The General is coming

The new (well, not really new – he was elected in January 2008) Jesuit General, Fr Adolfo Nicolas, a cheerful and visionary Spaniard, will spend the weekend of 11-14 September in Ireland. It will not be a holiday, as readers can gather from the attached itinerary below. By the time he flies back to Rome on Monday 14th, after breakfasting with Cardinal Brady,  he will have given a special fillip to the 150th birthday celebrations of Crescent College Comprehensive, and met hundreds of Jesuits and friends. Read more »

Facing the referendum

After Ireland’s No in the first Lisbon referendum, Mr Cowen won some special concessions from his European colleagues to secure a favourable vote second time round. In a gentle but pointed critique of that process, Frank Turner, a British Jesuit, comments: “To reward such bargaining might reasonably irritate countries who ratified quickly, and is, in the long term, a risky strategy. Such last-ditch demands fuel a destructive sense… that the fundamental game is ‘my country versus the other 26′. Frank’s is one of five excellent articles on the Lisbon Treaty in the current issue of Working Notes, the Journal of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. You can access the current issue on the JCFJ website.

Thunder clouds over Lomarati

Writing from the Sudan in June, Richard O’Dwyer SJ described his first visit to Lomarati, a remote mountain location to which he had been invited to say Mass. He was stunned, he wrote, both by the glorious mountain scenery – “as green as Ireland!” – and by the warmth of the welcome he received from the people there. They had not had Mass in Lomarati since 1993! Now he writes again about the travails of beating a path to Lomarati for Sunday Mass under the big mango tree (like the one in this photo) which passes for a chapel. 200 people turned out for the Mass, during which 43 children were baptised. Richard now hopes to help turn some disused buildings into a chapel and a school. Read more »

Voting out of hope, not fear

Edmond Grace SJ has an article in last week’s Irish Catholic entitled ‘Lisbon, Life and Open Government.’ In this week’s newsletter Edmond continues the series he began last week making the case for a yes vote in the Lisbon referendum. This week there are two short attachments. In the first he argues why the second vote is needed because “the last time…  people voted, on both sides, out of fear. The ‘no’ voters feared for Irish sovereignty. The ‘yes’ voters feared for Irish jobs. Whichever side wins this time, let it be a victory for hope so that those whose arguments prevail can turn to their fellow citizens and say ‘join us in our hope for the future.’” The second attachment is the written text of last week’s podcast. Read more »

Goodbyes at Religious News Network

There were tears at a splendid buffet lunch in Leeson Street on 28 August, when a large group gathered to say goodbye to two of the (3-person) Religious News Network team. The director, Eileen Good (right in photo), is retiring on doctor’s orders; and Jeanann Cox (left), who has worked with Eileen since she came here four years ago, is changing her career direction and starting a cookery course in Ballymaloe.  Miriam Gormally (centre), expecting her first baby in January, is managing the studio on her own. Eileen and Jeanann will be missed not just for their professional work in producing radio programmes, but for their very agreable presence at Elevenses and the daily Mass.

JESUITICA: Parliamentary inspiration

Damien Burke, our archivist, observed this verse on the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh:
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
John Knox may stir uneasily in his grave at his countrymen choosing to meet under the inspiration of an English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Short notices

• Congratulations to Brother John Adams (pictured here), 60 years a Jesuit and 25 years a major figure in Milltown Park, where his contribution has been simply immeasurable.
• Joe Keaney is in Cherryfield, exercising a new hip, while the Irish Catholic features him in an excellent interview.
  Chief celebrant at the Boston funeral Mass for Senator Edward Kennedy was Boston College Chancellor J. Donald Monan, S.J.,  a close friend of Sen. Kennedy, who had served as a University Trustee at Boston College from 1976-1991.
• Jim Corkery has just published a book: JOSEPH RATZINGER’S THEOLOGICAL IDEAS, which is available from
  www.dominicanpublications.com and (on the other side of the Atlantic) from www.paulistpublications.com (or from Amazon.com, of course).  It will be formally launched in Milltown towards the  end of September.

FR PROVINCIAL’S DIARY 1-3 September: Meetings 4-5 September: Attending vow ceremony in Birmingham noviciate 8 September: CORI AGM all day

Forthcoming events

• The closing date for applications for Slí Eile’s Certificate in Social Spirituality is 11 September. This is an outreach programme of the Milltown Institute for young adults (18-35 years old) looking to explore their sense of faith and justice and how the two come together with regard to one’s relationship with self, others and God. For further details, contact Noelle Fitzpatrick (Email: noelle.fitzpatrick@sli-eile.com; Phone: 01 8943 161  or 01 8880 606)
• On Saturday September 19th at 5pm, in Milltown Park, Dublin 6, the Irish School of Ecumenics will host a seminar by Professor Stanley Hauerwas entitled Peace: A Theological Analysis. Reception at 4.30