Jesuit Scholar-Priest Celebrates 25th Jubilee and Professes Final Vows
A Jesuit for 25 years, Fr. Aaron Pidel, SJ, will profess his final vows in the Society of Jesus on November 15, 2025.
Drawn to the Jesuits by the intellectual apostolate, he now serves the Church and the Society of Jesus as a professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Jesuit-run university in Rome. There, Fr. Pidel serves in a centuries-old institution while teaching the men and women who will serve the Church long into the future.
“It is very broadening, encouraging,” said Fr. Pidel of teaching fundamental theology to religious and laypeople from around the world. “You get a sense of a different kind of Church.”
Fr. Pidel described his mission today as living out the intellectual apostolate envisioned by St. Ignatius, who founded the Gregorian University for students from around the world to learn Catholic doctrine in order to become effective teachers and evangelizers of others, he said.
“There’s a chance to do so much good here, to grow into the role of a professor at the Gregorian who can edify, can instruct and can hopefully serve the Church all over the world.”
Father Pidel’s work is the fruit of a discernment that began during his undergraduate years.
“I was really attracted to the model of the scholar-priest,” he said of his exposure to the Jesuits during his undergraduate years at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
“I was interested in the intellectual life, so when I noticed that some of the people I most enjoyed reading had this ‘SJ’ after their name and commanded a sort of respect from my professors, that was intriguing,” said Fr. Pidel.
He entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, in 2000. After earning his master’s degree in philosophy at Fordham University, Fr. Pidel went on to pursue a licentiate in sacred theology (S.T.L) and Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from the Clough School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College. He completed his doctorate in systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame in 2017 and taught at Marquette University for five years before moving to Rome.
Father Pidel’s area of focus is ecclesiology, the study of the Church. It’s a topic he thinks is as relevant as ever, especially given the recent global attention to the conclave and election of Pope Leo XIV.
“Most people don’t see the Church very easily as being Christ’s communication with us,” he said. “Fundamental ecclesiology is concerned with the credibility of the Church. How do we explain that one doesn’t have a relationship with the real Jesus without having a relationship with the Church?”
These questions are ones he strives to help his students contend with in his courses at the Gregorian University, where he teaches many religious in formation, including Jesuits. Their fervor provides a source of hope for the future.
“It’s easy to forget in a place like the Gregorian – surrounded by young people enthusiastic about the faith – that that there’s a vocation crisis,” he said.
Living and working in Rome in places so closely connected to the early Society of Jesus has also been a source of consolation and enrichment for his vocation.
“Being in Rome has given me a deeper and closer connection with the founding days, the primitive Society,” he said. “To be close to these places, both the educational impulse and the charitable impulses, has given me a connection with that era through frequent reminders of the breadth of the Society’s charism.”
Father Pidel completed his tertianship in Nairobi in 2024. During this final stage of Jesuit formation prior to being invited to final vows, a Jesuit takes a sabbatical from his regular mission and spends time in intensive prayer, study and discernment. Tertians complete the 30-day Spiritual Exercises for the second time, reread the founding documents of the Society of Jesus and engage in challenging apostolic work.
The experience was a reminder of St. Ignatius’ wisdom and an invitation to emulate it, said Fr. Pidel.
“Ignatius managed to be entirely sold out. There was nothing that he refused to do out of fear or for human respect,” he said. “At the same time, because of his wisdom in dealing with people who weren’t as radical as he was, Ignatius was able to manage a very human group of people. He had this combination of radicalism and balance; only the saints manage to pull that off.”
As he looks ahead toward his profession of final vows, Fr. Pidel is filled with hope for himself and for the Society of Jesus to be renewed in the radical balance and zeal that the sons of Ignatius inherit from their founder.
“The more I study, the more I know that there is a greatness, a spaciousness in the Jesuit charism,” said Fr. Pidel. “I feel myself expanding to try to reach some of the stature that Ignatius had.”
Father Pidel will profess final vows in the Society of Jesus, alongside Fr. J. Patrick Hough, SJ, on Saturday, November 15, 2025, in the Chapel of the North American Martyrs at Jesuit High School New Orleans.
