A consultation was held at the office of the JCEAO on November 16. Eight Jesuits participated: Frs Adolfo Nicolas (President), Danny Huang (Philippines Provincial), Roberto Yap (PHI), David Holdcroft (ASL), Tom Steinbugler (JCEAO Treasurer), Fernando Azpiroz (CHN), Pham Minh-Uoc (Socius), and the newly-appointed Secretary for Social Apostolate Fr Denis Kim (KOR).
The main purpose of this consultation was to help Fr Kim in focusing the apostolate and searching for fresh understanding and directions.
Experiences shared were helpful, particularly those of Frs Robert Yap and David Holdcroft, as delegates for Social Apostolate in the Philippines and Australia, respectively.
The conversation also discussed some issues that were brought up in the last 2004 meeting.
It was agreed that Social Apostolate has three main aspects: research, advocacy, and training in the areas of culture, environment, the problem of corruption in the government, and especially one area that needs urgent attention, migrant workers.
Those at the consultation recognized the diverse contexts and different needs in the region; it would need much creativity to be able to respond to them. What may be feasible at the moment is to have a network so that those working in the Social Apostolate can talk with one another, share experiences among the Jesuits and lay collaborators, and eventually identify specific projects for collaboration.
Fr Kim would be visiting the different provinces in the next two years to get more inputs. By the middle of next year, 2008, he aims to come up with an action plan for the secretariat.