While he was in Australia in January, Fr General Adolfo Nicolás SJ responded to questions on vital areas for the Society in the country, including refugees, communications and social justice.
Refugees
How can we advance and expand the educational work that is being done to foster peace-building and reconciliation in post-conflict settings?
A Jesuit brother in Vietnam has highlighted several areas he feels the government should focus on in the coming years – education, corruption, legislation, ethnic minority groups and the environment.
Brother Anthony Ba SJ of the Jesuit-run Alberto Hurtado Center for Pastoral and Social Service in Ho Chi Minh City said this after completing a PESTLE analysis on Vietnam in 2011.
Xavier School was blessed with the unexpected gift of a 17th century painting on its 55th anniversary. The oil painting, The Madonna and Child in Glory with Saints Ignatius of Loyola and Xavier, is by Italian master Francesco de Rosa of the Baroque era.
Fr General Adolfo Nicolás SJ was in Australia in January for the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific Major Superiors Assembly. During his visit, he delivered an address to members for the Australian Province and its companions in which he identified the nurturing and formation of young people as a central concern for the Society of Jesus in the 21st century.
Xavier University has started to help resettle survivors of Tropical Storm Washi. Thousands were rendered homeless by the flash floods that wiped out parts of Cagayan de Oro City in Southern Philippines on December 16 and 17, 2011.
Banteay Prieb, a training centre set up by Jesuit Service Cambodia for Cambodians maimed by the war or by landmines, celebrated its 20th anniversary on December 20, 2011.
The Centre of the Dove, as it is called in English, is located in a former military communication centre, prison and Khmer Rouge killing field. But the centre has transformed the former place of fighting and killing into a place for peace, justice and reconciliation.
Jesuits serving in Timor Leste have returned a secondary school they set up and managed for 18 years to the diocese of Dili. Colégio de São José was transferred on December 14 with a mass led by Vicar General Father Apolinario Aparicio Guterres.
During his homily, Fr Guterres thanked the Society for developing both the Church and the nation through the school and praised the Jesuits for teaching young people to be qualified and disciplined individuals. (Source: UCAN)
In a speech delivered at the recent Sophia Symposium in Tokyo, Fr Mark Raper SJ, President of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, argued for a view of education as “formation for decision and for action: education of the head, the heart and the hands”.
Advocating a pedagogy in which reflection is central, Fr Mark sees the role of education as leading students to love the world, to assume responsibility for it, and to acquire tools in order to renew it.
As such, universities need to go beyond the core business of providing education in competence and critical thinking.
Fr Christopher Willcock SJ, an award-winning Australian composer of music for churches and concert halls, has joined the Boston College community as the Thomas I Gasson SJ Professor for 2011-12. He is presently a member of the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne where he teaches courses in liturgy.
The Gasson Chair is held by a distinguished Jesuit scholar in any discipline and is the oldest endowed professorship at Boston College. Fr Chris is the first Gasson Professor to be based in the Music Department.
Much wisdom can be taught and learnt from stories, and a Jesuit scholastic hopes that his story, “A Fading Dream of an Orphan”, will make people reflect on and act against the destructive nature of war.