It was the first meeting of a JCEP network to be cancelled due to the pandemic. It ended up being the last one to take place in Zoom, in this peculiar year 2020. The JCEP Treasurers could not assemble in Madrid in mid-March, but they held an online gathering for two days, the 11th and 12th November. Inevitably, Covid 19 was one of the main topics. Each Treasurer was invited to share the difficulties faced by his province because of the pandemic, but also to refer consolations experienced during this time and to identify new ways that bring hope in the midst of all these challenges. Times are really changing, and it seems that things can no longer be the way they have been, first of all apostolically and, consequently, also in matters financial and economic. This indissociable connection between the apostolic mission and the specific mission entrusted to the Treasurers was permanently highlighted. The reality is challenging, the responses demand creativity in all areas. Anticipation and planning, always looking ahead, are essential traits of the responsibilities of administrators. The second day was dedicated to identifying and discuss the biggest challenges from a long-term perspective in the economic dimension of the provinces. Five main topics emerged: management of investments; fundraising; raising awareness about the economic dimension of our religious life, promoting responsibility and transparency; professionalization of financial offices; strategies for the care of the elderly. The General Treasurer of the Society, with one of his assistants, participated in the meeting and offered a view from the whole Society, and updates on what is going on in Rome, particularly the work of revision of the Statutes on Poverty and the Instruction on the Administration of Goods. Next year, God willing, with the pandemic under control, we’ll see each other in Madrid, in the week of 15-19 November. Herminio Rico JCEP Socius/Treasurer

The Newman Institute in Uppsala (Sweden) may award the academic degree of Master. The Swedish Government, in accordance with the recommendation of the competent authority for higher education, has decided to grant the Jesuit University the right to award a Master's degree in theology. The new academic degree offers students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of systematic theology, one of the main focuses of the institution, which was founded in 2001. The Newman Institute has been entitled to award a Bachelor's degree in theology for exactly ten years. Since then, the School of Philosophy, Theology and Cultural Studies has developed steadily, for example through the right to award the academic degree of a philosophical Bachelor. The assessment states that the university now has "a specialised but creative educational environment". In its explanatory memorandum, the competent authority emphasises, among other things, that the Newman Institute "has become a well-established provider of basic theological education, based on its Catholic background (...) over the past ten years". The rights to award a Master's degree have been granted to the Jesuit College because "the necessary teaching competence and capacity in the main subject of systematic theology is undoubtedly given". The first admission to the two-year programme will take place in the winter semester 2021 and will continue every two years with the admission of new students. The Newman Institute was founded in the Swedish university town of Uppsala in 2001 and has since then offered courses and seminars in philosophy, theology and cultural studies. Environmental issues are a main focus. The university is currently attended by almost 300 students and is run by the Jesuit order, its rector is Father Philip Geister SJ. Besides him, other Jesuits, but also diocesan priests and lay theologians participate in teaching. Sweden is part of the province of the German Jesuits.

"Pastoral Pedagogy. Initiation", was the first topic of the MAG+S blended learning courses and has been consolidated over the months. From the first edition (Nov. 2019) until the launch of the third edition (Oct. 2020), more than 130 young people from all over Spain have registered to continue training as pastoral agents. These semi-presential courses were created by the MAG+S Pastoral Office (Pastoral with Young Adults) as a proposal aimed at young people who collaborate as pastoral agents (monitors; catechists, animators...) in some of the institutions that form part of MAG+S, and thus motivate and accompany their process of integral growth. Thanks to a collaboration They are carried out thanks to the collaboration of MAG+S, University of DEUSTO and the selfless and essential participation of a large team of tutors, who accompany the students individually throughout the course. The first year was launched in "pilot mode" with the theme "Pastoral Pedagogy. Initiation". After an excellent reception and rich evaluation, which left us with very good feelings, a second edition was launched, which ended last October. Due to the pandemic situation, which we are still experiencing, the health restrictions and the limitations on travel and meetings imposed, it was not possible to carry out the final activity of the second edition in the programmed format, which is face-to-face. For this reason it was decided to carry it out through a videoconference. A third edition In addition, on 29 October 2020 we were able to welcome, in a video conference, the 52 new students who have registered for the third edition. The experience is generating an effective and affective pastoral network of which they are feeling a part. With this, one of the fundamental pillars of the work of MAG+S is materialised: the sense of network. With much hope and enthusiasm we will continue to offer this proposal which in the month of February will launch the fourth edition of the course of Pastoral Pedagogy Initiation, and the first of "Pastoral Pedagogy. Deepening". Other activities of the MAG+S Pastoral during the pandemic Young people are a group that has often been presented as carefree and irresponsible in the face of the pandemic, but who, from one day to the next, have seen the expectations and hopes placed in university life, training projects or the start of a professional career fall. Through two reports (in Spanish) we give a voice to the pastoral workers and young people who contribute their views, their concerns, and their opinions about the situation that pandemic has brought.  Access the report on pastoral workers:   Access the report where we give voice to young people 

