Education, Jesuit Formation, Spirituality, Social Justice & Ecology, Parishes & Pastoral Work, Inter-religious Dialogue, Jesuit Communications, Vocation Promotions, Youth

Jesuit Education in Timor Leste

Submitted on May 26, 2011 - 11:52 am

The Society of Jesus has administered Colégio de São José at the request of the Bishop of Dili since 1993. However, CSJ is and continues to be a school of the Diocese of Dili.  Direction of CSJ will revert to the Dili Diocese at the end of 2011, but our work in education in Timor Leste will continue.  

Fr Mark Raper SJ has issued a statement in Timor Leste regarding the Society’s position on Jesuit education in the country.

Promoting reconciliation with creation

Submitted on January 16, 2012 - 3:08 pm

How do we promote reconciliation with creation to our fellow Jesuits in Asia Pacific? With imaginative and powerful images as the members of the Scholastics and Brothers Circle showed in the innovative campaign materials they developed during a workshop on Effective Communications held from December 19 to 30, 2011.

Helping foreign migrants navigate Japanese law

Submitted on January 16, 2012 - 2:47 pm

The free legal services offered by the Jesuit Social Center in Tokyo in the last year has proven to be a boon to foreign migrants.  The centre already has 35 legal cases solved or awaiting resolution in its files.

“More than half of all the Catholics in Japan are of other nationalities. Anyone in contact with foreigners in Japan realises the complexity of the situations they face, their need to learn the Japanese language, and the legal barriers they encounter,” said Fr Ando Isamu SJ, who is on the centre’s staff.

Mindanao: Xavier U donates land for resettlement, JRS launches appeal

Submitted on January 16, 2012 - 2:39 pm

Xavier University has started to help resettle survivors of Tropical Storm Washi. Thousands were rendered homeless by the flash floods that wiped out parts of Cagayan de Oro City in Southern Philippines on December 16 and 17, 2011.  

Continuing to serve the poorest of the poor

Submitted on January 16, 2012 - 2:22 pm

Banteay Prieb, a training centre set up by Jesuit Service Cambodia for Cambodians maimed by the war or by landmines, celebrated its 20th anniversary on December 20, 2011.  

The Centre of the Dove, as it is called in English, is located in a former military communication centre, prison and Khmer Rouge killing field. But the centre has transformed the former place of fighting and killing into a place for peace, justice and reconciliation.

MAGIS MAS

Submitted on January 16, 2012 - 2:14 pm

The Jesuits in Malaysia and Singapore (MAS) held the first MAGIS programme for youth in the region in December 2011.  The MAGIS MAS programme draws its inspiration from the Ignatian term MAGIS which connotes striving to do more in order to render greater glory to God.

The global MAGIS initiative started in 1997 with World Youth Day in Paris. It was called MAGIS for the first time at World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne. It was celebrated in Sydney in 2008 and in Madrid in 2011.

Jesuits return school to Dili diocese

Submitted on January 16, 2012 - 2:07 pm

Jesuits serving in Timor Leste have returned a secondary school they set up and managed for 18 years to the diocese of Dili.   Colégio de São José was transferred on December 14 with a mass led by Vicar General Father Apolinario Aparicio Guterres.

During his homily, Fr Guterres thanked the Society for developing both the Church and the nation through the school and praised the Jesuits for teaching young people to be qualified and disciplined individuals. (Source: UCAN) 

Appeal for funds to help victims of Typhoon Washi

Submitted on December 20, 2011 - 4:08 pm

Xavier University is appealing for funds to help the victims of Typhoon Sendong (International Name: Tropical Storm Washi), which struck the southern Philippines on December 17, causing flash floods and landslides.

Typhoon Washi slammed ashore on Mindanao island in the dead of night, sending torrents of water and mud through riverside villages, drowning scores of people as they slept, and sweeping houses out to sea. Tens of thousands of people have been rendered homeless and many are now in evacuation centres.  As of December 20, the official death toll was close to 1,000.

Education of the head, the heart and the hands

Submitted on December 20, 2011 - 12:38 pm

In a speech delivered at the recent Sophia Symposium in Tokyo, Fr Mark Raper SJ, President of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, argued for a view of education as “formation for decision and for action: education of the head, the heart and the hands”.

Advocating a pedagogy in which reflection is central, Fr Mark sees the role of education as leading students to love the world, to assume responsibility for it, and to acquire tools in order to renew it.

As such, universities need to go beyond the core business of providing education in competence and critical thinking.

Australian Jesuit named Boston College Gasson Professor

Submitted on December 17, 2011 - 3:46 pm

Fr Christopher Willcock SJ, an award-winning Australian composer of music for churches and concert halls, has joined the Boston College community as the Thomas I Gasson SJ Professor for 2011-12. He is presently a member of the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne where he teaches courses in liturgy.

The Gasson Chair is held by a distinguished Jesuit scholar in any discipline and is the oldest endowed professorship at Boston College. Fr Chris is the first Gasson Professor to be based in the Music Department.

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