At the beginning of the year the Jesuits created the so-called Future Lab in the Jesuit College Innsbruck, a place where young adults find time to put their own lives in order, are allowed to ask important questions about the future, are invited to spiritual exercises and times of silence and find space in the company of us Jesuits to learn to read their own lives. The Future Lab has been open and running for a few months now. The first residents have moved in and we started the programme with a mountain weekend, spiritual exercises and vacation stays. The rooms and halls are brought to life! On 19 September 2020, Innsbruck’s bishop Hermann Glettler celebrated mass with us to inaugurate the Future Lab and provincial Fr. Bernhard Bürgler SJ blessed the premises. Afterwards, there was opportunity to visit the rooms. „To me, the Future Lab is above all a place and space for listening: listening to myself, listening to my longing and listening to the needs of our time and to the Word of God. This threefold listening, this triad slowly enables me to hear God’s calling to me, lets me recognize my life‘s trace and gives me courage and strength to live my life,“ said Fr. Bürgler SJ. "We look back gratefully on these first experiences. Despite the exceptional circumstances of the Corona pandemic, many young people have been happy to participate in the programme of the Future Lab from the very beginning. Some came to us with specific questions about life and found room for important questions, thoughts and conversations in the beautiful new rooms and the hospitality of the community in the Jesuit College. There was great interest in the introduction to Ignatian Spirituality and the sense of community, good spirits and openness in our house were especially appreciated. We don’t convey a finished image of God. Everyone is invited to come as they are, we offer an atmosphere for personal searching and thinking, all questions allowed", says Fr. Helmut Schumacher SJ, director of the Future Lab.  Young people from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, South Tyrol and even Poland found great value in their time at the Future Lab and many are planning to come back soon. You can find the programme of the Future Lab via www.zukunftswerkstatt-innsbruck.org

The Polish Jesuits serve to immigrants of Polish descent in Chicago, USA since 1934. The community belongs to the South Poland Province. For the last 20 years they have operated in the Jesuit Millennium Center, which is a place for pastoral work and a home for many different groups. From mid-March 2020, when everything stopped due to the pandemic, representatives of the Polish Christian Life Community In Chicago, based in the JMC, for the next 15 weeks, went every Tuesday to the homeless in downtown Chicago, bringing them food, warm clothes, and comforting them through their presence. Why did they do this? The conviction that the homeless need presence and help now motivated Ann, Ula and fr Jerzy to act. With the help of friends and with the support of benefactors, they were able to bring some support to those who were more in need at that time. See and hear their testimonies of this ministry (english subtitles): An unexpected yet eloquent sign of closeness and service, for example, was the haircut of one of the homeless, Steven. In these homeless people you could see not only the "face of Christ", but also the image of "God's child". The homeless turned out to be simple, honest and deeply religious people. Every trip for the team was a lesson of faith. These few months also saw dramatic events: flooding in which several homeless people died; protests and riots that broke out in many cities in the United States and their consequences. Trips with gifts for the homeless were also an opportunity to experience God's providence. At first people thought it was crazy to put themselves in such a risk, to endanger their families, but then they started to help, whether it was shopping or preparing trips. These 15 weeks were for the team, their relatives and the CLC group an evident sign of God’s grace in action.

On July 30, Jesuits from the Croatian Province together with lay associates have launched a new web portal on Ignatian spirituality – ignacije.hr. The website presents the knowledge and practice of Ignatian spirituality to the men and women of today who are confronted with various challenges and needs in their lives. In addition to a large number of articles on the Ignatian tradition, the website contains stimulating and educational video-material, theological texts, meditations, and practical Ignatian advice for a dynamic spiritual life. Various questions are treated: prayer, decision-making, spiritual accompaniment, spiritual exercises, discernment, and other topics related to Ignatian spirituality. Furthermore, the portal offers material that explains how to live Ignatian spirituality in practice. Finally, it introduces the reader to the activity of Pope Francis as a contemporary example of how to apply the knowledge of the life and works of St. Ignatius. The website is intended for all those who want to raise the quality, maturity, and authenticity of their spiritual life.

