On September 8, Fr Brian McCoy, Provincial of the Australian Jesuit Province, flagged the release of the Province Policy for Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults. The document is addressed to all Province members and personnel.
From May to August, the Chinese Jesuit Province saw four Jesuits from three countries ordained to the priesthood in ceremonies held in its four territories. A Jesuit from Burundi was also ordained to the diaconate during this period.
John Joseph Zhang SJ was ordained priest in northern China during the Easter Season. He has been assigned to Casa Ricci Social Services in Macau.
In the front row pews during evening mass at the Church of St Ignatius in Singapore on July 26, family members gathered to celebrate the ordination to the priesthood of two not-so-young Jesuits. It would be typical to see both men seated amidst their respective families ready in turn to offer them up to the rest of the Church. What was not so typical was that it was just one family – with both Jesuits seated on either side of the same mother, and among the same siblings and relatives – supporting them into the service of ordained ministry.
The recent Jesuit Social Services study of disadvantage, Dropping off the Edge 2015 has aroused widespread interest in Australia.
The Korea Jesuit Province celebrated the ordination of 10 new priests on July 1. More than 2,000 people participated in the ordination mass concelebrated by Most Rev Gyoung-chon Timothy Yu, Auxiliary Bishop of Seoul, and 160 priests, at Myung-dong Cathedral in Seoul, South Korea. During his homily, Bishop Yu reminded the newly ordained Jesuits of the Jesuit charism to be contemplatives in action that makes Jesuit priesthood possible.
The Jesuits in Timor-Leste have launched a new education endeavour for the children in Ulmera, a rural part of the country where the still under construction Jesuit education project is located. Through the Ulmera Project, they aim to increase the chances the children from the Ulmera community have of getting into Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola (CSIL), the Jesuit secondary school in Kasait, Ulmera.
Scholastic Rui Muakandala SJ began his theology studies at Faculdade Jesuita de Filosofia e Teologia in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Here, he reflects on the challenges he and Sch Albino Gonçalves SJ are facing as East Timorese studying in a new country, continent, culture, and language.
Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (SLB), the social justice arm of the Philippine Jesuit Province marked 29 years of service to the Church and the Filipino nation recently with a week-long celebration themed “Renewing a Faith that does Justice”.
Over the years, SLB has evolved and developed programs in response to the needs of Philippine society, and the celebration from February 21 to March 1 was an opportunity to showcase current programs and introduce new ones.
In a village in Chiangmai Province sits a new church named after St Willibrord, the patron saint of Luxemburg. Its name reflects how it came to be. It had been built with the labour, heart and financial support of friends from Luxemburg, as well as friends from other lands, and no less than the Archbishop of Luxemburg, Jean Claude Hollerich SJ, presided at its blessing.
An inter-religious ceremony was recently held to bless the land for the Xavier Jesuit School Project. Msgr Enrique (Kike) Figaredo SJ, Apostolic Prefect of the Battambang Prefecture in Cambodia presided with His Excellency, Mr Oum Reatrey, the Vice-Governor of Banteay Meanchey Province with responsibility for Education, at the ceremony which took place on January 29, 2015, in a temporary tent erected for the purpose on top of the land-fill just opposite the site where the foundations of the first building are already being constructed.