“My life today, as a vowed religious, is fuller, richer, and filled with the company of friends and brothers who give my life a depth that I never imagined possible before I became a Jesuit. We don’t do this alone. …We just need the patience and the humility to see how rich our life becomes when we let ourselves love, and be loved, in new and different ways. Jesuit life is not a lonely life. It is anything but that.”
Will serve at the International Human Rights Center and as a special advisor to the dean at LMU Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Fernando C. Saldivar Jr., SJ, was born in Santa Ana, California, and grew up next door in Tustin. He first met the Jesuits while studying at Georgetown University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history, with a minor in economics, in 1999. He earned a law degree from Southwestern University School of Law in 2005, and prior to entering the Society of Jesus in 2016, he was in private practice as an attorney and has been a member of the State Bar of California since 2005. As a Jesuit, he earned a master’s degree in social philosophy from Loyola University Chicago in 2020. He completed his theology studies in France in 2025, where he received an S.T.B., Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Facultés Loyola Paris and a Master in Catholic Theology from the Université de Strasbourg.
During his regency, Fernando was missioned to Nairobi, Kenya, where he spent two years as the global policy and advocacy officer for the Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network Africa (JENA). As such, he supported the work of JENA in the production of analysis for advocacy purposes on global international policy as it affects Africa, focused primarily on issues related to debt and taxation, climate justice, peace and security. He had the opportunity to make presentations to African Bishops’ Conferences, as well as parliamentarians and policy makers, on matters related to ethics, social justice, sustainable development and poverty eradication in Africa. In the years since, he has remained an active collaborator with JENA, returning to Africa each summer during his theology studies.
His work has been published in Commonweal, Ethics in International Affairs and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. He is a visiting scholar in the philosophy department at Loyola University Chicago. After ordination, Fernando will serve at the International Human Rights Center and as a special advisor to the dean at LMU Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Bachelor’s degree, history, Georgetown University; Juris Doctor, Southwestern University School of Law; Master’s degree, social philosophy, Loyola University Chicago; Bachelor of Sacred Theology, Facultés Loyola Paris; Master in Catholic Theology, Université de Strasbourg
Came to believe.
It’s no secret that I’m a Star Wars fan. The Christmas that Santa brought the family our first VCR, I immediately wanted to watch “The Empire Strikes Back” on my birthday, which was two days later. However, another movie that I loved watching over and over again growing up was “The Delta Force with Chuck Norris.” Looking back on that, watching that movie so many times may have had a lot to do with planting the seeds of a vocation to the priesthood.
There is a scene in the movie where a plane going from Athens to New York is hijacked by terrorists and taken to Beirut. The hijackers then separate the Jewish passengers from the rest, having the German flight attendant, despite her vehement protests, read the names one by one, ordering them to come forward. They all do. And then a priest in clerics stands up, played by George Kennedy, and goes forward to the area where the others have been taken. The lead hijacker says that he didn’t call him. The priest says, “Yes you did. You called for all the Jews. I’m Jewish, just like Jesus Christ. You take one of us, you better take all of us.”
I didn’t quite understand why, but that was, and is, my favorite part of the movie. I didn’t want to be brave like Chuck Norris and the rest of the Delta Force soldiers. I wanted to be brave like that priest, standing up to the man with a gun pointed at him, because of what believing in Jesus means. I’ve had the better part of 40 years to chew on that scene and the feelings it stirs up inside of me. It is one of the many reasons, and perhaps one of the earliest ones, why I am so humbled to be able to wear that same collar today.
I can’t pick a favorite. There are several that I love, that have been with me at different parts of my journey and spoken to me in the unique ways that I needed at that particular time. I will point out two, however, that come to mind.
The first is Óscar Romero. He’s another priest that found his way very early into my consciousness through the ways he was depicted in movies that I saw growing up. I was completely taken with Raul Julia’s depiction of the archbishop in “Romero.” In fact, if I’m honest, sometimes the picture that pops in my mind when I think of the saint is Raul Julia. I also remember the scene of the archbishop’s assassination in Oliver Stone’s “Salvador” — being shocked (and perhaps moved too) by the image of priest being killed during Mass for having the temerity to speak truth to power.
Romero speaks to me because he is someone who I first met, so to speak, when I was still pretty young, but who I got to know much better as I got older. When I got to college and had the chance to study the history of Central America, of El Salvador and what was going on at the moment he was archbishop, it gave me an even more profound regard for the risk that he took for his people in doing and saying everything that he did. Also, as an adult I could appreciate his own conversion story, the fact that he did not always have the call to activism that would lead to his death.
As a Jesuit, I came to appreciate his relationship with Rutilio Grande and the way that Grande’s murder helped to change Romero. As Pope Francis says, Rutilio Grande’s first miracle was Romero’s conversion. I believe that, and it shows me also the power of God to convert the hardest of hearts. It’s the Lord’s call and touch that makes Saul of Tarsus into St. Paul and that makes Óscar Romero the model of how far a bishop will go to defend his flock.
In a very different, but no less profound way, but I am really struck by the story of St. Vibiana, the patroness of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, because we know so very little, almost nothing, about her. “The patron saint of nobodies.” I think she is a perfect saint for this teeming 21st-century metropolis; this place where so many lives pass in anonymity, both desired and undesired. She is a reminder to me that no one is ever unknown to God. No matter how alone and isolated we may feel, we are always called to communion with God, always invited to be in community.
