There is no institution so old that it has nothing left to learn – and the Catholic Church must commit to learning about and changing its practices in relation to ecological issues. This was the message from Colombian Jesuit Fr José Mesa, Secretary of Primary and Secondary Education at the Jesuit Curia in Rome and one of the keynote speakers at the JCAP Education Colloquium in Sydney.
The first Jesuit university in India was inaugurated on July 7. Located in Bhubaneswar, the capital of the state of Odisha, Xavier University (XU) is also the state’s first Catholic university and the fourth Catholic university in India.
In his address, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that the new university aims to be a centre of both academic excellence and sound ethical values, and thanked the Jesuits in Odisha for taking establishing it.
St Aloysius Gonzaga English Language Institute (SAG) marked a major milestone on July 5, with the granting of its first diplomas in education to 22 students who had successfully completed its three-year full-time Integrated Program. The graduating students received their diplomas from principal guest Bishop Basilio Athai of the Archdiocese of Taunggyi and Fr Mark Raper SJ, Major Superior of the Jesuits in Myanmar.
On May 31, 2014, the Yap Catholic High School (YCHS), located on a small Micronesian island in the Western Pacific Ocean, celebrated its first graduating class. Jesuit missionaries first established a mission in Micronesia in the late seventeenth century. At the end of the World War II, the mission was placed in the hands of American Jesuits. Now Jesuits serve in a number of ways on the islands of Pohnpei, Chuuk, Guam, Yap and Palau.
The Loyola School of Theology (LST) in Manila has begun offering a theology programme through which students, especially Jesuit scholastics, can engage with Asian contexts.
Annie Abuca, currently the Grade School Assistant Principal for Administration and Supervision at Sacred Heart School – Ateneo de Cebu, Philippines, reflects on her experience of the recent Workshop on Ignatian School Leadership for leaders and administrators in Jesuit schools across the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific.
In March, the Macau Ricci Institute (MRI) devoted its MRI Seminar to the Suppression and Restoration of the Society of Jesus. The one-day seminar focused first on the Suppression of the Society in Europe, and on the last Jesuits who survived in Beijing, China. It presented the historical background and encouraged reflection on this from the perspective of the Jesuit Chinese Province and then from the Macau perspective. It also addressed the question of the Restoration and its manifestation throughout the art and architecture of the new Society of Jesus in Macau and China.<
Fr General Adolfo Nicolás delivered the opening address at a recent Pontifical Gregorian University event held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Jesuit-run Sophia University in Tokyo. A former student of Sophia in the 1960s and a former provincial of the Japanese Province, Fr Nicolás spoke on Sophia’s contribution to the mission of the Catholic Church in Asia.
Fr Nicolás urged Japanese Catholics to promote religious sensitivity in their country and not to lose hope because they represent a small minority of the country’s population.
As Myanmar emerges from decades of military dictatorship, the scramble is on among young Burmese to educate themselves so that they might take advantage of the economic growth that is already transforming the country.
Myint Myint Maw is acutely aware of the advantages that education can bring: she was one of the few children lucky enough to complete their high school education in the village of Popa near the ancient, pagoda-dotted city of Bagan; and she emerged from university a few years later with an engineering degree.
The Jesuit education project will be located in Sisophon, Banteay Meanchey Province. In a letter to members of the Cambodia mission and collaborators, Fr Francisco Oh In-don SJ, Delegate of the Korean Provincial to the Cambodia Mission, said “it was very clear that we Jesuits should serve poor children first”.