It meant three days with no Internet connection or cellular phone signal, but 35 people from 10 countries within the Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific (JCAP) happily gathered in a rural part of the Philippines for an ecology workshop in early June. They worked together, shared experiences, and developed 60 joint actions for strengthening networks, collaboration and communication as communities of practice.
Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, opened the 50th Anniversary Mid-Year Celebration of the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) on June 18 with affirming words recognizing EAPI’s significant role in the growth of the Church across Asia. The Cardinal, an EAPI alumnus himself, shared his testimony on the transforming impact of the institute in the lives of the participants and the life of the Church.
The environmental problems we face today are complex and the Church’s concern is shared by other faiths. In Islam, for example, we can find some principles of environmental ethics that deal with nature and creation. These principles are: tawhîd (God’s unity), âyat (sign of God’s presence), mîzân (balance), khalifat (God’s vicegerent) and amânat (trust).
The education secretaries within the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) met from May 30 to June 2 in Siem Reap, Cambodia to discuss, among many things, possible projects for collaboration. Guiding the discussion around how members of the Asia Pacific network of Jesuit schools can assist and support each other’s projects was the new JCAP Coordinator for Basic and Secondary Education, Fr Johnny Go SJ, who took over the role from Fr Christopher Gleeson SJ recently.
This World Refugee Day, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) has called for everyone to embrace refugees as part of their communities by providing them with opportunities to grow and contribute to society. This means not only giving them a safe place to stay but also ensuring that they are protected from all forms of evil, including poverty, isolation, exploitation, misconception and neglect.
Often, our mission is not only the aim of our efforts, but also the instrument of our own formation. We are formed for the mission, by the mission, in the mission. At least, that was how I felt about my regency in East Timor.
A special screening of the new film on Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, was held at the Filmoteca Vaticana in Vatican City on June 14. An ambitious project by Jesuit Communications Foundation in the Philippines, Ignacio de Loyola is set to be released in cinemas in the Philippines on July 27. An international release is still being planned.
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Indonesia has launched a social media campaign ahead of the celebration of World Refugee Day on Monday, June 20.
The initiative seeks to gather messages of support by asking people on Facebook to post a photo of themselves alone or with friends holding a personal statement of encouragement for people who have been displaced because of war, natural disaster or prejudice and oppression in their home countries.
What kind of leader do we need to continue our service of faith and the promotion of justice? First, one who understands context in leadership and next, one who is able to move forward on mission development. Which is why this was the focus of the second module of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific’s Leadership Development Programme held in Chiang Mai, Thailand from May 15 to 21. The first module held last December focussed on the importance of context in leadership.
In May 2015, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) approached the Jesuits in Jakarta for the help of Myanmar scholastics as translators for its interviews with Myanmar citizens who had been enslaved in the Thai fishing industry. Several scholastics did so, among them Simon Kam Sian Muan, who is now back in Myanmar for his Regency. He shares here what he learnt from the experience.