The social apostolate needs to be approached from the perspective of Ignatian Spirituality, which provides a new way of seeing all things. Fr Patxi Alvarez SJ, Director of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat in Rome, made this point at the JCAP Social Apostolate meeting in August.
Fr Jeremy Clarke SJ, an Australian Jesuit and assistant professor of history at Boston College in the United States, has launched Beyond Ricci, www.bc.edu/beyondricci, a searchable website that provides scholars and researchers access to books containing historical narratives, maps, correspondence and musical compositions in five languages that depict life in China in early modern
Typhoon Vicente reached Hurricane Signal 10 overhead as the half yearly Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) Major Superiors’ assembly continued calmly indoors in Macau’s Colégio Mateus Ricci in the last week of July. From the meeting room window, the bright umbrellas of some of Macau’s annual 30 million visitors could be seen at the Ruins of St Paul, a reminder of the 500-year Jesuit history integral to the identity of the former Portuguese colony that is now a Special Administrative Region of China.
Jesuits and collaborators working with migrants and refugees in Asia Pacific gathered in Manila recently to share insights and ideas for co-operation among the migrant ministries within the Conference.
The two-day meeting organised by the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific was held on June 30 and July 1, in conjunction with a migration conference, “Migration, Religious Experience and Mission with Migrants in Asia”, organised by the Loyola School of Theology and the Scalabrini Migration Center.
In a recent interview, Fr Enrique (Kike) Figaredo Alvargonzález SJ, Apostolic Prefect of Battambang, spoke of the suffering of the Church in Cambodia under the persecution of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
“It is a martyr Church,” said Fr Figaredo. “The Church in Cambodia was completely levelled. All our leaders… bishops, priests, nuns, many catechists, were killed. Those who weren’t killed died of hunger or disease, and the community remained in a very bad state.”
The suffering did not end after the end of the regime.
Students and teachers from Jesuit and Partner Schools across Australia took part in a Timor Leste Immersion over the school holidays in July. A group of 16 students from eight schools, with three teachers, participated in the programme. Stella Korlaki, a teacher at Xavier Catholic College in Hervey Bay, describes their experience.
We arrived in Darwin in two different groups. Little did we know that we would develop close and supportive friendships through our shared encounters in East Timor.
The environment was the focus of the third event in the “Reflections on a Just Society” series organised by Jesuit Social Services to mark its 35th year. The speaker was Fr Pedro Walpole SJ, Research Director of the Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change, Philippines.
The Jesuits in Timor Leste marked a major milestone on July 14 when they broke ground for the educational institute they are building in Kasait, 18 km west of Dili.
Construction of phase 1 of Instituto de Educação Jesuíta is scheduled to begin at the end of July. The first phase consists of what is needed for the secondary school unit of the institute to open in time for the new school year in January 2013 – the road and entrance, some classrooms and other teaching facilities, and an administration block.
JRS Cambodia has made available in its website a document containing the results of its research on victim assistance in 34 countries with significant numbers of survivors of landmine, cluster munitions and Explosive Remnants of War.
The one surprising feature of the recent municipal elections in Cambodia was the modest success of the Human Rights Party. The party had 800 councillors elected and won control of 18 communes among a total of 14,549 councillors and 1,633 communes. The Human Rights Party is small and has no sophisticated political organization or public relations policy. Few political commentators predicted such an outcome for this tiny party. The massive success of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party with 8,283 councillors and 1,592 communes was predictable. The Sam Rainsy part