|
|
|
May 14, 2008 |
This Earth Day, April 22, Fairfield held its groundbreaking ceremony for their new Jesuit Community Center, an environmentally friendly home for Fairfield University's Jesuit Community. To be built on a campus hillside, the structure will overlook Long Island Sound and feature a sod roof, a geothermal system, and other green elements. The building's design promotes sustainable design principles and has minimal impact on the environment.
Fr Walter Conlan, SJ, rector of the Fairfield Jesuit Community, said, "This building will be a boost to the green movement on campus and take advantage of solar, wind, and alternative power resources. It also could serve as a living classroom for our engineering and environmental studies students."
Regis High School has announced that Mr. James M. Gmelich will become the next principal of its Boys Division. Jim is a veteran Jesuit educator, having served at Brophy Prep in Phoenix since 1992 as teacher, coach, dean of students, and academic assistant principal.
Canisius High School named Mr John M. Knight as its new president. He will succeed Fr James Higgins, SJ, this July. Knight, a graduate of St. John's Jesuit High in Toledo, Ohio, and of Loyola University Chicago, where he earned his Masters of Religious Education, is currently president of Catholic Memorial High in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Santa Clara announced the resignation of its president, Fr Paul Locatelli, SJ, who has been assigned by the Jesuit Superior General to coordinate all of the Jesuits' 150 universities in Rome.
The position, Secretary for Higher Education at the Jesuit Curia, removes him from Santa Clara after a 20-year presidency. Locatelli, 69, will remain as Santa Clara University president during the search for his successor during the 2008-09 academic year. [Source: Jim Gensheimer/Mercury News]
George W. Bur, SJ, has been named the 31st President of St. Joseph's Prep. He replaces William J. Byron, SJ, who completes his two-year term this June.
Fr. Bur, a 1959 graduate of the Prep, served at the Gesu School, an elementary school adjacent to St. Joseph's Prep, for nearly 20 years. During his time, he served as assistant pastor and pastor when the parish was part of the archdiocese and then resurrected the school as an independent Jesuit school in 1993, serving as president for another decade. [Source: EMPN 4/16/08]
Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited Saint Joseph's University this April, delivering a speech entitled "Creating a Community of Peace" to faculty, staff, and students.
Tutu, a Nobel Peace Laureate most notably recognized for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa during the '80s and early '90s, shared experiences from his involvement in the resolution of racial and cultural conflicts all over the world.
Tutu told the audience that their problems can be solved because goodness, justice, and freedom will ultimately prevail. "People are made like God, by God, for God," he said. [Source: Saint Joseph's University Hawk]
A new species of primate has been named after famed Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who spent years studying fossils in China. Teilhardina magnoliana, an ancient species of primate, was discovered as a fossil in Mississippi in 2001.
K. Christopher Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, wrote that Teilhardina magnoliana is older and more primitive than other early North American and European primates. Less than 100,000 years older than related specimens found in Wyoming, Belgium, and France, it is believed to have been equal in size to the smallest living primate, Madagascar's pygmy mouse lemur. Like other diminutive primates, it lived in trees, climbing, leaping, and swinging from branches. [source: New York Times, 3/4/08]
This April, the second Jesuit National Day of Service took place among the 28 Jesuit universities' MBA programs. Each university organized various outreach and volunteer events for their community. Most took place on weekends.
Marquette University's MBA students worked with the homeless and an organization supplying low-income women with business clothing. Xavier University hosted a sporting equipment drive and rehabilitation projects at local schools, while University of Detroit Mercy students plan worked at local food banks.
Anne Marie Whelan, assistant director of Xavier's MBA Program, says, "I've enjoyed watching this event develop as our students tried to get at the heart of what service means to them and how it can be an on-going experience to which they dedicate themselves throughout the year."
The fourth conference on Ignatian Spirituality has been scheduled to take place at Saint Louis University this July. Titled "Ignatian Passion: The Challenge of the Cross in the 21st Century," the conference is sponsored by the Missouri Jesuits, Saint Louis University, and the St. Louis Center for Ignatian Spirituality, and will run July 24 to 27.
It will gather laypeople, Jesuits, and other religious who work in retreat programs or other Ignatian spirituality ministries to participate in activities and programs across a wide range of interests. For more information, please visit http://www.slu.edu/conferences/isc/ or email flickmj@SLU.EDU.
The African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN) has published its first report detailing current Jesuit initiatives to fight the pandemic across the continent.
Spanning 2002 to 2006, the first five years of AJAN, the 76-page Report of African Jesuit AIDS Ministries gives a picture of over 100 works undertaken in 23 sub-Saharan African countries, including pastoral ministry, care and support for people infected with HIV and affected by AIDS, value-based education, art and communications, research, and publishing. These works are undertaken by Jesuits and their co-workers in educational, parish, hospital, socialm and community settings.
Also explained in-depth is how AJAN House, the coordinating office in Kangemi, Kenya, implements its mission of supporting the network.
The Report of African Jesuit AIDS ministries is available in English and will be available in French soon. To request a copy, please send an e-mail with your postal address to books@jesuitaids.net.
May 2, 1706. The death of Jesuit brother G J Kamel, SJ, after whom the camellia flower is named.
May 6, 1816. Letter of John Adams to Thomas Jefferson mentioning the Jesuits. "If any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth and in hell, it is the company of Loyola."
May 11, 1824. Fr Van Quickenborne opens St. Regis Seminary in Florissant, Missouri. This is the first Roman Catholic school in USA for the higher education of Native American Indians.
May 17, 1572. Pope Gregory XIII exempted the Society from choir and approved simple vows after two years of novitiate and ordination before solemn profession. In these matters he reversed a decree of St Pius V.
May 21, 1925. Pius XI canonizes Peter Canisius, with Teresa of the Child Jesus, Mary Madeleine Postal, Madeleine Sophie Barat, John Vianney, and John Eudes. Canisius is declared a Doctor of the Church.
May 23, 1873. The death of Peter de Smet, a missionary among Native Americans of the Great Plains and mountains of the United States. He served as a mediator and negotiator of several treaties. In 1846 he visited the Mormons on their trek westward and provided information about the Great Basin area.
May 26, 1673. Ching Wei San (Emmanuel de Sigueira) dies, the first Chinese Jesuit priest.
May 27, 1555. The Viceroy of India sends an embassy to Claudius, Emperor of Ethiopia, hoping to win him and his subjects over to Catholic unity. Nothing came of this venture, but Fr Goncalvo de Silveira, who would become the Society's first martyr on the Africa soil, remained in the country.
May 28, 1962. The death of Bernard Hubbard, SJ, famous Alaskan missionary. He was the author of the book Mush, You Malemutes! and wrote a number of articles on the Alaska mission.
May 30, 1849. Vincent Gioberti's book Il Gesuita Moderno put on the Index of Forbidden Books. Gioberti had applied to be admitted into the Society, and on being refused became its bitter enemy and calumniator.
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.
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 Please include your name and your email address in all correspondence. The editors of this newsletter are Richard VandeVelde SJ and Maureen Ryan. They recommend the following useful web links as items of Jesuit interest.
|