October 12, 2006

Jesuit Study Faults Zambian Education Policy

A study conducted by the Social Conditions Research Project of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) found that "free education" at government primary schools continues to be unaffordable to the most vulnerable households in Zambia.

The study estimated both direct and indirect costs of education, and found the average total cost of "free" primary education at a government school to be 450,000 Zambian Kwacha, approximately $118 US. Much of this is spent on uniforms, books and supplies.

According to one JCTR researcher, "a free education policy in itself is insufficient to achieve 100% enrollment of pupils in school." Only half of the study's participants believed that the government's free education policy had made education more accessible. [Source: Catholic Information Service for Africa.]

President of Wheeling Jesuit University Steps Down

On September 16, Joseph R. Hacala, SJ stepped down from his post as president of Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia because of a serious medical condition. He plans to travel to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he will undergo lengthy treatment for amyloidosis, a rare, life-threatening disease for which there is no definitive cure. A West Virginia native, Hacala is well-known for his public service and commitment to Wheeling Jesuit.

The university’s board of trustees agreed with Hacala's recommendation that James Birge, executive vice president, serve as interim president. [Source: The Intelligencer & Wheeling News Register, 16 September 2006]

JRS USA Director Testifies Before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee

On September 27, Fr Ken Gavin, SJ, director of Jesuit Refugee Service [JRS] in the USA, testified on Capitol Hill against refugees being "unjustly labeled as willful collaborators" because of rigid legislation. An inflexible legislative definition of what constitutes "material support" to a terrorist organization designates many refugees as collaborators in terrorist acts, "rather than being justly recognized as the victims of terrorism," said Fr Gavin.

The material support policy, found in the original Patriot Act, denies entry to the U.S. to anyone who has provided assistance to a terror group, regardless of the circumstances. A JRS policy associate remembers a Colombian woman who was raped, covered in raw meat, and left to the dogs by a paramilitary group; she was denied assistance because it was determined that the paramilitaries took supplies from her store.

Additionally the backlog of affected refugees is rising. This year 28,000 refugee admission slots are expected to go unfilled due in part to this material support policy. Fr. Gavin told the Senate that "each slot represents one person who needlessly continues to suffer." [Source: JRS Press release]

Film About St Francis Xavier Premieres

The Jesuits of the New Orleans Province, Loyola University New Orleans, and Jesuit High New Orleans are premiering the film "Xavier," a documentary about the life of St Francis Xavier. Jesuit filmmakers Jeff Johnson and Jeremy Zipple followed the sixteenth-century missionary’s footsteps around the world, documenting his travels from Italy to Spain to India to Macau. The film is narrated by acclaimed actor Liam Neeson.

"The province is truly excited to premiere the work of two of our young Jesuits," said Fr Alfred Kammer SJ, provincial of the New Orleans Province. "Focusing on St Francis Xavier during this jubilee year could not be more appropriate." [Source: Loyola University New Orleans]

Cairo Jesuit Says Pope Has Opened Door for Dialogue

Fr Henry Boulad SJ, the director of the Jesuit College in Cairo, believes that Pope Benedict’s recent incendiary statements linking Islam to violence were in fact a "fortunate fall."

Boulad says that Benedict’s speech had the ability to spark a "more real and frank dialogue" between Christianity and Islam. "If there was an error on the part of the pope, it could turn fortunate; it is a felix culpa," he said, borrowing St. Augustine’s expression "fortunate fall" in Latin describing an unfortunate event that brings about good.

The head of the College of the Holy Family in the diverse Fagallah district, Boulad believes that moderate or reformist Islamists are today marginalized in Egypt, suppressed under a trend of "Islamization" in contemporary society. He believes that "a lack of critical thinking and a pull toward fundamentalism in both Muslims and Christians" in Egypt is preventing dialogue. He believes that the time has come for "clarity, an exit from the vagueness" in the relationship between the two faiths. [Source: The Daily Star, Lebanon, 03 October 2006]

Around The Campuses

Boston College: St Francis Xavier Exhibit Opens

"Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Missions in the Far East" is an anniversary exhibition of early printed works from the Jesuitica Collection of the John J Burns Library and is on view in the Thompson Room through December 3.

For more information visit www.bc.edu/libraries/centers/burns/exhibits/highlights/s-xavier/

Seattle University: Academic Salons

30 co-curricular events are scheduled for the university’s annual Salon Series. The salons are opportunities for students and faculty to engage in a year-long thematic dialogue outside the classroom. Literature, poetry, art, film, music, theatre, dance, food and ideas will all be mobilized in the spirit of global connections and understanding.

Co-director Theresa Earenfight says that the Salons "explore how we educate students to be responsible, worldly people who are expansive in their outlook, tolerant and open-minded while at the same time intellectually engaged and socially aware. Integrating the intellectual with the pastoral to engage the world on its own terms—it doesn’t get much more Jesuit than that."

