Fairfield University is the recipient of a $1.996 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc to support the establishment of the Ignatian Residential College.
This academic program for selected Fairfield sophomores will integrate the theological perspective that grounds contemporary Catholic and Jesuit sensibilities, opportunities for prayer and communal worship, attendance at lectures and cultural events with mentors, and experiences in partnership with local faith communities.
Fairfield is one of 28 colleges and universities in the country to receive a $1 million-plus grant from the Endowment to create or enhance programs that enable young people to draw upon the resources of religious wisdom as they think through their vocational choices and to consider the ministry as a profession they might pursue.
Fairfield's Ignatian Residential College will directly serve a specific number of sophomore students, but its effects will be campus-wide. One of the most significant of these effects is a model of education that aims to cross the sometimes rigid barriers that have been established between the intellectual, affective, spiritual, and psychological dimensions of students' lives. [Source: Fairfield University]
The Lilly Endowment Inc awarded Saint Louis University $1.93 million in support of the university's "Vocation: Interiority, Community and Engaged Service" project. VOICES will encourage students to reflect on faith and value commitments, as well as service to others, when choosing careers.
VOICES has two primary goals: First, to create resources to help students develop leadership qualities in light of their faith commitments and spirituality. The project also will enhance faculty and staff expertise through retreats and fellowship opportunities.
As part of VOICES, it's expected that up to 130 student leaders will attend a vocational retreat for each year of the project's five-year period. Other retreats and programs, as well as lectures, scholarships, and initiatives will also be offered. For more information about the VOICES Project, read the full text of the grant proposal online at www.slu.edu/provost/praxis/lilly_proposal.htm [Source: Saint Louis University]
The College of the Holy Cross received a $2 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc to support a project to advance its Jesuit mission to educate students for lives of commitment and service.
The multilayered initiative will: teach the habits of spiritual and vocational reflection to all students through first-year orientation, retreats, convocations, and other events; revise current courses and develop new ones to incorporate vocational themes; train faculty in the practices of vocational discernments; and provide opportunities for students to explore church ministry through internships, mentoring programs, and spiritual retreats. [Source: Holy Cross]
Human embryo cloning raises too many medical problems to be therapeutically viable, said Georgetown bioethicist Fr Kevin FitzGerald SJ.
The risks are great for genetic abnormalities, as shown by experiments elsewhere with cloned animals, he said.
He spoke at a November 30th briefing after a November 26th announcement by Advanced Cell Technology that it had produced cloned human embryonic cells and that it would use the technique to produce embryonic cells for research but not to reproduce humans.
Fr FitzGerald criticized human embryo cloning on moral grounds as well and disputed that a distinction exists between therapeutic and reproductive cloning.
All cloning is reproductive because it creates another human being, Fr FitzGerald said. He was part of a four-member panel organized by Americans to Ban Cloning, which favors federal legislation to make human cloning illegal.
Because a medical procedure can be done doesn't make it morally right as a research method, he said. A cloned human baby would have a soul, he said.
"Just because you've been created artificially doesn't keep God from loving you," he said. "The idea of having a soul is that you are in a personal relationship with God," he added.
"Many other scientists are doing good work researching diseases. There are many different ways of trying to solve these problems without the problems that cloning brings," he said. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]
Stricter immigration controls being imposed by governments may prevent refugees in real need of protection from getting help. That was the message from JRS Europe director, John Dardis SJ, as an NGO participant at roundtable talks with government representatives in Geneva, Switzerland.
"You can have the right to asylum. You can have an asylum system. But it will mean nothing unless people are able to get to the territory to claim that asylum," said Fr Dardis.
"If you have stricter controls, if you make it harder for people to access the territory, you just drive them underground and into the black economy and illegality," said Fr Dardis. "You have a choice. Make controls stronger and thus drive people underground. Or opt for a different system, develop a proper migration channel where this is less likely to happen." [Source: JRS Dispatches]
To see the JRS Europe news release, go to www.jesref.org/inf/statemen/eu11214e.htm
A little known fact about September 11 is that several thousand people working in the World Trade Center at the time were undocumented immigrants, and therefore their families lack any entitlement to assistance.
More than nine million undocumented immigrants live in the United States in a situation of great vulnerability. The Tepeyac Association, named after the hill on which our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, was created in 1997 by Mexican Brother Joel Magallan Reyes SJ.
Bringing together 40 Mexican groups in New York City, Tepeyac promotes the social welfare and human rights of Mexican immigrants. It serves over 10,000 members, coordinating support for people who are victimized by labor violations and by raids conducted by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Tepeyac also serves as a social service agency for those barred from city agencies because they lack proper documentation. Since the terrorist attacks, Tepeyac has been helping families who lost loved ones and workers who lost their jobs. The association is on the web at www.tepeyac.org [Source: Headlines]
The Canadian Jesuits working in Guelph, Ontario, have announced that 2002 will be a year of celebration to mark the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Jesuits in Guelph. Jesuits arrived there in 1852 and have lived continuously in the area since.
It was in January 1852 that Fr John Holzer SJ was appointed pastor of the Church of Our Lady Parish in Guelph.
The early Jesuits in this region dealt with many of the serious problems of the day—the education system, church facilities, health care, elderly care. They played a key role in the establishment of schools, convents, churches, an orphanage, and a hospital.
Fr Holzer and the other early Jesuits established 56 mission stations in the area. In establishing various institutions, the early Jesuits placed a focus on social and educational issues, as well as religious concerns. Later in the nineteenth century, the present Church of Our Lady, which dominates the Guelph skyline, was built under the leadership of Fr Holzer's successor, Fr P Hamel SJ.
The ten Jesuits who remain in Guelph are involved in a variety of works including: Loyola House, the retreat house; Holy Rosary Parish; the Ecology Project (of the Jesuit Center for Social Faith and Justice); caring for an organic farm; the Ignatius CSA (Community Shared Agriculture); the Roman Catholic chaplaincy at the University of Guelph; and attending to the spiritual needs of the patients and residents at St Joseph's Hospital and Home. Together, these projects constitute what is becoming known as Ignatius Jesuit Center of Guelph.
One hundred and fifty years after Fr Holzer's arrival, Jesuits are still part of the life of their adopted city. [Source: www.jesuits.ca ]
With its Christmas issue America magazine has begun to publish on the Internet; www.americamagazine.org will carry "practically everything that is currently printed in the paper edition of America," said Fr Thomas J Reese SJ, editor.
He said web browsers who are not America subscribers can use the site to purchase books from the Catholic Book Club, read the news briefs issued five days a week by Catholic News Service, see the current issue's table of contents, and order a subscription to the magazine.
Those who subscribe to the print edition can obtain a password enabling them to read the full articles of the current issue and to search and read back issues.
Fr Reese said the web site will also carry more letters to the editor than it is possible to print in the paper edition. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]
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The editor of this Newsletter is Richard VandeVelde SJ who is ably assisted by Ms Rebecca Troha, Assistant Editor. They would both like to remind you of the following useful WWW links for items of Jesuit interest. Many of these links will lead you to others.
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