But 16 months later, the cash is just rolling in. The Jesuit priest leading the fundraising efforts said he hoped his order would have secured several multimillion-dollar donations by now, on top of the order’s initial $15 million investment. Instead, only about $180,000 in small donations have flowed into the trust the Jesuits set up in partnership with a group of descendants whose ancestors were enslaved by Catholic priests. Concerned by the slow pace of fundraising, the head of the descendants’ group that has worked with the Jesuits wrote to Rome earlier this month, urging the order’s world leader to ensure that American priests fulfill their pledge. The American Jesuits, which have relied on slave labor and slave sales for more than a century, had discussed plans last year to sell all of their remaining lands in Maryland, the priests said. They discussed transferring the proceeds, along with a portion of the proceeds of an earlier $57 million plantation sale, to the trust. Money from the trust will flow into a foundation that will fund programs that benefit descendants, including scholarships and emergency funds and promote projects of racial reconciliation. However, the rest of the land has yet to be sold and proceeds from previous land sales have yet to be transferred to the trust, Jesuit officials and descendants say. “It is becoming apparent to all who look beyond words that the Jesuits do not deliver with deeds,” wrote Joseph M. Stewart, president and chairman of the Descendants Foundation for Truth and Reconciliation, in his letter to the Rev. Arturo Sosa, the senior Jesuit. general. “The bottom line is that without your commitment, this partnership seems destined to fail.” In his letter, Mr Stewart warned that “hardliners” within the class maintained the position that they “never enslaved anyone and therefore ‘owed’ no one anything”. In an interview, Mr. Stewart said he believed the Jesuit leadership remained committed to the partnership, describing ongoing meetings and conversations. The point, he said, was that the community of descendants needed the priests to do more than talk. In his letter, he called on Father Sosa to ensure that the American Jesuits complete the land sales and the transfer of proceeds by the end of this year and secure the $100 million commitment by next year. He also sought an order to deposit a total of $1 billion into the trust by 2029. Descendants had previously called on the Jesuits to raise $1 billion for their foundation. The Jesuits said they support it as a long-term goal, but have not committed to a timeline. Father Sosa declined to comment on the letter through a spokesman. “We challenge them to be faster,” said Mr. Stewart, a retired corporate executive whose ancestors were sold by the Jesuits in 1838 to save Georgetown University from financial ruin, Jesuit records show. “How long does it take to do this if you’re committed to it?” In a statement released Monday, the Rev. Brian G. Paulson, president of the Conference of Jesuits of Canada and the United States, along with the nation’s senior Jesuit leaders said they remain “deeply committed to our historic partnership with the community of descendants and working together for racial reconciliation and healing in this country.” Father Paulson and provincial leaders said they “share the concern of Mr. Joseph Stewart and other senior leaders about the pace of our fundraising efforts,” adding that they “continue to work with our network partners to secure resources ». The Jesuits negotiating with the descendants’ group over the former plantations said they had hired two outside firms to facilitate the sale of the remaining land and were “in discussions” about the $57 million land sale and how a portion of the proceeds may benefit the trust of descendants. The Jesuits announced their $100 million pledge in March 2021 as part of their efforts to redress their history of profiting from slavery. The order relied on plantations and slave labor to support the clergy and help finance the construction and daily operation of churches and schools, including Georgetown, the nation’s first Catholic institution of higher learning. At the time of the announcement they said they had already deposited $15 million into the trust for descendants. They had also hired a fundraising firm with the goal of raising the remaining $100 million over a period of three to five years. The partnership came about when a group of descendants pushed for negotiations after learning from New York Times articles that the Jesuits had sold out their ancestors to save Georgetown. The Rev. Timothy P. Kesicki, the former Jesuit conference president who helped broker that initial agreement between the Jesuits and the descendants’ group, said in an interview that he understood their frustrations. “I was hoping to be further ahead,” said Father Kesicki, who said he hoped the Jesuits would have secured about a third of the $100 million pledged so far to the trust, including the order’s initial investment of $15 million. Father Kesicki, who now serves as the trust’s president, and others familiar with the Jesuit efforts pointed to a number of challenges, including the order’s organizational structure, which requires multiple input from many people on important decisions, and the complexity involved in land deals. Additionally, Father Kesicki said, building a major fundraising campaign takes time. “But we have to show more growth,” he said, “and that’s a challenge and a pressure I carry every day.”
