Hungarian Jesuits invite and challenge every fellow province. Dear Jesuits, dear Ignatian family, and all those close to the Ignatian spirituality! We, the Hungarian Jesuits and their companions challenge you to run with Saint Ignatius. While doing so, you may pass through the stages of our founder’s life, what is more, experience togetherness with other provinces in our Jubilee Year, commemorating the conversion of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. This autumn, on September 25, the Hungarian Jesuits and co-workers are jointly organizing an event titled Jesuit Run, based on the theme of the conversion of Ignatius. We invite you, together with your co-workers, students and those discerning their vocation, to join us in any form that is convenient for you. Here are some examples: Organize a community run in your province in the Saint Ignatius Year, inviting everyone in and around your community, especially the ones who are considering a Jesuit vocation. This is what we also will do, in three categories: 1. Fast runners, 2. Slow runners, 3. Walkers. Provide a spiritual guideline to the event on the theme of the life of Saint Ignatius. We will definitely set up five stations on the route, where Jesuits will give a short spiritual insight into the following aspects of the life of Ignatius: 1. Worldly success, 2. Experiencing failure, 3. Conversion, 4. To come close to Jesus, 5. To see all things new in Christ. You may call your companions to collect 1521 kilometres together, to invoke the year when the conversion of Ignatius began. You may announce this distance separately or as a training for the event. Besides, you may provide regular spiritual guidance and exercise program to the participants in preparation for the community run, like we do. You cannot or do not want to organize a large-scale event, but would like to accept our challenge? No problem whatsoever. By yourself or with companions find some time and place to run or walk in your own pace, and make reflections on the life of Ignatius. Besides our central event, this is exactly what we proposed to the Jesuits and their companions living outside Hungary. Should you choose any of the options, please make sure to send us a feedback! Any photo, video or written report is more than welcome at futas@jezsuita.hu. If we may be of any help with regard to further information, please do not hesitate to write! Finally, click on this video to listen to our vocational director, Bálint Nagy SJ announcing the challenge, and for a possible inspiration check out a short video about our first Jesuit Run in 2019 on this link.

This month of June, thanks to the initiative of the Portuguese laywoman Rosario Tavares, who lives in Germany, a new video on Fr Arrupe has appeared. It is a multilingual project, and there is already an English and Spanish version. It includes the participation of the Spanish Jesuit biographer of Arrupe, Pedro Miguel Lamet sj.  English version:  Spanish version:

JCEP held an online conference on Safeguarding from June 1-3 entitled Building a Culture of Safeguarding: Understanding the Root Causes of Harm or Abuse, the event was organised and facilitated by Saoirse Fox (HIB and acting JCEP Safeguarding Coordinator),  John Guiney SJ (HIB), Thomas Hollweck SJ (ECE), Franck Janin SJ (JCEP), Susana Pradera (ESP).  The conference was aimed at Provincials, Safeguarding Delegates and Formation Delegates, or any others within a Province (and, even in the wider Church!) who have leadership responsibility in forming others, and in creating and “Promoting a Consistent Culture of Protection” [PCCP] and safety. Within the Society of Jesus, the primary safeguarding focus is no longer on child abuse or the abuse of the vulnerable.  The horizon has shifted to be inclusive of all persons everywhere, and all persons to whom Jesuits and our Lay Colleagues minister.  The radical scope of the new horizon has been captured in the second Universal Apostolic Preference where the Society states that ‘(w)e commit ourselves to help eliminate abuses inside and outside the Church, seeking to ensure that victims are heard and properly helped, that justice is done, and that harm is healed’ – an amazing dream wherein safeguarding (as Cura Personalis) and the Gospel meet. Two themes There were two overarching themes of the conference: 1) how an understanding of causes and contributors of abusive practices must inform our prevention work and our responses to cases of abuse; and 2) in light of our understanding of causes, what are we learning is important in the formation experience? The conference included input, personal sharings, and plenary sessions.  Contributors included Saoirse Fox, Irish Province Delegate for Professional Standards and Safeguarding, who spoke about research conducted on systemic factors underpinning abuse in the Catholic Church; Prof. Sheila Baroness Hollins - founding member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors; former Jesuit Provincials Johan Verschueren SJ (ELC) and Cristian del Campo SJ (Chile) who reflected on abuse within the Jesuit context and the type of culture and individual factors that contributed to the abuse occurring; (Susana Pradera and Saoirse Fox helped us ‘join the dots’ about what we were hearing); Mark Ravizza SJ, General Counsellor for Formation, spoke of how we go about creating Jesuits who treat other people with respect and care; and, Thomas Hollweck SJ, Novice Master of the Central European Province, broadened the traditional formation focus from the human and spiritual development of the individual to the institutional culture that facilitates healthy development. Network for a beginning moment John Guiney SJ and Mrs Tina Campbell, Coordinators of the PCCP project, spoke about their work and vision for the project and challenged Provincials and Formation Delegates to act on the learnings of the conference.  Saoirse Fox, as acting JCEP Safeguarding Coordinator, met with the Safeguarding Delegates and proposed a Safeguarding Delegates’ Network for JCEP. In concluding the conference Franck Janin JCEP President said that, as a body of Jesuits and Lay Colleagues, we are learning a new language and at ‘a beginning moment.’  We are beginning to create a culture, a culture which is to emerge in healthy relationships, a culture which will not emerge overnight!  This will be a Long-Term Process.  But through slow, patient incarnation it will root everything we are and do in a more authentic spiritual life.