On 2 November, the Provincial of Spain, Antonio España SJ visited the shooting of the film directed by Imanol Uribe about the martyrs of El Salvador. Accompanied by the superior of Pamplona, Carlos Moraza Sj held a meeting with the director and several of the actors of this film which will finally be entitled "La mirada de Lucía" (Lucia's view). During this meeting he gave an interview to the production company in which he declared that "We take Uribe's idea of making this film with great enthusiasm. The important thing about the project is that it invites us to have a memory. Not to fall into oblivion of what happened in 1989 and what has been happening in many places in Latin and Central America, which is the persistent experience of injustice and violence and which the Society of Jesus is still trying to respond to through the institutions it has in those countries". The script has the approval of the Society of Jesus, which has advised the producers in recent months from both Spain and El Salvador. Filming began in in Ilundain, a small town in Navarra, near Pamplona with all the preventive measures required by the health situation. It is expected to take another 3 weeks in this autonomous region. From there they will go to Colombia where they will record in different locations in Cali and Buga, with the collaboration of the Javeriana University and the YMCA. The South American country will host a large part of the plot, given the difficulty involved in filming this story in Salvador itself. Antonio España and Carlos Moraza felt very welcome at all times by the entire film team. They had a meeting with the director Imanol Uribe, a former student of the San Francisco Javier School in Tudela, the same school where Ignacio Ellacuría studied. The San Ignacio School in Pamplona has lent several articles for the filming, which will decorate the office of the Jesuit Nacho Martín-Baró, who was murdered on 16th November 1989, together with 5 Jesuit colleagues and two collaborators. Daniel Cebrián's script is based on the true story of the only witness to the massacre. Narrated in the style of a thriller, the film, which captures the events that overwhelmed an entire generation, is, beyond its political and social background, a story of characters, of their struggle for truth and justice in a country at war and of their desire to overcome that moment of horror. "My birth in El Salvador, my upbringing with the Jesuits and the admiration I felt for Ellacuría and his group, are at the origin of this film" - says the director. "I have been preparing this project for several years now, but it had to be suspended last spring when we were about to start shooting in Colombia. Now, despite being immersed in this second wave, we have started even more enthusiastically and the work is flowing smoothly. We are privileged" - says Imanol Uribe, consulted about the peculiarities of filming conditioned by the COVID protocols. Produced by Bowfinger International Pictures, Maria Luisa Gutiérrez, Tornasol Media, by the renowned producer Gerardo Herrero and Nunca digas nunca AIE and co-produced by the Colombian company 64A Films. Also, the film has the participation of RTVE and Movistar+ and the support of ICAA and IBERMEDIA.

