After two years of meeting virtually, the International Commission on Jesuit Education (ICAJE) finally met face-to-face in Rome from 17 to 20 May. Fr Johnny Go SJ, Asia Pacific Secretary for Pre-Secondary and Secondary Education, represented our conference.
The delegates were requested to highlight in their report how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the schools in their region. While school heads and teachers around the world showed equally heroic efforts in responding to the pandemic, it was also clear that due to differences in resources, some schools suffered greater disruption than others, leading to more learning deficits and greater social costs among the students. This was particularly true for Jesuit Refugee Service and Fe Y Alegria.
The group also discussed the impact of last year’s fully virtual II Colloquium JESEDU-Global2021, which was organised by Asia Pacific. They agreed that more could be done in the different regions, especially in relation to what many regarded as the heart of the colloquium–the Discernment Circles, where in small mixed groups, educators shared and prayerfully listened to one another’s experiences and insights in light of the themes of the colloquium. The Discernment Circles provided the participants with a concrete and powerful experience of the global network.
Another topic of discussion was the implementation of the integrated holistic perspective on Jesuit education. The delegates shared ideas on how to improve their efforts in continuing the discernment of Jesuit education as a living tradition using the most recent and essential documents of the Society on its education ministry. The global webinar series is one concrete programme, and after the first on Justice last March, the second one on Love of Creation will be in June.
The delegates had the benefit of listening to two experts who provoked them into a deeper conversation about our schools’ Catholic identity and their contemporary task of faith formation. Fr Benoit Malvaux SJ explained the canonical implications of the recent Instruction of the Congregation for Catholic Education on “The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue”.
Meanwhile, Fr James Hanvey SJ, the Society’s Secretary for the Service of Faith, provided his reflections and questions to frame the group’s conversation on the upcoming II Seminar JESEDU-Jogja2024, which will tackle the important challenge of how to offer faith formation to our students in an in-depth manner, while promoting interreligious respect and dialogue.
A central piece of the meeting was the spiritual conversations on the Catholic identity of our schools, facilitated by Fr John Ravi SJ. There was also discussion on the upcoming global celebration of the 50th anniversary of Fr Pedro Arrupe’s revolutionary talk on “Men (and Women) for Others”.
As per their custom, the closing Eucharist was held in the chapel in the Rooms of St Ignatius at the Church of the Gesú. The Mass presider, Fr Joe Arimoso SJ, interpreted the significance of the ICAJE tradition as similar to the act of foot soldiers pledging their allegiance to their general. Representing our global network of schools, the delegates gathered in Rome to report on their regions, to discuss possible strategies, and finally, to pledge their allegiance to St Ignatius.
It would be an understatement to say that a lot was accomplished in those four days, but one important realisation of the delegates is that 10 years after the very first colloquium in Boston, the Jesuit Global Network of Schools–only recently officially launched by Fr General Arturo Sosa SJ–is finally coming of age.
In the words of the Worldwide Secretary for Secondary and Pre-Secondary Education, Fr Jose Alberto Mesa SJ: “We are now beginning to work together and to think of working together as a global network.”