Departure of Fr Hans

Father Hans Putman, a Dutch Jesuit of the Province of the Near East and North Africa, left the Holy Land on March 20, 2020 for Holland. He is a renowned spiritual master, having spent his later years specializing in giving Ignatian retreats and spiritual direction. He leaves a great void in the spiritual life and formation of many lay people, men and women religious, priests and bishops.

Father Hans spent fifty-eight years serving the Society of Jesus and the Church in the Arabic speaking world. He arrived in the Middle East in 1962 and was ordained a priest in 1969. He finished a PhD focusing on the 8th century dialogue between the Assyrian Patriarch Timothy I and the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi.

Among his many different apostolic works:

he served for ten years as master of novices for the Near East Province in the novitiate in Minya in Upper Egypt.

he served for fifteen years in Khartoum, Sudan, where he was spiritual director in the diocesan seminary and director of spiritual formation for the laity.

he spent two years in the Jesuit retreat center in Touffaha in Syria, helping out there during difficult years of civil war.

Father Hans developed the apostolate of the Spiritual Exercises in the Middle East, giving retreats all over the region. He also engaged himself fully with young people, creating innovative programs to inspire them in their lives. No small number later entered religious life, among them a number of Jesuits and women religious in a variety of congregations.

For the past seven years, Father Hans has resided in Bethlehem, faithful companion to Father Peter Du Brul. Almost 82-years-old, Father Hans continued to give the Exercises in Israel and Palestine as well as regularly traveling around the Middle East and throughout the world at the invitation of those who sought his guidance. Recently diagnosed with a malignant tumor, Father Hans serenely and courageously made the decision to go back to the country of his birth and join the community of elderly Jesuits in Nijmegen.

We hold Father Hans in our hearts and pray that the Lord accompany him in this new stage of his life.

These lines were taken from the page “Jesuits in the Holy Land”:

https://jesuitsholyland.wordpress.com/2020/03/20/departure-of-father-hans/