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.
Casa Ricci Social Services has been serving leprosy and HIV-AIDS infected`and affected people in mainland China for decade. We work with individuals and communities to understand and heal the different wounds that discrimination and marginalization cause in their individual and social life.
The Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific has produced a modest 16-page annual report, simply titled “Jesuits in Asia Pacific 2012”.
Education continues to be a priority for Jesuits in Asia Pacific, as the recent JCAP meeting of Province delegates for pre-secondary and secondary education revealed.
Several new initiatives in education are underway or proposed within the Conference.
“You are not forgotten,” said Aung San Suu Kyi. “Pass this message to those behind you and on to others.” Not permitted a microphone, the Burmese pro-democracy leader called out to the crowd of refugees and migrants at the border refugee encampment of Mae La in May on her first visit abroad in 24 years. Her clear message of hope quickly reached the hundreds of thousands of Myanmar citizens, who had waited decades in squalid jungle camps along the length of the 1,300 km Thai-Myanmar border.
A Theological Cooperation Working Group has been formed to review Jesuit theological formation in Asia Pacific and develop realistic ideas to upgrade the quality of theology taught to scholastics in this part of the world.
The group of 12 Jesuits actively involved in theological formation met with JCAP President Fr Mark Raper SJ from April 17 to 19, and will henceforth meet once a year. It was agreed that members are to be specifically delegated by their major superior and are expected to be deans of theological schools empowered to take and implement decisions.
The Society is now at a new stage brought about by a couple of converging factors – the demographic realities and how we can best serve the universal mission today.
Our numbers have been in decline for the last 40 years – from over 30,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 18,000 today. The steep declines in Europe and North America and consistent decline in Latin America have not been offset by the significant increase in South Asia and a small rise in Africa.