Australian Provincial Fr Brian McCoy SJ has committed the Australian Jesuits to divesting from fossil fuels.
“In the light of our commitment to reconciliation with creation, we believe that divestment is an ethical, impactful and valuable opportunity to consider not only for the Australian Province but for all Australian companies,” said Fr McCoy in a statement released for World Environment Day on June 5.
Ignatian educators from four countries in Asia Pacific recently gathered in the Philippines to learn how to apply communal discernment as an added dimension to the decision making process in their schools.
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia has teamed up with Refugee Council of Australia to create a programme that gives young people the chance to meet a refugee and hear first hand the reasons why people are forced to flee their homes.
“We’re seeing the biggest migration crisis since WWII, and yet, it’s not the voices of those being forced to flee their homes we hear, but the voices of the powerful. At JRS we believe this needs to change,” said JRS Australia in its website.
International Jesuit leader Fr Arturo Sosa has expressed his support for a new Jesuit Social Services programme aimed at tackling violence and helping men and boys build better relationships with those around them.
Jesuit Social Services CEO Julie Edwards announced the new programme, The Men’s Project, at the organisation’s annual dinner on March 25, which also celebrated the organisation’s 40th anniversary.
The Men’s Project aims to help boys and men live responsible, accountable and healthy lives, and build loving relationships with those around them.
The prison ministry is the focus of the latest issue of Promotio Iustitiae painting, as Social Justice and Ecology Secretary Fr Patxi Álvarez SJ said, a picture of the quiet work Jesuits and lay collaborators have been doing to serve people in prison.
“The Jesuits, and the laypeople that they collaborate with, have a longstanding tradition of serving people in prison, dating back to the first companions of Jesus,” said Fr Álvarez.
After more than 100 years of serving in the parish, the Jesuits will be withdrawing from St Ignatius Toowong in Brisbane at the end of this year.
The Parishes Task Force was set up more than 18 months ago to respond to the increasing difficulty of finding Jesuits to serve in all nine parishes across the country. Led by the Province Delegate for Parishes, Sr Libby Rogerson IBVM, the task force was asked to discern and develop criteria for remaining in or withdrawing from a parish, and then to make recommendations for the Provincial and Consult.
“The world is our house.” This phrase used by early Jesuit Jerome Nadal appropriately begins a section on Jesuit work with indigenous communities, the special focus of the 2017 Yearbook of the Society of Jesus.
The struggles and legacy of the pioneering Jesuits in Australia have been chronicled in a handsome 200-page coffee table book. “The Vine and the Branches: The Fruits of the Sevenhill Mission” tells of the establishment and development of Sevenhill, which is considered the birthplace of the Jesuits in Australia and the start of winemaking in South Australia’s Clare Valley.
Eka Tanaya of the Australian Province was one of 39 participants in the Scholastics and Brothers Circle (SBC) workshop held from December 19 to 28, 2016 at the Jesuit Apostolic Center in Seoul, South Korea. He shares his reflection on the workshop, which was themed “Understanding Migration: The South Korea Experience Guided by the Ignatian Teaching Paradigm”.
The day after the last term of my teaching regency at St Ignatius’ College, Adelaide, I immediately flew to Seoul for the SBC workshop. Seoul was my second SBC, after the one in Cambodia in 2012.
#sfxjcap2016. In October this hashtag began appearing in Instagram as students, faculty and staff of Jesuit schools in Asia Pacific posted photographs of themselves and their friends in front of the Educate Magis map in their schools. The photos were entries to the St Francis Xavier Global Network Instagram Competition.
Educate Magis is an online community that connects educators from more than 2,000 Jesuit and Ignatian schools all over the world and the map shows the rich diversity and wide reach of the global network of Jesuit schools.