Jean-Yves Calvez

However, the objectivity and depth of his work, avoiding the polemic and Communist party thinking that often attached themselves to Marx's personality, immediately gained him great esteem in the field of social philosophy.

A polyglot, Calvez was very interested in social, economic, and political questions, refusing to separate these three fields of study, but rather tying them together in research serving a Christian vision of the whole human being.

Calvez studied and promoted a Catholic social teaching that was less Euro-centric and more oriented toward the grave problems of underdevelopment that accompanied the wave of botched decolonizations of the 1960s.

Calvez actively participated in preparation for the 32nd General Congregation of the Jesuits (1974-1975) which, in a still-famous decree, gave the Society a mission to focus on "the service of faith and the promotion of justice."

Faithful to the memory of Pedro Arrupe, to whom he was more a close friend than a subordinate, he made better known the profoundly religious thought and personality of this 28th Superior general of the Society of Jesus.

He taught in the department of social ethics at the Jesuit faculty of Sèvres-Paris from 2002 to 2006, and, at the invitation of Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, gave a series of sermons in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.