At the International Colloquium on Jesuit Secondary Education in Boston, Fr Danny Huang SJ, Regional Assistant for Asia Pacific, posed 10 points of reflection from the Procurates, that he said would be useful to discuss in Jesuit schools, Provinces and Regions.
1. Apostolic instruments
Do we understand ourselves and function as apostolic missions? How?
Students from five countries in Asia Pacific gathered in the Philippines in July for a reflective and experiential forum designed to give them an understanding of what it means to be Ignatian leaders.
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.
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.
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.
In recognition of the challenges and issues brought about by increased globalisation, the provinces of Japan and Korea have agreed to a greater degree of exchange and cooperation to serve the Society’s mission.
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.