Father General has appointed Fr. Thierry Dobbelstein as the next Provincial Superior of the Jesuits of French-speaking Western Europe. This Province includes France, the Walloon Region of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Greece, Mauritius and Réunion. Thierry Dobbelstein will succeed Fr François Boëdec and will take office on 31 July 2023, the feast of St Ignatius.

Thierry Dobbelstein was born in 1968 in Belgium. As a student at the Collège Saint-François-Xavier in Verviers (in eastern Wallonia,) he met the Jesuits and got to know Ignatian spirituality through CLC-Youth groups. He entered the novitiate in 1988. He then went on to study physics (which he had started before joining the Society,) Philosophy in Namur and Paris, and theology in Frankfurt and Brussels. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2000.

He dedicated fifteen years to teaching and youth ministry in Liege and was superior of the community from 2010 to 2016. That year, he was appointed Socius of the Provincial of the Jesuits of Southern Belgium and Luxembourg and, in this capacity, participated in the creation of the French-speaking Western European Province. In 2017, he became Socius to the current Provincial, François Boëdec. In 2022, he returned to his native country to coordinate the Jesuit educational institutions of French-speaking Belgium in Namur.