Are you interested in Jesuit higher education in Europe and the Near East?  As a part of its communicational strategy, the Kircher Network launched its monthly newsletter last June. In the newsletter the subscribers can find updated news on projects, conferences, publications and events of the 28 Jesuit universities, faculties and centres in Europe and the Near East. Also, the newsletter presents information on the opportunities for academic collaborations, both in-person and online, offered by the member institutions.  The Kircher Newsletter also offers concise information about the most relevant news of the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU), and the other five Jesuit higher education networks around the world.  Subscribe to the newsletter today here The Kircher Network also launched its webpage. The newly launched website provides detail information on the Kircher Network and features resources for networking and academic collaboration. You can visit the website here

Dublin / Salamanca. The formation of a Jesuit takes a long time. It begins with two years of novitiate. This is followed by studies in philosophy and theology. At the end there is a "Third year of formation", a Tertianship. In some places in Europe, such as Salamanca and Dublin, a new year has begun. Salamanca On September 14, the Tertianship began in Salamanca for 10 Jesuits from six different countries: Brazil, Chile, Italy, the United States, Portugal and Spain. The COVID-19 pandemic has not prevented the beginning of the experience, although it will logically condition the performance of some of the planned activities. During the first week, the group received the visit of Fr. Provincial, Antonio España SJ who welcomed them. He encouraged the participants to take advantage of this unique experience and showed them the welcome and availability of the Province of Spain. This time the Tertianship program should make an effort to adapt to the health circumstances. Some of the training talks will take place through videoconference and the visits to Ignatian places as well as the experiences will be conditioned by the evolution of the pandemic. The 10 participants have diverse profiles and have worked in the social, educational, university and even scientific fields. These first days are being dedicated to getting to know each other and sharing the context from which each of them comes. Dublin Last spring we took the decision to offer the European tertianship programme this year as well, and to stick to the original starting date of 21st September so as to minimise+ the risk of coinciding with the onset of the flu in autumn. Little did we know that by then we would be in the midst of the second wave, and that Dublin would have more restrictions than the rest of the country! At that time we had twelve possible tertians on our list, seven of whom needed a visa. On Monday 21st, the feast of St Matthew the evangelist, the group that assembled in Dublin for their tertianship was made up of six: Michele from Italy, Julian from Germany, Lukas from the US, Eugene from Lithuania, Learoy from India and Roman from Poland. Some had dropped out for health reasons, others because they could not travel from their country to Ireland. Others had had their visa refused, one just three days before we started. Two of the six came at the eleventh hour, for they were on the waiting list until less than a week before we started! Since we share the grounds and certain services with the spirituality centre, we are very careful to follow the covid guidelines the house has developed over the summer. For the first two weeks we are living a regime of ‘restricted movement’: we do not leave the grounds of the Manresa spirituality centre, we wear masks whenever we are together and have no contact at all with the Jesuit community at the retreat house next door.  But that will be over in a few days, and tertians can look forward to getting to know Dublin. In the meantime we have already had our first zoom session on Transitions, and are into the week of sharing from the heart. Do keep us in your prayers from time to time. Paul Pace sj

The National Court has sentenced Inocente Montano, a former colonel and vice minister of Public Security of El Salvador, to 133 years and four months in prison for the crime of the UCA in El Salvador in 1989. The five Spanish Jesuits for whose death he is sentenced are: Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín Baró, Segundo Montes Mozo, Armando López Quintana and Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo. The court also considers Montano to be the author of the murders of Joaquín López y López SJ, Julia Elba Ramos and Celina Mariceth Ramos, but does not condemn him for these victims because the trial is limited to the Spanish victims. The resolution analyses the context in which the events took place: the role of the Church, and of Ignacio Ellacuría in particular, in the search for a negotiated solution to the Salvadoran conflict, the enemies that this process had in the armed forces and the precedents - threats, searches, attacks - that had taken place. The sentence relates the meeting of officers, including Montano, in which it was ordered to kill Ellacuría and leave no witnesses, as well as the events of the night of the crime. The Spanish Provincial of the Society of Jesus, Antonio España, expressed his satisfaction that "the principle of Universal Justice, applied in Spain, has served to legally guarantee the truth". He also points out that the sentence does not exhaust the responsibilities, and shows his desire that the sentence should lead to progress in this sense in El Salvador itself. The Universidad Centroamericana, for its part, has declared that the sentence will help "both the national conscience and the Salvadoran judicial system to take real steps in favour of truth and justice, not only in the so-called Jesuit case, but also in all pending cases of serious human rights violations"..