May 25, 2007

Scholastics Hit the Streets to Aid in Darfur Conflict

During lent this year, a group of Jesuit scholastics from Hekima College in Nairobi, Kenya decided to do something for their brothers and sisters in the Darfur region of Sudan. As part of their Lenten journey, they went out on the streets of Nairobi in April to talk to people about the problems those caught in the Darfur conflict face. They also sought to raise money to donate to JRS projects in the area.

At least 200,000 people are estimated to have died since the Darfur conflict began in 2003, and over two million people have been displaced in Sudan and Chad. One scholastic explained how it felt trying to talk to people and being ignored. He compared his feelings to those of individuals who are forced to beg for a living but who are constantly brushed aside. However, some passersby, many of them women, were willing to listen and give money. The scholastics presented JRS with a check for 135,335 Kenyan shillings (almost $2,000 US) as a contribution to JRS work in Darfur.

JRS Regional Director, John Guiney, SJ, expressed his deepest gratitude to Hekima College and its students, not only for their contribution, but also for raising public awareness about Darfur. Working in Darfur has been a real challenge, noted Fr Guiney, but also a worthwhile effort. JRS literacy programs are offering many displaced women their first educational opportunity. He hopes that initiatives like this one inspire others to respond to the suffering in Darfur. [JRS 5/01/07]

SLU Wins TIF case

The Missouri Supreme Court decided that the city of St. Louis did not violate state and federal constitutions by granting Saint Louis University $8 million in tax increment financing (TIF) for its new arena.

While the Missouri Constitution prohibits public funding to support any "college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever," SLU argued that it was not controlled by the Catholic Church or by the Society of Jesus but by its mostly lay board of trustees. The judges, in a 6-1 decision, agreed with the university.

Jesuit Appointed First Bishop of Nepal

Fr Anthony Francis Sharma, SJ, has become the first bishop of Nepal. He was consecrated in Kathmandu on 5 May in a celebration presided over by Bishop Pedro Lopez Quintana, the Apostolic Nuncio for India and Nepal.

Fr Sharma was born in 1937 to a Hindu Brahmin family. In 1956, he entered the Society of Jesus and became the first Nepalese Jesuit in 1968. After a long stay in northern India, he returned to Nepal in 1984. Before hundreds of bishops, religious and faithful who came from across the country and abroad, the new bishop assured all of his utmost commitment to building a new Nepal and to working for peace, prosperity and the collaboration of all the faithful.

The Catholic faith came to Nepal in 1951, when the king invited the Society of Jesus to establish schools. They established the schools St Francis Xavier and Saint Mary, still held to be among the country’s best educational institutions. Christians were submitted to constant persecution until 2006, when the king was deposed, and Nepal was declared a secular state. This February, Pope Benedict XVI elevated Nepal to the status of a Vicariate. This step precedes the possible creation of a region as a diocese.

Emmanuel John, a local Catholic layman , told AsiaNews that Fr Sharma “has already done a lot for the country”, although for many years he was for all intents and purposes confined to Kathmandu. “Now, the Church in Nepal has around 50 priests, 140 sisters and hundreds of social workers committed to responding to the needs of people across the country. There are around 30 educational institutions, including a university and several high schools, as well as more than 20 health centers. Now they will be able to do even more.” [AsiaNews, 7 May 2007]

Jesuits to Close Boston Urban Center

The Jesuit Urban Center, run by the Jesuits in Boston’s South End, will close at the end of July, and Immaculate Conception, its associated church, will be put up for sale, the Jesuits announced in April.

Fr Thomas J. Regan, SJ, the superior of the New England Jesuits, said that he had received no pressure from the Vatican, the Jesuit headquarters in Rome, or the Archdiocese of Boston, to close the church, and that the sexual orientation of the predominately gay congregation played no role in his decision. Jesuits would continue to welcome gays and lesbians to worship at St. Ignatius of Loyola, the parish they oversee in Chestnut Hill, and other downtown congregations have been reaching out to gay Catholics.

According to Regan, the rationale for the closing is purely financial. The order has become financially reliant on the salaries paid to Jesuits who teach at Boston College, the College of the Holy Cross, and Fairfield University -- all Jesuit schools -- but that as many of those priests retire or die, the order is being forced to cut back on its activities.

