On 14 March, Fr General Arturo Sosa SJ established, ad experimentum, the independent region of Malaysia-Singapore (MAS) for three years, from 2022 to 2025. Until this point, MAS had been a dependent region of the Indonesian Province (IDO).
Fr General Sosa approved the new status following the careful discernment process of the major superiors of MAS and IDO, and the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP), the advice of his Councillors, and “after praying and entrusting this matter to the Lord”.
In enforcing the decree, Fr General Sosa asked that the period of three years “be used to discern, in the framework of [JCAP], the appropriate structure of government that should be best for our life-mission in Malaysia and Singapore”.
MAS Superior Fr Christopher Soh SJ, in his letter to the Jesuits of the region and partners in mission, stressed that being an independent region does not mean being “set apart”, rather it means being “situated more firmly within a wider communion”.
He adds: “The three years of trial independence may perhaps be seen as a canonical holding pattern, which allows MAS to keep up its current operations, while continuing to discern, together with other units of JCAP, a suitable configuration for Jesuit life-mission in our local context.”
He urged the members of the region to take this new arrangement as an opportunity to strengthen their practice of discernment in common and the use of spiritual conversations as the preferred mode of decision-making and governance in all communities and works of the region.
JCAP President Fr Tony Moreno SJ expressed his gratitude to Fr Soh and the MAS region, as well as to Indonesian Provincial Fr Benny Juliawan SJ and the Indonesian Province. This latest governance reconfiguration is part of the ongoing effort of the conference to strengthen the governance of developing regions.