January 2012

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) 

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.