REPORT FROM NAIROBI: REFLECTIONS ON JESUIT IDENTITY

FROM CP 70

D. P. HUANG, S.J.31 JULY 2012

• A spirit, a way of living and serving in commitment, freedom and courage

• A depth of interior response to God

• Needs deepening in Formation and support in Community

• The Ignatian spirit lives on, despite difficulties, and makes a difference for the good.

JESUIT IDENTITY

Our concern: How do we sustain and deepen the Ignatian spirit in our schools?

CANISIUS COLLEGE,JAKARTA, INDONESIA

• Goal: An aid to stimulate reflection, towards sharing of experiences

• Focus: 10 issues concerning Jesuit identity and mission that emerged during CP70 Nairobi

FOCUS

WHAT IS A CONGREGATION OF PROCURATORS?

• Origins: St. Ignatius and St. Francis Borgia

• Procurators: an ‘internal audit’ of the Provinces

• GOALS OF A CP:

• To discuss the State of the Society and universal concerns

• To discern and decide whether to call a General Congregation or not

• FR. GENERAL’S DE STATU SOCIETATIS IESU

• MISSION: FAITH, JUSTICE, COLLABORATION

• COMMUNITY AS MISSION

• AFRICA AND MADAGASCARAULA, CP 70

CP 70: 4 KEY MOMENTS OF DISCUSSION

CP 70 NAIROBI: THE FIRST CONGREGATION OUTSIDE EUROPE

CP 70 NAIROBI: CELEBRATING LIFE AND HOPE

• Concern for Jesuit and Catholic identity: due to expansion, secularization, competition

• “This is not an issue of control or power, but of how and whether our institutions continue to be primarily apostolic instruments, clear about their primary aim of serving the mission of the Church and of the Society.” (Fr. General)

• For reflection:

• To what extent is the vision that a Jesuit school is not just an academic institution, but an instrument for the mission of God, operative and shared by governing boards, faculty members, staff, parents and students?

• What are we doing to keep that apostolic perspective?

1. APOSTOLIC INSTRUMENTS

2. SERVING FAITH

• The need for more explicit attention to serving faith in a time when faith faces serious threats

• Have we been more successful in promoting social responsibility and less so in serving faith: in bringing our students to the joy of friendship with Christ in His community, the Church?

• For reflection:

• How do we assess our schools in terms of serving faith?

• In non-Christian contexts, how do we serve faith?

• Proposal: each institution do an examen on the service of faith

Nikom, Cambodia

3. BRIDGES TO AND IN THE CHURCH

• Jesuit identity is fundamentally linked to service of Christ and service of the Church (Formula of the Society).

• In the light of our mission of Reconciliation (GC 35), Fr. General asks that all Jesuits and all Jesuit institutions “build and be bridges in the Church.”

• For reflection:

• How are we bridging the gap between the young and the Church?

• What difficulties are we experiencing and how are we responding to them?

4. COLLABORATION AS MISSION

• The state of collaboration in the Society is very uneven.

• Obstacles:

• Clericalism in places where the Society is growing in numbers

• A view of collaboration as a mere strategy to address reduced number of Jesuits

• GC 34: Collaboration is a good in itself, the coming to life of Vat II ecclesiology

• For reflection:

• Is collaboration viewed as a means or as integral part of mission?

• What are we doing to change attitudes of clericalism or an instrumentalist view of collaboration?

Teachers of Campion InstituteYangon, Myanmar

5. ANIMATED BY AN APOSTOLIC COMMUNITY

• The Society no longer “runs” our institutions the way we used to do. Schools are usually not simply run by a Jesuit community as in the past.

• The need for a wider Ignatian apostolic community (composed of Jesuits, lay people, other religious, people of other faiths) to which a school is entrusted, and which protects and promotes the apostolic dimension.

• Governing boards are not necessarily this apostolic community.

• For reflection:

• Who compose the Ignatian apostolic community in our schools?

• How is it sustained and empowered to keep the school an apostolic instrument?

6. JESUIT COMMUNITY: ACCOMPANIMENT AND WITNESS

• Identity crisis: why be a Jesuit if our collaborators can do everything we can do? What is the role of the Jesuit community when it no longer has “power” or “control” of our institutions?

• Fr. General: amidst collaborators, Jesuits are “custodians of the spirit of St. Ignatius”

• Community as Mission: we give witness to the Gospel by the way we live together

• For reflection:

• How do Jesuit communities understand their mission within the larger Ignatian apostolic community?

• What can be done to change mindsets and attitudes?

• Wh

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7. CLOSE TO THE POOR, PASSIONATE ABOUT STRUCTURAL CHANGE and ECOLOGY

• A light: Service of the poor is a dimension present in all our ministries.

• Concerns:

• The number of Jesuits communities living with and like the poor have diminished.

• A decline of attention to the structural causes of poverty?

• Inter-generational justice in view of the environment

• For Reflection:

• Have we grown farther from the poor? How is closeness to the poor promoted?

• How have we created a passion for structural change and care for the environment?

8. THE DIMENSION OF UNIVERSALITY

• A light: the re-discovery of the universal vocation of the Jesuit among many Jesuits, especially the young.

• Universal mindset: expressed in inter-provincial and inter-conference networks, and in inter-sectorial networks.

• For reflection:

• To what extent is there a sense of universal mission in our schools?

• How much sharing of perspectives and resources beyond our provinces and conferences exists?

• How do our schools network with other ministries?

9. THE CREATIVITY OF THE KINGDOM• Preparing for 2014: 200th

anniversary of Restoration, re-birth of the Society.

• Fr. General: We are people of the Kingdom who are creative because we are not satisfied with anything in the present that is not part of God’s plan.

• Magis: the refusal to be bound by anything that limits the coming of the Kingdom of God. Not competition, which is more of the same, only better.

• For reflection:

• To what extent are we motivated by competition, to what extent by the creativity of the Kingdom?

• How do we promote the creativity of the Kingdom in our schools?

10. DISCERNING THE FUTURE OF INSTITUTIONS

• De Statu: Jesuits are over-worked and over-extended. This limits our depth and creativity.

• We are overworked because we have too many institutions, and we suffer from poor discernment. We are overly attached to existing works. There is not enough spirit to animate all the flesh we have accumulated.

• The challenge to discern the future of Jesuit commitment to existing works. A helpful distinction from GC 35: “Ignatian” works and “Jesuit” works.

• For reflection:

• How do we begin to freely discern whether we should think of ourselves more as Ignatian, rather than Jesuit, works?

• What kind of structures and programs do we need to retain a life-giving connection to the Ignatian heritage and vision?

Gonzaga InstituteTaunggyi, Myanmar

Site of New Jesuit SchoolKasait, East Timor