Nuremberg - The Jesuits in Central Europe are founding a Social Ecological Centre (SÖZ) in Nuremberg. This is to become a think tank, educational centre, networking place for science, civil society and politics, spiritual centre and contact point for activists to organise themselves and plan ideas and projects. In this way, the Order wants to work not only for social justice, but also in a concentrated way for ecological justice, in accordance with its thematic orientation. 

Pope Francis is pushing for a social-ecological transformation of the economy and society. He makes this known above all in his two major encyclicals Laudato Si' and Fratelli Tutti. The Order has taken up this urge worldwide and set it as its content guideline. "Increased commitment is necessary because the speed and efficiency of socio-political action is not commensurate with the speed and severity of increasing catastrophes worldwide and the approach of irreversible tipping points in climate change," explains Bernhard Bürgler SJ, Provincial of the Jesuits in Central Europe. 

The concept for the Social Ecological Centre (SÖZ) was developed by Jörg Alt SJ and Klaus Väthröder SJ. Both have been involved in this field for a long time and have not found a comparable practice-oriented think tank with integrated pressure group approaches in Germany. "Accordingly, the enthusiasm is great everywhere we tell people about this idea. We don't want to be competitors, but rather strengthen existing good initiatives and sharpen the profile along common values. At the same time, the centre wants to set its own accents and, after appropriate sounding out in the socio-ecological movement, see where the Jesuits can make a specific contribution not only to raising awareness but also to the practical implementation of the socio-ecological transformation." 

The exact work programme will be developed in the coming months. For this, the SÖZ first wants to sensitise and mobilise the Jesuit network in order to spread the necessary knowledge about the climate emergency and the understanding of the need for comprehensive action. "We are also concerned with doing this for and with, on the one hand, the poor and, on the other hand, the youth in Germany and the world. For this purpose, existing contacts to climate activists are to be expanded and information about the situation in poor countries is to be fed in through the existing networks, especially those of the aid organisation jesuitenweltweit. What is certain is that it is above all about accelerating the implementation of things that we know: we are already in a climate emergency, and in order to tackle this we do not have a knowledge deficit, but an action deficit," Jörg Alt SJ explains the first steps for the SÖZ. A congress, first workshops, ideas for advisory services, networking ideas with other initiatives and concrete actions are already being planned. "All of this is also about developing a spirituality for the time of crisis and the challenges ahead. A spirituality that does not make us despair, but gives us courage through our faith in Jesus Christ," Provincial Bürgler explains the holistic approach of the SÖZ. 

The structural and content-related preparations in the former novitiate in Nuremberg should be completed by summer, so that work can begin after the summer break.