Regan described himself as "incredibly disappointed" but said he had no choice. "A lot of people are still in the church because of the Jesuits," he said. "We do not want to abandon these people. But there's a spirit among this group, and I think that's going to be lost, and that's very sad." [The Boston Globe, 16 April 2007]

St. John’s High School Students Explore Opportunities in China

(Left) Administrators from the Experimental School welcomed St. John’s Jesuit High School staff members, Gail Christie and Barbara Trimble. (Right) Barbara Trimble and Gail Christie explored sites that future students may visit such as the Temple of Heaven.

St. John’s Jesuit High School and Academy in Toledo sent two staff members as part of a delegation to Qinhuangdao, China on April 5 –13. St. John’s Jesuit hoped to expand its educational ties with Chinese schools to advance its East Asian Study Program.

St. John’s Jesuit started its East Asian Study Program with a course in Mandarin Chinese in 2006, and is adding an East Asian social studies course for 2007. The delegates, Gail Christie and Barbara Trimble, discussed "teacher exchanges with one of the schools, proposing a three-month program where the teacher can live right at the school," said Ms. Christie. "With China being the site of the 2008 Olympics, it could be an interesting opportunity for a teacher.”

“We explored faculty/student cultural exchange programs, ways to communicate via Internet and distance learning, a pen pal program, and investigated several other initiatives,” she added.

St. John’s Jesuit was the only high school sending official administrative representatives to the trade mission. According to Christie, their goal was to “open doors, explore opportunities, and build relationships for our East Asian studies program to provide our students with every educational advantage and share what we learn when we returned.”

Salvadoran Involved in Massacre is Deported

Gonzalo Guevara Cerritos, a former Salvadoran army lieutenant convicted in the 1989 death squad murders of six Jesuit priests, has been deported, federal authorities in Los Angeles announced in late April.

Guevara Cerritos was arrested in October at a motel near UCLA after entering the United States illegally in January 2005. He was one of a group of Salvadoran officers and soldiers implicated in the killings of the priests, along with their housekeeper and her teenage daughter.

The massacre was one of the most notorious in the Central American nation's history. The priests were viewed as subversives by some in the Salvadoran army amid the nation's 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992.

Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Guevara Cerritos, 43, was convicted in El Salvador of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism. He was placed under house arrest for almost two years, but was pardoned under El Salvador's General Amnesty Law of 1993.

Still, federal officials said they sought Guevara Cerritos' deportation because of his illegal entry into this country and his "violent criminal past." "Removing human rights violators and other persecutors from the United States is one of ICE's top enforcement priorities," said Jim Hayes, director of ICE's field office in Los Angeles, in a news release. [LA Times, 2 May 2007]

Remembrance of Things Past

• May 17, 1824. Pope Leo XII returned the Roman College to the Society.
• May 18, 1546. Pope Paul III sent Diego Laynez and Alfonso Salmeron as his theologians to the Council of Trent.
• May 19, 1651. The martyrdom at Tyburn of Blessed Peter Wright, a former soldier who returned to his homeland as a Jesuit and was hanged.
• May 20, 1547. Pope Paul III acceded to the request that the Society of Jesus not have women as members nor have a parallel women's order.
• May 21, 1568. Pope St Pius V wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Cologne asking him to befriend the Society of Jesus and its college in that city.
• May 22, 1965. Pedro Arrupe was elected the 28th general of the Society of Jesus.
• May 23, 1976. The murder in Chad of Nicholas de Glos, SJ, an inspector of schools. He was stabbed to death.
• May 24, 1716. The beatification of John Francis Regis by Pope Clement XI.
• May 25, 1773. The scholastics at Bologna, Italy, pressed immediately before the suppression by Cardinal Malvezzi to take off their religious habit and accept the dispensation from their vows, refused to listen to him.
• May 26, 1647. The state of Massachusetts passed a law banning Jesuits; they would be put to death if they returned after banishment.
• May 27, 1954. The death of Francis LeBuffe, author, spiritual writer, philosopher, and anthropologist.
• May 28, 1600. Matteo Ricci, undismayed by the failure of his first visit to Peking, set out again from Nanking with many rich presents for the Emperor, of which he was robbed on the way.
• May 29, 1815. Restoration of the Society in Spain proclaimed by royal decree.
• May 30, 1582. At Tyburn, the martyrdom of Thomas Cottam with three other priests. On the way they recited the Te Deum. His dying words were. "O Domine, tu plura pro me passus es, plura, plura, plura."
• May 31, 1653. Publication of the bull of Pope Innocent X declaring the Five Heretical Propositions were really contained in Jansenius' Augustinus. The Jansenists retaliated with violent calumnies against the Society.

