The delegates for a General Congregation are elected by a Provincial Congregation, whose delegates are elected by members of the Province who have been members of the Society for a certain length of time. The number of delegates that each Province sends depends upon the size of the Province. Most of the Province Congregations elected two delegates to attend the General Congregation, along with the Provincial who attends as a delegate by virtue of his office.

The Provincial Congregation generally meet for 3 purposes. The first purpose is to vote on whether there are pressing needs in the Society that can not be addressed through the Society's ordinary governance, but which require a General Congregation. [The exception to that purpose is when, as in this case, the Congregation needs to be called to elect a new General.]

The second task of the Provincial Congregation is to elect delegates to a General Congregation that has been called, or might be called.

The third task of the Provincial Congregation is to screen postulata (propositions) that have been submitted to the Congregation for presentation to the General Congregation by members of the Province. Propositions are in the form of proposals for discussion and action by the upcoming General Congregation, which are judged pressing enough that they must be dealt with by a General Congregation. The Provincial Congregations screen, edit or rewrite propositions from the Province. The Congregations may also write their own propositions.

All of the postulata approved by the Provincial Congregations were sent to Rome and reviewed by a Coetus Previus (a preparatory group), which was named by Fr. General. They sorted the postulata by topic and came up with the list of topics that will make up the agenda of the General Congregation after the election of the new General.