues and guests in the evening.

“These three spaces, and of course the chapel, will become fairly open places,” Geinzer said. “Faculty, and of course students, will be invited to come into the community and share events both religious and academic.”

Charles Frederico ’95, SJ, senior director of Mission & Ministry at the Prep, said he is excited to be coming home to the campus of St. Joe’s. Frederico was inspired to become a Jesuit priest himself during his time at the university.

“I am excited to live with a large group of Jesuits who are apostolically engaged and looking for new ways to expand the influence of the Society of Jesus in Philadelphia,” Frederico said in an email to The Hawk. “A shared vision of ministry comes from the heart of the community and with this new assembly of committed Jesuits there, we will inevitably make great things happen.”