Spirituality in times of trauma

Michael O’Sullivan SJ delivered one of the papers at the second European Conference on the Academic Study of Spirituality, which took place last week in London. His paper – “Gender, Narrative and Authentic Spirituality” – was centred on a case study concerning a 12-year-old victim of incest by a 15-year-old brother. Michael teased out the consequences of such a trauma in an ostensibly religious family: the loss of trust, the intrusive image of a punitive God, the huge obstacles to attaining authenticity after such childhood abuse. Responders welcomed the framework offered by Michael for viewing such violence in the context of spirituality. The conference was attended by delegates from around Europe as well as from India, the US, Australia, and South Africa. Papers were also given by Professor Bernard McGinn, David Lonsdale, Professor Mary Grey, and Professor Bernadette Flanagan.

Dark days in Sudan

Richard O’Dwyer SJ writes from Sudan to share the shock of Irish people at the kidnapping in Darfur of GOAL worker Sharon Commins and her Ugandan colleague. The people of Darfur have suffered terribly over the last number of years. The work of agencies like GOAL is vital to provide them with basic food and care. The motive of the kidnappers is both puzzling and dismaying. Unfortunately for both Darfur and South Sudan, a huge issue is the ready availability of small arms.  Most households have a least one AK47. A simple dispute can swiftly escalate into an extremely nasty incident with fatal consequences if the local police and military are not fully in control of an area. Read Richard’s analysis below. Read more »

With refugees in Goma, Congo

Gerry Clarke SJ, coordinator of programmes for the Jesuit Refugee Service, Goma, recalls moments before the North of Ireland peace process when he thought the Northern conflict would go on forever.  The bombings and assassinations were reported daily, operations against the “terrorists” were intensified and the public turned to the sports pages in boredom.  It feels very much the same in North Kivu, troubled eastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although the reality is staggeringly more painful.  Experts reckon that since 1994 the war in this region has cost the lives of 5,000,000 people, the vast majority of these civilians: it’s the 3rd World War … in Africa … and Europeans are not really sure what it’s all about. Read Gerry’s analysis below. Read more »

Short notices

• Rob Kearney, who left Clongowes in 2004, played brilliantly for the British & Irish Lions in South Africa this summer. He came on as a replacement in the first test, and gave such an outstanding display that he was picked for the remaining two test matches. In the second test he scored the Lions’ opening try, and then showed remarkable composure under the high ball and with both tactical and defensive kicking; and he was always ready to turn defence into attack. Already part of the Irish team that won the Grand Slam, and of the Leinster team that won the Heineken Cup, and still only 23 years old, this is an Old Clongownian with a future.
• In the Central African Republic, the JRS School and Latrines Project has received approval from Irish Aid for a grant of Euro 234,256 which is the full amount sought. Director Eugen Quinn is over the moon.
• Noelle Fitzpatrick of Sli Eile used an article in the Irish Catholic to seek volunteers who would develop the work of Zamcraft, the organisation that links craft artists in Zambia with an Irish and European market.
• Clongowes has just awarded a scholarship to Ryan Gleeson, who is in 6th Class in Mulhuddart N.S. The local newspaper Community Voice featured the event, and also the advice given to Ryan by Krisjen Walsh, who was awarded a similar scholarship from Mulhuddart to Belvedere in 1991.
• Starting next week, the British Province website Thinking Faith will offer a 4-part series about George Tyrrell, the Irishman in the British Province whose regard for Modernism got him into trouble. Oliver Rafferty, Michael Hurley, Michael Kirwan and Tony Carroll will contribute.
• Fintan O’Toole made very favourable mention of Michael Punch’s analysis of the Irish housing system (published by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice) in last Tuesday’s Irish Times.

Distance no object

Fr General recently expressed strong interest in setting up a studio in the Curia for video-conferencing. An excellent studio already exists in the Bellarmino in Rome, and on 30 July, the  in-coming Rector of the Bellarmino, Irish Jesuit Michael Paul Gallagher, is showing the potential of this approach at a seminar for Catholic educationalists. 600 of them will be gathered in Wellington, New Zealand. They already have some 30 images which Michael will control with Powerpoint from a video-conferencing studio in Blackpitts, Dublin. He will talk on: “The courage to be different: educating a Christian imagination in today’s culture”. Despite the 12-hour time-gap and the planetary divide between speaker and audience, they hope for a lively exchange. Perhaps the days of flying to international meetings in costly carbon-spewing airplanes are numbered.

MAGiS goes to Africa

An Ignatian-inspired MAGiS Africa programme for young adults will be held in Nairobi, Kenya in August 2009.  Between 200 – 300 young people from Europe and Eastern Africa are expected to converge on Nairobi for the 3-week programme of action and reflection. Sr. Stephanie O’Brien, a Loreto Sister from Co. Cavan will co-ordinate the event, with a group of young adults from Kenya and Tanzania. The three-week programme will involve the Ignatian family, including a number of Jesuits from the Eastern Africa Province. Slí Eile (Jesuit Centre for Young Adults) and the Jesuit Mission Office collaborated to raise €1,875 to assist our colleagues there.

Cathal’s homecoming

Carndonagh’s imposing parish church was en fete for the last weekend in July. The parish’s new priest, Cathal Doherty SJ, was welcomed by a banner stretched across the gates. Bunting and papal flags were in evidence all around the town’s Diamond. Bonfires greeted Cathal on his arrival at his native parish, and the welcome continued as crowds gathered, offering their congratulations. The old and the young gathered for first blessings. Con McLaughlin, parish priest (pictured below with Cathal), had surely been busy in the days leading up to the First Mass. The care given to the church building and its surrounds were reflected in the preparations that had been undertaken by the choir and servers. Read more »

JESUITICA: A book for all seasons

The full four-week schema of the Spiritual Exercises was given, it seems, to as many as 7,500 people during St Ignatius’s own lifetime,  1,500 of whom were women. Of the 6,000 men, only 1,000 were in religious life at the time or became so afterwards. And the Exercises has been in huge demand ever since. Although the text itself has been described as “a book as dull as a teacher’s manual of lesson plans”, it has been published some 4,500 times, an average of once a month for 400 years. It is a book for use rather than entertainment, and its publishers include several other Christian churches.