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s2smodern

European Social Apostolate. 

On a Sunday in late August 2006, a group of men and women in their twenties and thirties gathered in Campo dei Gesuiti in Venice for the first ‘Faith and Politics’ workshop. Since then, it’s been taking place every second year. The 6th edition saw twenty-eight participants coming from Portugal, Ukraine, Ireland, Albania, Spain, Britain, Italy and France. 

There’s a particularly intriguing fact about the unique venue of the workshop, which only becomes clear after a couple of days far off from the busy tourist spots. Being used as we are to living with the noise of traffic in the background, it takes some time to realize what a quiet place this is. This was definitely a good booster for our workshop.

Most of the inputs were given by the organizing team, the European Jesuit Network. There are daily inputs on Jesuit spirituality and the worlds of faith and politics. As with previous editions, we invited guest speakers. This year, we had Eamonn O’Brien, a local councillor from Manchester, Pierre Martinot La Garde SJ working for the International Labour Organization in Geneva  and Carmen Cabrillo working with migrants in Madrid. They talked  about how they integrate faith in their work. 

We then went on to consider the practical side of this spiritual calling to public life. This year we looked at the issue of migration, which we explored with the help of Justin MacDermott, advisor to Peter Sutherland, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Migration.

There are also two daily highlights throughout the week. First there is the sharing within the reflection group, where participants give their own views and reactions on what they’ve just heard. Then there is the evening reflection held in the chapel – twenty minutes of looking back on the day. However, when the time is up, people are in no hurry to leave and move on to the next item. There’s just a general calm and silence. Every time we gather in Venice, it’s as if this profound silence permeated all the talk.

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