Father Wojciech Nowak, SJ, director of the House of Spiritual Formation in Kalisz (Poland), writes about his commitment to offer retreats in one of the Scandinavian countries, whose constitution prohibited entrance of Jesuits in the country. This prohibition was revoked only in 1956. There is not a single community of the Society of Jesus to this day, but ... Let us listen to Father Wojciech, who offered spiritual Exercises beyond the Arctic Circle. Tromsø is a city in northern Norway, located 350 km above the Arctic Circle, with a population of approx. 70 thousand residents, called "the Arctic Gateway". On September 8, 1990, at the invitation of the then Bishop Gerhard Goebel, a group of 9 Carmelite Sisters came to Tromsø as the Carmel Hafnarfjördur Foundation in Iceland. The Carmel in Tromsø has quickly become a point of reference for many people, not only from the Catholic Church, in their existential and spiritual quest. People come to the Carmel with all kinds of questions and problems to discuss them with the Sisters.   The desire to organise the spiritual exercises. Most of the Sisters (now 14) of the Carmel community in Tromsø have experienced the Spiritual Exercises. It was a silent desire of the Sisters to organise the Spiritual Exercises in their place. A Norwegian woman I met in 2018, who is actively involved in the life of the local Church, ventured to come to Kalisz, Poland for a retreat.  The experience of this retreat, and the testimony of it, was so strong that the idea arose to organize a similar retreat also in Tromsø. The first one that I conducted here took place in October 2019. It was not yet an Ignatian retreat, but a Jesus Prayer retreat. It was necessary to overcome a certain distrust towards the Spiritual Exercises associated with the Jesuits and the ideas about them.  The fruit of the retreat in 2019 are weekly meetings of the group praying the Jesus Prayer. One year after the first retreat, time came for the 6-day Spiritual Exercises in October 2020. There were more people willing to participate in them than places. Ultimately, 10 people with very different nationalities took part in the retreat. 3 people flew in on purpose for the retreat. Three of the participants were members of the Lutheran Church, including the pastor's wife. The retreat that I conducted was a kind of synthesis of the Spiritual Exercises based on the "First Principle and Foundation" (SE 23). I focused on how we can come into contact with God and how we can experience Him. The topics included the "language" in which God speaks to us, the manner He reveals Himself to us and communicates with us, and the manner in which we can respond to Him with our lives. Multilingual and from different Christian churches The retreat was in English and I celebrated the Holy Masses in Norwegian. It was wonderful to experience the unity of faith between us, but it was a pain for me that I couldn’t experience Eucharistic communion with everyone, which wasn’t easy for me to explain entirely.  The retreat, as the participants shared at the end, exceeded their expectations. When one of the Protestants heard that God is both father and mother, she said that she didn’t expect a Catholic priest to "say something like that." This allowed her to experience the feminine and the maternal dimension in a relationship with God. The retreat turned out to be for everyone, if not "ascent to Mount Carmel", then certainly the beginning of this path – "the way" also in the Ignatian sense, because, as you know, the Exercises have several stages and I hope they will be continued in that place.

Open Letters of JCAM & Xavier Network to Boris Johnson and AU-EU Leaders. The preoccupation with Corona and the postponement of the COP 26 meeting at Glasgow raises concern that efforts to combat Climate Change are postponed as well.  Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, President of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar and Fr. Franck Janin, President of the Xavier Network sent a letter to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a second one to the President of the African Union, Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of the Council of the European Union, Angela Merkel and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In their letters they want to emphasize: Covid 19 is a serious problem, but Climate Change also continues. When billions of USD and Euro are released to fight Corona, they need to be spent in a way that adaptation, mitigation and resilience in view of climate change is part of the package. We need a social and ecological transformation to tackle the multiple crises of our time. Africa suffers more (most?) from COVID 19 since its already existing problems of debt and poverty have been exacerbated while nothing is left to tackle the increasingly felt consequences of climate change and other plagues arising from the overuse and pollution of natural resources. Europe historically and presently belongs to the largest polluters and it has therefore to honour its commitments given at the Paris Agreement (contributing to the 100 bn annually) and in Rio 1992 (Principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility). This can be done directly via the transfer/investment of money and technology, or indirectly by assisting Africa in improving in Domestic Resource Mobilizationand fighting Illicit Financial Flows. Time is running out, tipping points are fast approaching. Hence NDCs need to be formulated not by looking backwards to 1990 figures, but ahead to the global CO2-budget remaining before the 1.5/2 degree threshold is irrevocably crossed. Here, synergy between Europe and Africa can be exploited. For example: Helping Africa leapfrogging fossil industry is more effective to combat climate change than “cheating” by exporting dirty industry to poor countries, thus polishing own statistics by merely shifting the problem. Therefore: Given problems in the global, UN sponsored COP process, the Jesuits argue for speeding up an Enhanced AU-EU cooperation. Download the letter to Boris Johnson Download the letter to Cyril Ramaphosa, Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen. Find the Detailed paper backing up our argument