Filipe Martins (POR) will begin working at JESC in September 2021, becoming, at the same time, member of the St. Benedict Community in Brussels. He will be Congress Officer for the preparation of the Justice Congress that will take place in Loyola in April 2022 and Justice Renewal Assistant. Filipe was born in Lisbon in 1970, got a degree in Electronics Engineering before entering the Society of Jesus in 1995, after a year of volunteer work in Mozambique. He studied Theology in Madrid and Rome. In the last fifteen years he has worked in university pastoral and was director of a shelter for homeless people. He served the province as Vocation Promoter, Coordinator of the Social Sector and Socius to the Provincial. For the last three years he was General Director of a Jesuit School in the North of Portugal. His coming to Brussels is actually a return to Belgium, as he was an Erasmus student in Louvain-la-Neuve in 1993. Read more

The Society of Jesus is delighted with the news that Pope Francis has recognized a miracle attributed to Father Philip Jeningen SJ. This means that nothing more stands in the way of the beatification of the "good Father Philip", who worked as a popular missionary in the 17th century. "It is special for us that one of our Jesuit brothers has been granted this honour," said Provincial Fr Bernhard Bürgler SJ. "In the Ignatian Year, in which we remember the conversion of Ignatius 500 years ago, this is a grace for all of us." Born in Eichstätt (Bavaria) on 5 January 1642 and entering the Jesuit Order in 1663, Philipp Jeningen saw himself called to be a missionary, following the example of St Francis Xavier. However, the Order assigned him the eastern Alps in southern Germany as a mission area and sent him as a pilgrim chaplain to Ellwangen, where he built a new pilgrimage church on the Schönenberg. From there he was active as a popular missionary in the dioceses of Augsburg, Eichstätt and Würzburg. He died on 8 February 1704 and is buried in the Basilica of St Vitus in Ellwangen. "Father Philipp Jeningen lived entirely from the spirituality of the Spiritual Exercises and thereby helped many people to be renewed by the God of their lives," says Fr Bürgler. Through simple sermons, a convincing lifestyle and Human kindness, he had a great charisma. "People felt that he believed what he said and - this was perhaps even more important - that he did not demand anything of them that he did not do himself and do in excess." The Provincial invites all Jesuits and the Ignatian Family to take the forthcoming beatification as an occasion for renewing our life-mission from the spirit of the Spiritual Exercises. "May the pilgrim Philip Jeningen and his missionary zeal be a model for us to set out at any time to where we can be of more service to reconciliation based on justice, faith and solidarity with the poor." The beatification process was initiated as early as 1945, and the so-called "heroic degree of virtue" was established in 1989. Decisive for the Pope's placet was an "inexplicable healing" of a man from the diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart from an incurable disease due to the intercessions of his relatives to Father Jeningen.

On June 11, 2021, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Polish Episcopate gathered for the Mass celebrated at the Jesuit Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Kraków to renew the act of Consecration of Poland to the Heart of Jesus. When the construction of the basilica was finished it hosted little more than twenty Polish bishops on June 3, 1921 who entrusted Poland to Jesus’ heart. 100 years later the renewal took place in the presence of almost a hundred bishops. The Act was proclaimed by the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki. The Jesuit Provincial of South Poland Province, Fr. Jarosław Paszyński SJ delivered the homily in which he outlined the way how the devotion to the Sacred Heart can be of help for the people of XXI century to build “the civilization of the Sacred Heart” of love: 1) adoration of loving God which helps to promote human dignity, 2) communion with God that enables us to build a communion between the people without excluding anyone and 3) satisfaction (expiation) which is particular form of love that opposes human indifference or abuse, and teaches responsibility for wounded, marginalized and those deprived of love. Six months of preparation The celebration was the conclusion of a six-month program of preparation. Thanks to the collaboration with the Conference of Polish Bishops the team of Jesuits organized the book with homily outlines, reflections, devotions and prayers distributed to each out of ten thousand parishes in Poland. Through the letter issued by the Polish bishops and read on preceding Sunday, June 6, every parish was also invited to proclaim the act in their own churches. Young Jesuits organized the artistic contest for youth concluded with the release of the youth song prepared for this occasion: “to live in the rhythm of the heart” by Fr. Jakub Bartczak.  The theme of Divine Love At the Basilica itself people were invited to participate in monthly talks and prayers devoted to the theme of Divine Love. Before the Solemnity the 3-day Conference was held in which both Polish Provincials and the members of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart provided reflections about the Sacred Heart. On the eve of the solemnity the basilica witnessed ecumenical prayer: “at the Heart of Jesus there is a place for everyone”, organized by the students from the Jesuit campus ministry “WAJ”. Scripture and Taizé songs united Christians of different denominations around the Cross that expresses the unlimited love of Christ. Crucial themes for the Church and the people of our times The Act centered around crucial themes for the Church and the people in our times: care for families, divisions, pandemic challenges and call for respecting our planet. One of the elements of the act was also to apologize for the sins of sexual abuse of minors. The Jesuits in Kraków are part of the crucial process of making the Church a safe environment. Right next to the basilica is the Jesuit University Ignatianum that runs the institution called “Child Protection Center” with Fr. Adam Żak SJ as the head. Its primary tasks include psychological, pedagogical and spiritual training and education activities on the subject of sexual abuse of minors, and the design and development of prevention programs and models of good practice for various pastoral, formational and educational settings to help them create safe environments for children and young people. Inspiring strength Though it may seem that spirituality of the Sacred Heart is not at its peak, the whole process of preparation and the celebration itself provided signals that the power of God’s love which is at the centre of Christ’s heart still has its transforming and inspiring strength. We find that there is no simple coincidence in the fact that the Centennial Jubilee happens around the same time as the Ignatian Year that invites us to see all things new in Christ. Is it not the love of God flowing from the heart of Jesus that allows us to convert and to live in hope and caring love for everyone?