Release of an Ignatian board game by a Polish Jesuit in Australia.

It’s been roughly two years since Fr Mariusz had the initial idea. The notion of the board game came to him during the pandemic and his initial instinct was to create something around the Battle of Pamplona, which took place in 1521. But during a phone call to his brother Tomasz in Poland, he was strongly dissuaded from focusing solely on the battle during which Ignatius of Loyola was wounded.

Instead, the brothers decided that it would be best to use a much broader lens. “So after that conversation,” says Fr Mariusz, “I came around to the idea of a game that would acquaint us with a difficult period in history and reinforce the abiding spirituality of St Ignatius.”

In Poland, the importance of board games is widely recognised by all age groups. Fr Mariusz shows us one that is probably the most famous of all games in his birth country. Called ‘Wojtek the Bear’, it is based on the true story of a bear who became a World War II cult hero to Polish troops, an army talisman who was eventually honoured by being included in a Polish regimental emblem and whose life was narrated in this Time magazine story.

“Central to the creation of the game are these issues: Can an event from five hundred years ago, pertaining to only one person, have an influence on our present-day decisions and resolutions? Could the wound sustained by the young knight, Inigo, in the battle for Pamplona really have an impact on the destinies of people in modern times? Could the strange interaction of events between Heaven and Earth, the Cross and the Sword, really decide the shape of the Church and its mission?

Listen to Fr. Han explaining the game:

The game’s official website is loyola-knight-pilgrim.com

Jesuits Australia