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150 guests joined open-house-event in Zurich.

There was a big run on the Jesuits’ site in Zurich on December 8: More than 150 guests gathered around in Hirschengraben 74 being curious about the new offices of the Foundation Jesuiten weltweit and the expanded setting of the Jesuitenbibliothek Zurich after a two-years-period of renovation and rebuilding. Fr. Toni Kurmann SJ and Dr. Dana Zumr, the new managing director of the foundation, were happy to welcome friends, partners, neighbors and donors to an open house afternoon, among them Dr. Josef Annen, Vicar General for the Cantons Zurich and Glarus, and Giacomo Solari from DEZA (Suisse Department for Development and Cooperation) in Berne. The offices of Jesuiten weltweit, the relief and work organization of the Jesuits in Switzerland, could be inaugurated in due manner. The Foundation is supporting more than 150 projects per year on five continents mainly in the fields of education, emergency support, pastoral work and empowerment but also in culture, environment and health. 

Fr. Provincial Dr. Christian M. Rutishauser SJ had the pleasure of blessing the bright and well-equipped new offices, conference facilities, the library, and the archive of the Swiss Province. “May all people working in these offices and consulting the library be driven by the spirit of deeper understanding and service to each other”, he said during this ceremony. The inauguration of the Jesuitenbibliothek Zurich will take place on March 1st 2018 with a lecture delivered by Bettina Spoerry, Swiss writer and literary scholar, on the meaning of the act of reading in our time.

In the evening of the day, Anna-Maria Brahm Gartner, who retired after ten years in office, handed her responsibility over to Dana Zumr, a former professor in the school of social work at ZHAW in Zurich. The event took chances to highlight the topic of Jesuit mission activities in the so-called “reductions” (villages meant for christianisation) in Latin Americas, destroyed 250 years ago. The culture heritage of the Jesuits reductions was the year’s theme in 2017 of Jesuiten weltweit. That is why the Jesuits were very happy to welcome the Ambassador of Paraguay, Liliane Lebron Wenger at the ceremony. In his welcome speech, Father Rutishauser expanded on the notion “mission” and its changing meaning up to our days.

Clemens Prokop, a freelance publisher and music producer based in Switzerland and Germany, delivered the keynote speech, and talked about his experiences when producing the CD “Jungle Baroque” with the conductor and composer Luis Szarán from Asunción and his young musicians of “Sonidos de la Paraquaría”. All of them have benefited from a social project Luis Szarán had launched 2002 to enable poor kids to learn a musical instrument. On the CD “Jungle baroque” some wonderful compositions of the Swiss Jesuit and missionary Martin Schmid mid-18th century can be found inspired by the rhythms of the indigenous peoples of Paraguay. 

The musical framework of the whole evening was provided by Silvia Berchtold and her team of professional musicians with the program “Loop way to Lima” – big applause!.

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