• Jun 1, 1566. At Murcia, the death of Fr James Suarez, over whose room a bright light was seen shining in the night. He was occasionally found raised from the ground during prayer.
• Jun 2, 1987. The death of Anthony de Mello, author and retreat master, who enriched Ignatian spirituality with insights from Eastern spirituality.
• Jun 3, 1558. Francisco de Toledo entered the Society of Jesus. He was later the first Jesuit to become a cardinal.
• Jun 4, 1585. Disturbances arose against the Society at Riga in Latvia. Cardinal Radzivil undertook its defense. This cardinal is buried in the Gesu at the foot of St Francis Xavier's altar.
• Jun 5, 1564. At Lima, the death of Francis Lopez who had resigned the high office of Visitor General of the Kingdom of Peru to become a Coadjutor Brother in the Society.
• Jun 6, 1907. The New Orleans province was established.
• Jun 7, 1661. Since Father General Goswin Nickel was in ill health due to old age, the Eleventh General Congregation named Father Paul Oliva vicar with the right of succession. He had been rector of the German College, master of novices, and a famous orator. He had preached in the Apostolic Palace under four popes.
• Jun 8, 1649. The death of Vincenzo Caraffa, seventh general of the Society. In a season of great scarcity in Rome, he fed poor persons daily for two months at the door of the Gesu. He was general for only three and a half years.
• Jun 9, 1553. Manuel da Nobrega was named provincial of the Jesuits in Brazil.
• Jun 10, 1587. King Henry III of France, yielding to the request of Father General Acquaviva, allowed Father Edmund Auger to withdraw from the court. The King demanded, however, that only Frenchmen should be appointed superiors over French houses.
• Jun 11, 1612. At Quito, the death of Mark Antonio, an Italian brother known as "the Saint." To the age of 80, he macerated his body with fasts, disciplines, and hair shirts. Once during Mass he was seen raised in the air, his face shining with light.
• Jun 12, 1845. Pope Gregory XVI refuses the demand of the French government that the French Jesuits should be secularized and their houses closed.
• Jun 13, 1557. The death of King John III of Portugal at whose request Francis Xavier and others were sent to India.
• Jun 14, 1670. The death of Francis Annat, confessor of Louis XIV for 16 years. He introduced quinine, which at that time was known as "Jesuit's bark," in France and was instrumental in saving Louis XIV's life.
• Jun 15, 1572. The Mexican province was established.
• Jun 16, 1573. The close of the Third General Congregation, not without some disturbance, as Pope Gregory XIII had expressed a wish that the General should not be a Spaniard. Father Everard Mercurian, a Belgian, was elected.
• Jun 17, 1673. Jacques Marquette is one of the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River. He and Louis Jolliet discover it at present day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
• Jun 18, 1817. The death of Archbishop Leonard Neale, a Jesuit until the Suppression. He was the president of Georgetown University and succeeded Archbishop John Carroll in Baltimore.
• Jun 19, 1873. In Rome, Victor Emmanuel and his parliament purposely excluded the General of the Society of Jesus from any pension, such as was allowed to the previous generals.
• Jun 20, 1679. In London, the martyrdom of Blesseds William Harcourt, John Gavan, and Anthony Turner.
• Jun 21, 1805. Archbishop John Carroll appointed Robert Molyneaux as superior of the Jesuits of the United States.
• Jun 22, 1682. The Twelfth General Congregation opened, during which Fr Charles Noyelle was elected general.
• Jun 23, 1608. The martyrdom in London of St Thomas Garnet.
• Jun 24, 1521. Ignatius received the last sacraments in the castle of Loyola because he was close to death from the wounds he suffered at Pamplona.
• Jun 25, 1578. Fr David Wolfe died in Clare, Ireland. He was the pioneer Jesuit of the Irish mission and suffered imprisonment for five years.
• Jun 26, 1881. Eighty-three Jesuits were banished by the Republic of Nicaragua.
• Jun 27, 1537. At Venice, Ignatius and his companions received testimonial letters of their ordination, stating that they had been ordained "ad titulum scientiae et voluntariae paupertatis."
• Jun 28, 1521. Ignatius miraculously began to recover from his wounds on the eve of the feast of St Peter.
• Jun 29, 1553. At Louvain, certain parish priests urged the faithful not to confess to Jesuits. This was condemned by the theological faculty.
• Jun 30, 1540. The arrival of Francis Xavier at Lisbon on his way to India.

From the Editors

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