For the full schedule visit www.seattleu.edu/academicsalons/

University of Detroit Mercy Hosts Father General

In celebration of the Jesuit Jubilee Year 2006, The Very Reverend Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, will visit the University of Detroit Mercy. Fr Kolvenbach's schedule in the Detroit province runs from October 4 - 7 and includes sessions for Jesuits as well as public liturgy celebrations. More information is available at www.udmercy.edu/jesuitjubilee/kolvenbach/

Remembrance of Things Past

• Oct 9, 1627. Jansenius left Louvain for Salamanca to foment antipathy against the Jesuits and thus prevent Philip IV from giving the Society a large college in Madrid. The theological faculty at Salamanca were hostile to the Society.
• Oct 10, 1950. Jan Korec was ordained a priest in prison in Czechoslovakia. One year later, at the age of 27, he was made a bishop. He was released from prison in 1968 and made a cardinal in 1991.
• Oct 11, 1963. Walter Ciszek SJ freed from a prison camp in Russia. He had been in detention since 1938.
• Oct 12, 1600. At Madrid, the death of Fr Louis Molina, a great theologian, whose doctrine on Grace and Free Will was fiercely attacked by Dominicans and others, but ably defended before Clement VIII by theologians of the Society.
• Oct 13, 1676. The arrival in London of Fr Claude la Colombiere, to be the chaplain and confessor of Maria d'Este of Modena, Duchess of York, wife of the future King James II.
• Oct 14, 1854. The death of Fr John Bapst SJ, tarred and feathered by religious bigots, Know-Nothings, in Ellsworth, Maine. He was also the first rector of the Boston College Scholasticate. He was given a gold watch as a result of the ordeal, and was given special permission by Father General to wear such a costly watch.
• Oct 15, 1523. At Jerusalem, St Ignatius was maltreated on the Mount of Olives by an Armenian servant of the Franciscans. However, he was consoled by a vision of our Blessed Lord.
• Oct 16, 1788. The Bollandists were forced to give up their work, because of the effects of the Suppression.
• Oct 17, 1996. The death of Richard Michael Fernando SJ, a scholastic working with the Jesuit Refugee Service, in Cambodia, killed by a hand grenade from a disturbed ex-student, as he tried to save others' lives.
• Oct 18, 1550. The first Jesuit is appointed to be rector/president of a university. Peter Canisius was elected to that office at the University of Ingolstadt (for a six month term).
• Oct 19, 1934. Fr General Ledochowski sent a letter about the abuse of taking off the cassock on mountain trips.
• Oct 20, 1873. At Rome, all the Society's houses, namely the Gesu, the Roman College, S Andrea, and S Eusebio, were by royal decree appropriated by the government.
• Oct 21, 1866. Gerard Manley Hopkins was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Newman.
• Oct 22, 1986. The death of Frances Xavier Weiser SJ, a writer on liturgy and church feasts. Also a book of his for youth, The Light on the Mountain, sold one million copies and was translated into forty languages.
Oct 23, 1944. A New York Times story reports in a dispatch from Stockholm that all clergy are to be included in the draft except Jesuits, who are "declared unfit to bear arms for Germany."
• Oct 24, 1618. John Berchmans and Bartholomew Penneman, scholastics, set out from Flanders for Rome, reaching the city on December 31st.
• Oct 25, 1950. A Letter of Father General Janssens orders some books removed from libraries in houses of formation, including works of DeLubac, Bouillard, Danielou, and deMontcheuil. This is a follow-up of the encyclical Humani Generis.
• Oct 26, 1554. Princess Juana, daughter of Charles V, is admitted to the Society in an exceptional way and with the obligation of complete secrecy. She takes vows. She would die as a Jesuit scholastic.
• Oct 26, 1644. In Maryland, Fr Andrew White was seized by some English invaders, carried off to London, imprisoned, and then sentenced to banishment.
• Oct 27, 1820. Frs Petrucci, Pietroboni, Rezzi, and others were condemned by a commission of Fathers for plotting against the Institute. The first two repented; Fr Rezzi and others were expelled from the Society.
• Oct 28, 1949. Leonard Feeney dismissed from the Society of Jesus. He receives a letter notifying him of this.
• Oct 29, 1996. Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa is killed. He was Archbishop of Bukavu, Zaire. He had been Jesuit Provincial, 1980-86.
• Oct 30, 1985. Fr Goncalvez Kamtedza SJ, pastor, aged 55, and Fr Silvio Moreira SJ, aged 44, parish priest, killed by unknown assassins in Mozambique.
• Oct 31, 1610. Solemn public obsequies were celebrated in Peking for Fr Matteo Ricci, who died on May 11th.

From the Editors

JesuitUSA News is brought to you by Company Magazine. The newsletter is free and available to all interested persons. Spread the word. Persons can subscribe to the Newsletter in one of several ways:

• Go to lists.luc.edu/listinfo/sjusa-news -- or
• Send an email message to sjusa-news-request@luc.edu?subject=subscribe -- or
• Send an email message to news@companymagazine.org .

Once subscribed you can manage your own subscription -- delete yourself, change your email address, or even indicate that you will be "out of the office" for some specific period of time. Other correspondence, especially comments, suggestions, complaints, or queries, should be sent to news@companymagazine.org.

Once subscribed you can manage your own subscription: delete yourself, indicate that you will be "out of the office" for some specific period of time, or change your email address by using the same Web address.

Other correspondence, especially comments, suggestions, complaints, or queries, should also be sent to news@companymagazine.org . Please include your name and your email address in all correspondence. The editors of this newsletter are Richard VandeVelde SJ and Ms Maureen E Ryan. They recommend the following useful web links as items of Jesuit interest.

A service of Company Magazine, Copyright(c)) 2006.

AMDG