Archive for the ‘NJN Video’ Category

When Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe was the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, he witnessed the frantic flight of the South Vietnamese out of their homeland in the seventies. The perilous plight of the “boat people” out of Vietnam so moved Fr. Arrupe, he was inspired to found the Jesuit Refugee Service in order to assist migrants and forcibly displaced people.

Jesuit Father Tri Dinh was among the thousands fleeing Vietnam at that time. Fearing religious persecution for their Catholic beliefs, Fr. Dinh and his family left Vietnam and resettled in Kansas.

Today, Fr. Dinh is an ecclesial assistant for the Christian Life Community (CLC) at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Christian Life Communities are rooted in Ignatian Spirituality, the guiding principles the Society of Jesus was founded upon, and help students deepen and enrich their faith life. The CLC young adults know Fr. Dinh as “Cha,” which means “Father” in Vietnamese.

In this Ignatian News Network video, Fr. Dinh discusses his work with young adults and how he’s learned to embrace social media and other tools to reach his flock. Showing that he’s conversant with the Millennial generation’s “digital natives” with whom he works, Fr. Dinh can also be found on Twitter at his handle @tdinhsj.

First established in 1875, St. Procopius Parish, located in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, has watched its community of parishioners change from predominately Czech to mostly Hispanic today. Its pastor, Jesuit Father Sean O’Sullivan, himself an immigrant from Ireland, invites all of the parishioners of St. Procopius to open their hearts to their diverse community. Fr. O’Sullivan’s story is not unlike that of his parishioners, who have come to a new place and are looking for a sense of belonging, which they now find through the sharing of the faith.

Find out more about Fr. O’Sullivan and St. Procopius Parish in the Ignatian News Network video below:

The Jesuits of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus recently completed a breathtakingly modern new building on their northern Baltimore campus. This new residential community is designed to offer senior Jesuits assisted-living services while also enabling them to continue their ministries in and around Baltimore and throughout the Maryland province.

The new, light-filled steel and concrete St. Claude la Colombiere Jesuit Community Residence, designed by the architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, replaces the previous residence on the property which was built in 1961. Designed around a stone entry courtyard, the two-story chapel is the central design feature and the heart of this Jesuit community home. The facility provides rooms for the 38 members of the community along with a dining hall, commercial grade kitchen, living room, library, office and work space as well as recreational facilities.

“The new building, built in harmony with the beautiful site, will promote better spiritual and psychological health for our men,” notes Jesuit Father William Rickle, superior for the Colombiere Jesuit community.

As the need for assisted living had grown more pressing for the Maryland province, with more than 60 percent of the 349 Jesuits in the Maryland province 60 or older, officials began looking at their options to provide for its senior men in the Society.

Dedicated in the fall of 2011, the new structure is located on the highest point of the property, set among mature trees and open space. Since the need for assisted living is predicted to decrease in future years, the design of the building is flexible so that it can in the future serve as a community for Jesuits in active ministry, allowing the continuation of a dynamic Jesuit presence in Baltimore for decades to come.

In the video piece below, created by Halkin Photography, Jesuit Fathers Rickle and James Casciotti, socius for the Maryland province, discuss how the building ties in with the spiritual elements of Jesuit community life and, in turn, how the building fits into the landscape of the property.

When Jesuit Father Mike Kennedy was pastor of Dolores Mission, located in the barrio of East Los Angeles, he witnessed firsthand the impact to the community of having so many of its youth facing life without parole. After serving as pastor from 1994 to 2007, Fr. Kennedy left Dolores Mission to start the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative (JRJI) to provide support and hope to juveniles with life sentences.

Through the Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a series of meditative prayers helping people find God in their everyday experiences, the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative provides tools that allow prisoners to find healing and forgiveness and to recognize their lives have meaning and purpose. As JRJI’s Executive Director, Fr. Kennedy also reaches out to victims and their families to provide support and healing. The group’s advocacy outreach from its headquarters in Culver City, Calif., includes mobilizing communities to transform the justice system from one that is solely punitive to one that is restorative.  Fr. Kennedy has been recognized for JRJI’s efforts to transform the lives of incarcerated youth, their families and communities by the California Chief of Probation Officers and the City of Los Angeles.

In this Ignatian News Network video piece below, you can find out more about Fr. Kennedy and the work of the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative to bring hope to Los Angeles’ incarcerated juveniles:

A new study conducted by Fairfield University’s Center for Faith and Public Life has dug deeper into India’s gender ratio imbalance crisis to find that it is being fueled by complex family pressures, including the belief that boys will be better wage earners, and that men will more likely take better care of their aging parents. The study also indicates that elders in the family and often husbands prefer a male child, while many wives pointed out that their voices were not being heard and had little choice in the matter.

Fairfield University’s innovative survey examined how gender dynamics and family pressures in India lead to the birth of a significantly greater number of boys than girls. The study suggests that male child preference is quite prevalent and the gender ratio imbalance – which is on the increase and was evident in the 2011 Indian National Census – is likely to be a major impediment to the future development of India.

Jesuit Father Richard Ryscavage, professor of sociology and director of The Center for Faith and Public Life, conducted the study and recently sat down for an interview with National Jesuit News.

According to the 2011 National Census of India, there were 914 girls born for every 1,000 boys; in some regions reaching as low as 824 girls. These figures are alarming in comparison to the United Nation’s 2010 Population Sex Ratio norm of 101.7 males to 100 females. The Indian census numbers therefore show a severe gender ratio imbalance in the nation. The Indian government, numerous global agencies, NGOs and researchers contend that as women become a minority in the population, there is bound to be a detrimental effect on both India’s economic development and social stability.

Undertaken in partnership with two Jesuit schools in India – St. Xavier College in Mumbai and Loyola College in Chennai – the research also found that girls are being systematically devalued in society. Yet, the findings also revealed many wives responding that daughters would be better caregivers than sons.

Fairfield’s researchers surveyed the upper layer of the lower class and the lower layer of the middle class. The assumption was that those families could be the part of the population that can make changes in their attitudes towards the son preference practice, a change that could be discernible by the next census, in 2021.

For more information on the “Impact India” study, visit http://www.fairfield.edu/cfpl/cfpl_gsri.html.