For 25 years, the Jesuit prison ministry in Thailand has been accompanying foreign prisoners primarily through providing counselling and companionship. Today, the programme serves about 1,200 prisoners spread across in 10 prisons in Bangkok and other provinces, and two prison hospitals.
This year, the team encountered a number of challenges.
The two and a half weeks of MAGIS and World Youth Day have greatly influenced my spiritual mind and my point of view of the world. When I first saw the poster for the meeting, I was in Paris, France studying as an exchange student. Thinking that it would be difficult to attend since I was not with the Korea group, I envied those who could participate in it and quickly forgot about the event.
The Society of Jesus in Korea celebrates three new Jesuit priests: Fr Kim Min-cheol John, Fr Yeo Myoung-mo Paul Ha Sang, and Fr Kim Kun-dong Benedict. They were ordained to the priesthood on June 29 at Myung-dong Cathedral in Seoul, South Korea. More than 1,100 people participated in the ordination mass concelebrated by His Eminence Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung DD, Archbishop of Seoul, and 100 priests. During his homily, Cardinal Yeom called for the newly ordained Jesuits to be good shepherds who serve Christ, read the Scripture, believe the Word and do what they will teach.
The Chinese Jesuit Province has published a book to pay homage to the many Spanish missionaries who devoted their lives to serve the people of China. Entitled “Spanish Jesuits in China”, the book spans more than four centuries, from 1552 to 2014, and was conceived as a gift from the Chinese Province to the Spanish Province for the unification of the new Province of Spain in 2014.
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.
For Fr John Mace SJ, Cambodia was but the last way station in a decades-long journey in service of the Society of Jesus and the universal mission in Asia. He had spent the last four years serving as Secretary to the Delegate of the Korean Provincial to the Jesuit mission in Cambodia.
Pope Francis is at the centre of a new national television series that began airing in Taiwan on April 16. Entitled “Oh My God – Hello Pope!”, it was developed by Jesuit-run Kuangchi Program Service (KPS) which believes this is the first weekly TV series in Asia about the pope.
There are things happening in small and distant places around the world that speak out for a more sustainable world. They go unheard in a globalised world, but does that mean they failed? Like the “ooze of oil”*, activities of the youth are slowly and imperceptibly drawing people and nature together.
Fr Andrew Lee Sung-gyoon SJ, the new director of Yiutsari, the Jesuit migrant centre in Korea, reflects on the death of a young Thai migrant worker in Korea and what it says about Korean society.
On February 8, sad news of the death of a young Thai worker came to me. I rushed to the hospital to meet his relatives and friends. According to them, this young man had been too weak to work and had gone to a small local hospital. Several days ago before his death, he decided to go to the general hospital and was hospitalised but he died one day later.
