The International Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education (ICAJE) convened in Rome from May 21st to 24th, 2024, to address significant topics for Jesuit secondary and pre-secondary education. Attendees included representatives from the six conference networks that form the Jesuit Global Network of Schools (JGNS), the General Coordinator of Fe y Alegria, the Secretary for Education, members of Educate Magis and the Assistant to the Secretariat.
This year, the meeting included a special audience with Pope Francis. During this encounter, the Pope expressed his gratitude for the work done in our Jesuit schools and Companion Schools, as he highlighted the transformative potential of Ignatian education and emphasized the importance of keeping Jesus at the heart of our mission. In his message, he urged educators to lead by example, and our schools to put the formation of educators at the center, offering the necessary training to discover their vocations as educators. Pope Francis also recalled the Global Compact on Education, calling for a shift from a culture of the ‘I’ to the culture of the ‘we,’ and stressed the importance of patience and perseverance in the long-term task of education.
Some of the key discussions and presentations held during the meeting:
Special Highlight: Audience with Pope Francis
On Friday the 24th, the meeting participants had an audience with Pope Francis. The purpose was to express the commitment of the Jesuit Schools to support and promote the New Global Compact of Education launched by Pope Francis. We also presented the Pope with a copy of the document Jesuit Schools: A Living Tradition in the 21st Century, and a special edition of the Educate Magis Global Map of the Schools.
As part of this encounter, the Pope shared an inspiring speech in which he expressed his gratitude to Society of Jesus for her work in the schools, highlighting the immense evangelizing potential of education that St. Ignatius and his companions soon realized. He emphasized that Jesuit education must keep Jesus at its center, integrating the Gospel into the schools and “accompanying young people so that they discover in service to others and in academic rigor the construction of the common good”. Pope Francis reminded us that Fr. Arrupe’s call for “educating people for others” means to define education by “its humanizing results and not its economic results”. The Pope praised the effort to turn education from a personal success mindset to one that focuses on collective well-being, advocating for a shift from the culture of ‘I’ to ‘we’. He stressed that true education involves leading by example and urged educators to accompany and develop their students, especially those at the margins of our societies. Finally, he highlighted the importance of the upcoming JESEDU-Jogja2024 Seminar in deepening the meaning and connection of the first Universal Apostolic Preference and the others: “without a true relationship between educators and the Lord, none of the rest is possible”. Read full speech
Closing remarks
The meeting concluded with a Eucharist in the “rooms of Ignatius,” where St. Ignatius of Loyola spent his final days. Fr. José Mesa SJ remarked, “This meeting was pivotal in reinforcing our mission as a global network. The topics we addressed are crucial for the future of Jesuit education, and ICAJE remains a vital force in our journey toward becoming a universal body with a universal mission.”
After the Eucharist, the participants went to St. Ignatius Church asking, before the tomb of St. John Berchman’s -patron of the Jesuit Global Network of Schools, for strength and perseverance in our service to the mission of the Society entrusted to us by the Church.
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