Social Apostolate

Covering children’s basic needs in housing and nutrition is a challenge we face every day. Having a basic and balanced nutrition and growing up in a stable and loving home is but a dream to many children. This is our everyday story.

On 11 January Jean-Yves Calvez died at the age of 82. He was a Jesuit priest, an influential social thinker whose engagements responded exactly to the large movements in the Catholic Church and the world over the last 50 years.

Jesuit Refugee Service Cambodia reports that the International Convention on Cluster Munitions has now been ratified by 30 countries, which means that it will become binding international law on 1 September 2010. The director of JRS Cambodia, Sister Denise Coghlan, had been lobbying tirelessly governments as part of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC). (Source: Headlines 2010/02 News from the Jesuit Social Apostolate)

The Jesuit Seven-Year Plan for the Environment was launched at a ceremony at Windsor Castle in England on November 4, along with hundreds of other plans by different faiths, denominations, and religious orders.

Jesuit conferences, provinces, works, communities, and individuals are encouraged, with the help of this plan, to fulfill the mandate of GC35 to "move beyond doubts and indifference and take responsibility for our home, the earth" (D. 3, no. 31).

Australians today are living in a world where the choices they make have an enormous power to make a difference in the lives of people in developing countries, former Australian Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot told young business leaders at the Jesuit Social Services Just Leadership Breakfast last week. Read more. . .

10th Meeting of the Prefecture of Battambang
Siem Reap, October 20-22, 2009

Our life is full of experiences that spin and interweave, making up realities of life completely unsuspected, exceeding many times our dreams and expectations. The strength of life and the faithfulness of God in his love with his people is manifested with extreme clarity. This is our experience in Cambodia.

Last week I had the great luck of being able to go to the villages in the region of Banon with Phally, Theara and Javivhín. They are three members of the team of the Arrupe Center that work in remote villages helping disabled people.

Fr Primativo Viray (PHI) invited Fr Pedro Walpole (PHI) to the Juniors’ Social Forum. The day’s discussions with scholastics raised significant questions about poverty and how those who are bound to the land are poor, since they receive no benefit from society for the quality of ecological services drawn from their areas yet destroyed by others. It also drew people to consider how they might better seek experiences in reading the signs of the times in what they want to do and analyze what could be just and effective action.

“Conversations 2009” in Davao amongst the universities and apostolates brought a clear focus to what Jesuit institutions can do, even though they may not seem to be the experts. Clearly it is everyone’s concern and interest to adapt in the face of climate change. Davao, already expecting to have a dryer climate in the future, is sure to draw up numerous responses.

Fr Pedro Walpole (PHI), through his engagement with Asia Forest Network (AFN), had an opportunity to follow up on the actions agreed upon during the Jesuit Conference Social Ministries meeting in Manila last August. In October 2009, with Rowena Soriaga of AFN, he visited several Jesuits in Indonesia interested in contributing to a network of people currently involved in environment related activities.