For 25 years, the Jesuit prison ministry in Thailand has been accompanying foreign prisoners primarily through providing counselling and companionship. Today, the programme serves about 1,200 prisoners spread across in 10 prisons in Bangkok and other provinces, and two prison hospitals.
This year, the team encountered a number of challenges.
Fr Andrew Lee Sung-gyoon SJ, the new director of Yiutsari, the Jesuit migrant centre in Korea, reflects on the death of a young Thai migrant worker in Korea and what it says about Korean society.
On February 8, sad news of the death of a young Thai worker came to me. I rushed to the hospital to meet his relatives and friends. According to them, this young man had been too weak to work and had gone to a small local hospital. Several days ago before his death, he decided to go to the general hospital and was hospitalised but he died one day later.
Go, set the world on fire! On January 3, 70 young people, set out to do just that in their home countries – Cambodia, Korea, Myanmar, Macau, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Indonesia – after nine days spent in the first Magis JCAP, held at Omah Petroek in Kaliurang Yogyakarta.
Taiwanese Scholastic Aloysius Hsu SJ shares his experience of Vipassana Meditation and the 2015 East Asia Theological Encounter Programme (EATEP) held from July 22 to August 17 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. EATEP is a programme of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific that provides Jesuits in formation with opportunities to deepen their dialogue with other faiths, particularly Buddhism, and to enrich their perspectives on theology in Asia.
With the cooperation and support of a considerable circle of lay experts as well as the advice of Jesuit educators in Asia Pacific, the Jesuits in Thailand are embarking on an ambitious education project to serve the poor, especially the indigenous communities in the northern mountains of the country. An assistant professor at Mae Fah Luang University in Chiang Rai has been hired to conduct a feasibility study that will help the Jesuits work out many of the details of the proposed college. It should be completed in August.
We, the major superiors of the Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific, sincerely and enthusiastically welcome Pope Francis’ new encyclical Laudato si’ (On the Care of Our Common Home). He draws attention to the urgent need for reconciliation with creation, already one of our apostolic priorities in Asia Pacific. We urge all the members of our Conference, our colleagues, and all those we seek to serve to make a thoughtful and generous response to the Holy Father’s plea.
Can getting a higher education benefit entire communities and even countries? Jesuit Father Michael Garanzini, Secretary for higher education worldwide for the Society of Jesus, thinks so and he has the model for doing just that.
On May 19, Jesuit Refugee Service Asia Pacific issued a statement calling for Southeast Asian nations and the global community to respond to the suffering of the Rohingya people who have been fleeing Myanmar in unprecedented numbers in recent weeks. Thousands did so by boat and were stranded at sea after being turned away by Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The Bangkok Immigration Detention Centre is neither a prison nor a jail. It is the last barrier for non-Thais awaiting deportation back to their home countries, after finishing their prison sentences or paying court-imposed fines.
These detainees have, for the most part, entered Thailand illegally. How long they will be in the detention centre depends on many factors – the regulations of their country’s embassy/consulate, their travel documents, a plane ticket, and whether they are physically fit for the flight home.
In a village in Chiangmai Province sits a new church named after St Willibrord, the patron saint of Luxemburg. Its name reflects how it came to be. It had been built with the labour, heart and financial support of friends from Luxemburg, as well as friends from other lands, and no less than the Archbishop of Luxemburg, Jean Claude Hollerich SJ, presided at its blessing.