Today’s problems need different strategies and Jesuits must apply new skills and techniques in order to respond more effectively. Beyond simply business skill however, there is a need for greater imagination to solve the challenges of today. In the same way business as usual needs to change, social ministries and apostolates must also go beyond the usual.
What is the role of Jesuit universities in social justice? This was a question that participants at the recent meeting of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in Asia Pacific (AJCU-AP) were asked to consider.
Have you ever seen or walked into a fancy handbag boutique selling the likes of Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Dolce and Gabbana? Even if we have never walked into one, we all know that these bags are pricey, high class, and beyond the reach of most people. What about bags branded “Rag2Riches”? You can find them in major shopping malls in the Philippines and in Anthropologie shops in Singapore, Malaysia and many countries in Europe.
Jesuit Communications in the Philippines is planning its most ambitious project – a full-length feature film on the life of St Ignatius, to be titled “Ignacio: The First Jesuit”. A total of US$675,000 is needed for the project.
It is hoping to raise US$140,000 through a worldwide crowdfunding campaign that was launched on the feast of St Ignatius and closes on August 30.
On August 23, 2014, family, relatives, friends, and Jesuits gathered at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Church of the Gesu to celebrate the diaconal ordination of nine Jesuits, one from the Vietnamese Province (Joseph Pham Din Cu), five from the Korean Province (Seokbae Andrew An, Hyungsik Francis Jo, Do-hyun Paul Kim, Min Kim, Jaesang Jason Bonaventura Lee), and five from the Philippine Province (Ambrosio Faustino Flores, Alvin Dagooc Laput, Mark Peter Ledesma Lopez, Arnel Te Ong, Henry Cogal Ponce).
For Jesuit communities across the world, the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Society of Jesus on August 7, 2014, is not only an opportunity for celebration but also for reflection. French Jesuit Father Pierre de Charentenay SJ guided the Philippine Jesuit Province in a Province Recollection centred on the restoration earlier this year.
When Pope Francis canonized Pierre Favre (Peter Faber) last year on December 17, several Jesuits felt that a wrong had finally been made right. Pierre Favre, first companion and co-founder of the Society of Jesus, was for the longest time only “blessed” and Fr Roger Champoux SJ for one couldn’t understand why.
There is no institution so old that it has nothing left to learn – and the Catholic Church must commit to learning about and changing its practices in relation to ecological issues. This was the message from Colombian Jesuit Fr José Mesa, Secretary of Primary and Secondary Education at the Jesuit Curia in Rome and one of the keynote speakers at the JCAP Education Colloquium in Sydney.
Rommel Villanueva is one of the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, known as Yolanda in the Philippines. A fisherman in Barangay Binudac in the island of Culion, his boat was destroyed by Haiyan, which was one of the strongest tropical storms ever recorded. With no boat, Rommel, 29, was dependent on other boat owners if he wanted to fish and provide for his wife and two young children. For months he had to look for space on a boat every day in order to fish, and if no boat owner would take him, then he was not able to fish that day.
Fr John Carroll SJ, founder of the Institute on Church and Social Issues in the Philippines which was later renamed after him, died in the afternoon of July 17, 2014. He was 90 years old.