These days we are apt to bemoan the fact that vocations to the Society are down, some places in the world much more so than others. We may not say it explicitly, but perhaps there is even a fear that the Society is dying. Father General came to Paris last fall and gave a talk to the scholastics studying there. He reminded us that during the Suppression (1773-1814) our numbers went, for all intents and purposes, to zero. Yet, following that, we came back, and within a century and a half we had produced the numbers that we seem to mourn the loss of today. It is a reminder to me of our resilience, our ability to adapt to new challenges and new conditions. It gives me hope that even if I can’t see the future ahead, or if I’m apprehensive about what I do see, the Holy Spirit continues to be at work guiding and nurturing us.
That’s easy: Africa.
Well, maybe not that easy, because I could just as easily say France.
The truth of the matter is that my Jesuit vocation has allowed me to see and experience the world. Definitely not all of it, at least not yet, but a big part that I never expected to see. Maybe the point to highlight too is the way that I’ve gotten to see these parts of the world. I have been able to see them not as a tourist, as somebody who spends a few days and then goes home. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. The difference for me is that I have been able to see and experience these places as home. It’s all of the things that you do in a place when you actually live there, rather than simply spend some time on vacation.
Yes, it is learning to eat new food and meeting new people, but it is also celebrating new holidays, learning the history of the people and places around you, and in the case of France, learning a whole new language. Things you take for granted at home become new challenges. For example, how do you get a haircut the way you want in a different language, how do you drive a car on the opposite side of the road, or how do you navigate the local bureaucracy? All of these are challenges you never expect. However, what you also never quite expect is the way that your brothers look after you, the way that you are accompanied on this journey. It is a process of learning to ask for help but also having the humility to allow yourself to be helped. It is all a wonderful, profoundly moving way to see and experience the world.
That this is not a lonely life. A lot of us, in thinking about religious life, are inclined to think that it can be lonely or isolating. If we’re honest, the prospect of professing vows of poverty, obedience and particularly chastity seem unreasonably daunting in this day and age. In particular, envisioning life without a significant other, especially when so many of our closest friends are married, have children or are in other long-term relationships, seems almost sad. I’ll admit, it’s a different kind of life. But, just because it’s different, doesn’t mean that it’s not also tremendously life-giving.
My life today, as a vowed religious, is fuller, richer, and filled with the company of friends and brothers who give my life a depth that I never imagined possible before I became a Jesuit. It’s not to say that I had a flat or boring life before that, simply that I needed the experience of becoming a Jesuit to help my heart open up to new things, new ways of loving others and letting myself be loved by them. It’s different, yes, but different is not always a bad thing, especially if it is part and parcel of what God is calling you to do. And that is the key. If this is your vocation in life, if God is inviting you to be with him in this manner, then he has a plan about how this is going to work for you.
There is a beautiful part of the Jesuit vow formula, the words we actually say when we profess our first vows. It’s the very last part, where we ask God, “And as you have freely given me the desire to make this offering, so also may you give me the abundant grace to fulfill it.” God can, and does, give us the grace to live these vows, to live a life where we do not go home to that one special person, but instead have the freedom to pick up and be missioned to wherever the need is greatest. As I’ve learned, along with that freedom, God gives us the tremendous gift of each other, of the other brothers he has called to join and walk with us along the way. The guys you will laugh with, cry with, share the ups and downs of life with; the brothers who you will share your morning coffee with and the ones who will bring you dinner when you are sick in bed.
We don’t do this alone. We’re not meant to. God has already thought this out for us. We just need the patience and the humility to see how rich our life becomes when we let ourselves love, and be loved, in new and different ways. Jesuit life is not a lonely life. It is anything but that.
In a way, community has deepened my appreciation for the Eucharist, challenged me to think ever deeper about what it actually means to be in communion with the Lord, and through him to one another. It is a reminder that it is never just about a personal relationship that I might have with Jesus. That personal relationship, no matter how intimate, through the Eucharist is always a call to recognize how that same communion binds me to you. It is a profound challenge to love my neighbor as myself and to take seriously the parable of the Good Samaritan and see the suffering person, no matter who he or she may be, as my neighbor and act likewise.
All that is to say that community forces me outside of my shell, to remember that as Jesuits we are called not only to help souls, but to do all of this together. It is a reminder that my brothers in community are not simply my roommates, or other do-gooders that I live with. I am called to love them, let them love me, and to work towards accompanying each other on this journey no matter where it takes us.
It is sharing my joys, yes, but it is also being honest and open about those things that are difficult. It is letting them love and support me along the way. I recall vividly Christmas of 2020. It was the year of the pandemic, and it was before the vaccine was available. My mother, who was already in the hospital on account of a serious illness, came down with COVID and was in the intensive care unit. I was living in Nairobi, Kenya, at the time, on the other side of the world. I recall sharing what was going on with my brothers in community, being honest about my fears and anxieties, and letting them walk with me. Once I had done that, I recall them praying at Mass for the recovery of “our mother, Nellie.” Our mother. That touched me to the depths of my soul and reminded me what it means to be a Jesuit in community. We’re family.
My mother, with a lot of struggle, recovered. It is due, in no small part, I believe, to the prayers of all her sons in Nairobi for our mother.
