Transcript REPORT FROM NAIROBI: REFLECTIONS ON JESUIT IDENTITY FROM CP …

REPORT FROM NAIROBI:
REFLECTIONS ON JESUIT IDENTITY
FROM CP 70
D. P. HUANG, S.J.
31 JULY 2012
JESUIT IDENTITY
• 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.
CANISIUS COLLEGE,
JAKARTA, INDONESIA
Our concern: How do we sustain and deepen the Ignatian
spirit in our schools?
FOCUS
• Goal: An aid to stimulate
reflection, towards sharing of
experiences
• Focus: 10 issues concerning
Jesuit identity and mission that
emerged during CP70 Nairobi
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
CP 70: 4 KEY MOMENTS OF DISCUSSION
• FR. GENERAL’S DE
STATU SOCIETATIS
IESU
• MISSION: FAITH,
JUSTICE,
COLLABORATION
• COMMUNITY AS
MISSION
AULA, CP 70
• AFRICA AND
MADAGASCAR
CP 70 NAIROBI: THE FIRST CONGREGATION OUTSIDE EUROPE
CP 70 NAIROBI: CELEBRATING LIFE AND HOPE
1. APOSTOLIC INSTRUMENTS
• 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?
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?
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:
Teachers of Campion Institute
Yangon, Myanmar
• 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?
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?
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 Institute
Taunggyi, Myanmar
Site of New Jesuit School
Kasait, East Timor