There was much delight at the recent JCAP Education meeting in two significant developments.
Fr Christopher Gleeson SJ, JCAP Education Secretary and meeting chairman, shared that the group learnt a good deal from inaugural Principal, Fr Plinio, about the beginning in January of the new school in Timor-Leste, Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola.
The Shimonoseki Labour Education Centre (LEC) in Japan and the Jesuit Research Centre for Advocacy and Solidarity (JAS) in Korea jointly held an Anti-nuclear Peace Conference in July. LEC Director, Fr Hisashi Hayashi SJ, hosted Jesuits and peace movement members from the two countries for the two-day meeting that began after breakfast on July 12.
The joint sponsorship is a result of the recent agreement between the Korea and Japan Provinces to heighten the level of inter-Province cooperation.
A group of 20 – 19 Jesuits and a Protestant pastor – gathered in Tokyo in August to explore the links between Ignatian Spirituality and Buddhism in the third Buddhist Christian Dialogue Workshop. Held in Tokyo from August 14 to 16, the workshop was themed “Buddha and Ignatius”.
Dialogue with people of other faiths is particularly important for Jesuits working in Asia, which is home to several major religions such as Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism, and inter-religious dialogue is a major dimension of the Jesuit commitment to be companions of Jesus and servants of his mission.
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.