MAGIS was institutionalised in 2005 as a way of structuring the gathering of Ignatian youth taking place right before the World Youth Day Meeting. Since then, the Jesuit Province where the WYD takes place organises MAGIS. Young people connected to Ignatian spirituality are divided in multinational small groups and sent to diverse experiments (pilgrimages, spirituality, service, art, ecology, music, etc.). They share a strong experience of community life of which the daily common reflection according to the methodology of the “MAGIS circle” is central. To conclude all are reunited again for a Festival, before they join the common celebrations of the WYD.

In more recent years local MAGIS programs have been organised independently of the WYD. In particular, the Provinces of Central and Eastern Europe have been running a MAGIS-Europe every year since 2013: a summer program for everyone between 18 and 35, that has attracted people from all over Europe (and sometimes beyond too). The structure is the same: Ignatian experiments and a closing general event.

For more information on MAGIS and the next MAGIS-Europe, visit the web site

Leadership, Discernment in Common and Apostolic Planning are being reaffirmed as crucial means for finding the better ways to serve the mission of the Society of Jesus. Forming people, Jesuits and lay collaborators alike, in the competent use of these tools has become a key challenge at all levels.

The Jesuit Conference of European Provincials promoted two pioneer formations on these topics:

The Ignatian Leadership Programme (ILP) took place between December 2015 and June 2017, in four one-week modules focused on each one of the following topics: Self-Awareness and Discernment; Forming a Body for Mission; Organisational Development; and Leadership for Frontier Mission. (The Programme has since been run again by the North-West Provinces and by JECSE.)

The Promoting Discernment in Common and Apostolic Planning (DICAP) workshop was offered in Rome in September 2019 as a practical experience of being guided into experiencing processes of personal and communal discernment and apostolic planning to be able to form others in the future.

The participants in both formations, around 40 in each, were chosen and sent by the Major Superiors, representing the different provinces of the Conference.

To give continuity to these initiatives the JCEP has continued to promote online meetings of a Learning Community of Practitioners that gathers formators in Leadership and DICAP. An Executive Group has been established to plan future initiatives in response to the needs of the Conference in these areas of Ignatian formation.

Jesuits in Ankara are mainly at the service of the Catholic Parish of the Turkish capital, comprising both foreigners and locals, where they focus on pastoral work in Turkish. More largely, they help the local Church by offering formations, retreats and publications. They are also involved in ecumenical dialogue with Eastern Christians and with Protestants, and in interreligious dialogue with Muslims.

Fostering Ethical Standards in the Jesuit Ministries is a priority for the Conference of European Provincials. The issue of Child Protection and Safeguarding are two areas of this priority we are promoting in all our works. Tackling them can be a starting point and an invitation for renewal of the Church in many areas such as human formation and pastoral outreach - an invitation that the Church and the Society should not miss. Safeguarding in many parts of the world includes also fighting the enlistment of child soldiers, reaching out to street children, action against trafficking and other issues. There is conversion needed in many societies in all these areas.

Every culture is different and has its complexities; so universal norms sometimes don’t work. Yet the invitation for renewal is there and must be taken up in every culture.

Our goal is not only to develop and implement protocols for responding to these injustices but to look at how we might actually have a pro-active culture in the Society of Jesus for the protection of children and other vulnerable members of our societies.

The issues raised are not easy ones, but tackling them will invite us to renew at a deep level our own individual lives, our community lives and our apostolic lives.

We need to avoid several things in respect to this topic like: denial, thinking of ourselves as the victims, blaming others, avoiding the matter at hand or considering it too complicated an issue to even act. Conversely, we encourage getting expert advice, education for the people we lead in our provinces, a culture of discussion, new ideas to build a culture of safeguarding, to seek personal support and, most importantly, to spend time with God since through Him we will find the right thing to do.

St Ignatius called tertianship ‘the school of the heart’, a time where the Jesuit is invited to consider his life story and his response to God’s call. A key part of the programme is the experience of the full Spiritual Exercises, an opportunity to renew and deepen one’s sense of discipleship. Tertianship is also the time for rereading the Jesuit foundational documents, especially the Constitutions and the recent General Congregations. In addition, Tertians spend ten weeks away on apostolic placements in a variety of settings. Tertianship is an experience of deep integration of the tertian's life, as he prepares for his definitive incorporation into the Society of Jesus through final vows.

Lebanon

The Tertianship program of the European Conference began in 2021 in a Jesuit Residence in Bikfaya, in Mount Lebanon. The program focuses on Reconciliation as horizon to Jesuit life-mission.