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September 24, 2007 |
BETTIAH, India (UCAN) - Celebrations of St. Ignatius Loyola's 450th death anniversary in 2006 had an unexpected impact on Hindu students in an eastern Indian school. They now consider the saint their revered guru.
Christ the King School in Bettiah, India held various programs observing the death centenary of the Society of Jesus' founder. The 80-year-old Jesuit school is in Bettiah, a town about 610 miles east of New Delhi.
The school conducted debates, seminars, dances and dramas during the yearlong celebration. The programs explained how Saint Ignatius and the Jesuits pioneered education in the world for social betterment. Students hailed him for providing spiritual and temporal leadership in the Indian tradition, through his followers.
Akash Tiwary, an eighth-grader who joined in organizing the celebration, told UCA News the celebration was the first such event at their school. Students came to know more about the saint and the Jesuits through the programs of last year, he added.
When students rejoined classes after summer vacation this July, Akash said, some seniors suggested celebrating the July 31 feast. Later, class leaders discussed the matter.
"Everyone lapped it up," Priyanka Verma, a 10th-grader, told UCA News Aug. 2. "We thought we should celebrate the feast as a tribute to the Jesuits' sacrifices and contributions," the Hindu girl added.
Hindu tradition and scriptures, she explained, "allow us to choose our guru from any creed or community." She said all agreed they have a right to revere St. Ignatius as their guru and celebrate his feast.
Permission was granted when students assured they would not celebrate the feast as a religious ceremony, but as a cultural event, with programs stressing the saint as their "guru and world teacher."
Each student contributed 5 rupees ($0.12 USD) for programs on July 30, a date chosen to avoid colliding with the Jesuits' programs the following day, Priyanka explained.
The students' programs were a "synthesis" of cultures and religions, commented Ajay D'Cruze, a Catholic who teaches in the school. He said Hindu students staged dramas based on biblical themes and Jesuit history. They also honored the 11 Jesuits at the school with flowers and gift packets.
D'Cruze said that in the past, only Catholic students attended the feast-day programs. Others enjoyed a holiday.
"The feast used to be a non-event. But this year virtually everyone in the town came to know about it, thanks to our Hindu students," he remarked.
For centuries the feast has been the Church's "exclusive affair," commented Jesuit Father Francis Palliparambil, the school headmaster. But this year "our students set a new historic trend," he told UCA News. He hopes students in Jesuit institutions in more than 100 countries will emulate his students.
School rector Father Joseph Thadavanal said he and the other Jesuits were "really inspired by our students to do more and more to actualize our mission." [Source: UCANews, 8/16/07]
According to new research from the Universities of Manchester and Exeter, the mathematical concept of 'infinite series'- one of the basic components of calculus - was the work of Indian scholars.
The 'Kerala School' of mathematics, in southern India, identified the infinite series in about 1350. Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that the Indians passed on their discoveries to mathematically knowledgeable Jesuit missionaries who visited India during the fifteenth century.
"The discovery is currently - and wrongly - attributed in books to Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz," says Dennis Almeida, one of the researchers. That knowledge, they argue, may have eventually been passed on to Newton himself. The Kerala School's work predates Newton and Leibnitz's by over 250 years.
According to Dr George Gheverghese Joseph at The University of Manchester, "Certainly it's hard to imagine that the West would abandon a 500-year-old tradition of importing knowledge and books from India and the Islamic world. But we've found evidence which goes far beyond that: for example, there was plenty of opportunity to collect the information, as European Jesuits were present in the area at that time. They were learned with a strong background in maths and were well versed in the local languages. And there was strong motivation: Pope Gregory XIII set up a committee to look into modernizing the Julian calendar."
On the committee was the German Jesuit astronomer/mathematician Clavius who repeatedly requested information on how people constructed calendars in other parts of the world. [Source: Newindpress.com, 7/14/07]
Proposed new Australian laws, which provide for Supreme Court approved "continued detention" of convicted prisoners who have completed their jail sentences, reverse 200 years of "fundamental" legal practice, says justice campaigner Fr Peter Norden, SJ. The Herald Sun reports that the Victorian Government's plans for continued detention of the state's worst sex offenders have ignited fierce debate. Opponents say the scheme would cost $50 million a year that would be better spent on intervention programs at the beginning of criminals' sentences.
Victorian Criminal Justice Coalition convener Fr Norden said continued detention punished people for what they might do rather than for crimes they had committed. "It has been fundamental to our criminal code over more than 200 years that once a sentence is served, the offender has done the time," Fr Norden said. Fr Norden said it would be legally and morally unjustifiable for the State Government to ignore its own expert advice from the Sentencing Advisory Council.
But victims' groups have welcomed the proposed law, congratulating the Government for making protection of the public its top priority. The Government will press on with the continued detention scheme, even though a narrow majority of its Sentencing Advisory Council voted against the idea. A continued detention law would allow judges to keep prisoners in jail if they were still considered dangerous when their sentences expired. [Source: CathNews]
Following one of the more difficult deliberations in recent summers, St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati has been pegged as the top-ranked team in the 2007 preseason National Prep Poll.
The National Prep Football Poll is compiled by high school sports journalist Jamie DeMoney with input from sportswriters, experts, and coaches.
The Bombers, who return 16 starters including seven regulars off their 2005 undefeated state championship team, narrowly edged Carroll (Southlake, Texas), DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.) and Northwestern (Miami) for the No. 1 nod.
Six St. Xavier players had received Division I scholarship offers by the end of the summer. Coach Steve Specht says a half dozen more are capable of playing at least at the Division I-AA level next year.
St. Xavier's superior overall schedule and continuity in its coaching staff were the deciding factors in this first poll. However, as with the teams ranked in spots 2 through 25, every team will be evaluated and re-evaluated during each week of the season. [Source: prepnation.com, Aug. 6 2007.
For the past 10 years, the National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference (NJSLC) has been held on the campuses of the 28 Jesuit universities.
In lieu of NJSLC this summer, Marquette hosted a smaller version of NJSLC focused on student government officers. The Jesuit Student Leadership Summit was held this August. We have 65 student leaders participating from 20 Jesuit schools. Fr. Robert A. Wild, SJ, president of Marquette University, spoke at the opening of the summit Friday afternoon.
Students get expert advice on resolving conflicts, working with the media, and leading in diverse environments. They also attended a Milwaukee Brewers game.
In the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, academic Antonio Spadaro urged fellow Catholics to embrace the online community of Second Life as a fertile ground for new converts to the faith.
Second Life, a 3D simulation game where players create virtual avatars and interact with one another, has a population of over 8 million "residents" and a multi-million dollar economy.
According to his article, Second Life already features a host of virtual churches and temples serving myriad faiths. He quotes a Swedish Muslim who says his avatar prays regularly, just as he prays in real life.
Spadaro cautions that "the erotic dimension is very present" on Second Life, with the presence of such real-life problems as prostitution and pedophilia. But he also says that the virtual world, just like the real one, is full of people seeking answers to spiritual questions.
"Deep down, the digital world can be considered, in its way, mission territory," he said. "Second Life is somewhere where the opportunity to meet people and to grow should not be missed, therefore, any initiative that can inspire the residents in a positive way should be considered opportune." [Source: Reuters, 7/27/2007]
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