Jesuit Father Jeff Putthoff (right) with a cross planted for a Camden, N.J., homicide victim.

Jesuit Father Jeff Putthoff ministers in Camden, N.J., a city that experienced a record-breaking number of homicides in 2012. “I have learned that poverty is not pretty, nor is it romantic. The traumatic experiences of violence, abuse and endemic poverty deeply wound the people of Camden,” says Fr. Putthoff.

Fr. Putthoff founded and runs Hopeworks ‘N Camden, which trains youth in technology and helps them get back to school and away from the violence that plagues their hometown.

Among the 67 killed in Camden in 2012, 34 were younger than age 30; 11 were teenagers; one was 2 years old and another was 6 years old. Fr. Putthoff was one of the organizers of a new group, Stop the Trauma, Violence and Murder, which has a Facebook page documenting both the ongoing violence in the city and activities to bring attention to the problem, including painting and planting of crosses for victims.

“Camden is a place that is very bloody and disfigured, and it bothers us fundamentally to look at it because if we acknowledge it as disfigured, then we have to do something about it,” Fr. Putthoff told the National Catholic Reporter. “The alternative, what most do, is avert our gaze and find ways to justify it. We either make it invisible or we blame people for it.”

Fr. Putthoff and the staff of Hopeworks understand that changing lives go beyond teaching new skills. It also means they must help the youth to see possibilities that would have been previously unimaginable.

Fr. Putthoff  said that even many from the program who “succeeded,” by moving on to college or to good jobs, often sabotaged that success by acting out inappropriately under stressful circumstances.

“What’s important is recognizing that even if we had no crosses, we’d still be saying, ‘Stop the trauma,’ because people are living an existence that is only about survival and not thriving,” Fr. Putthoff said. “They learn a whole set of behaviors to help them survive, but lamentably, those behaviors don’t help them thrive.”

The Hopeworks staff is currently undergoing a two-year training program to be certified in “trauma-informed delivery of services.”

“We believe that we’re operating more and more out of a model of trauma where our youth basically have a form of PTSD and their survival mechanism doesn’t allow them to actually move forward,” Fr. Putthoff said.

For more on Fr. Putthoff’s ministry in Camden, visit the National Catholic Reporter and the Jesuit Curia’s Social Justice blog.

“La Jornada,” or the Journey, began in Honduras and ended in Nogales, Ariz. Along the way, participants learned about the realities of the lives of migrant workers.

Matthew Kunkel, a Jesuit scholastic said, “When people make this journey, they’re desperate. They’re not doing it because they want to break the law. They’re doing it because they’re trying to survive.”

The group traveled by bus and stayed in shelters, visiting human rights organizations and parishes that assist migrants along the way.

“If the experience was extremely demanding for us, I can only imagine what it would be for the migrants themselves,” said Jesuit Father J. Alejandro Olayo-Méndez.

Learn more about their journey in the Ignatian News Network video below and visit their blog: http://themigrantjourney.wordpress.com.

Following his ordination in 1973, Fr. Webb served in Toronto, where he took on a number of social justice projects, including leading an advocacy effort against the system of apartheid then existing in South Africa and helping found a Catholic newspaper, a health center, the Taskforce on Churches and Corporate Responsibility and the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice.

In 1986 Fr. Webb moved to Jamaica, where he served for over twenty years. There he spent most of his time working with the poor, as a pastor in Kingston, chair of the St. Mary’s Rural Development Project and founding director of Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections.

Fr. Webb returned to Canada in 2008 to become Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in English Canada. In this role, he chose to live in an apartment in one of the poorest parts of Toronto, rather than the six-bedroom home in a Toronto neighborhood that had once served as home base for the Jesuit leadership team.

“If you say that material things are not important but then there’s no sign of it, it lacks credibility,” Fr. Webb told Canada’s Catholic Register in 2009. “Our commitment to social justice and solidarity with the poor is very strong. In terms of vocations, I think that is one of the things that is attracting younger people to the Jesuits.”

Fr. Webb always believed there was more that could be done, however difficult it might seem, said Jesuit Father Philip Shano.

“Where others saw missions impossible, Jim was eternally optimistic about how things could work out,” Fr. Shano said. [Jesuits in English Canada, The Catholic Register]

During his time on campus, Jesuit Father Frank Turner will deliver three free public addresses: “Catholic Social Thought and Magisterial Claim to Authority in Ethics” ; “Catholic Social Thought’s Claim to Universal Relevance” on July 18; and “Modes of Christian Ethical Participation in the Global Discourse” on July 25.

As its general director, Fr. Turner led the Jesuit European Office (OCIPE) from 2005 until last year and is currently affiliated with its successor, the Jesuit European Social Center in Brussels, Belgium.

His work has taken him to Iraq, Colombia, Syria, Lebanon and Israel-Palestine, where he has conferred with a range of people, including community leaders, voluntary workers, cardinals, patriarchs and the leaders of several governments.

From 1997 to 2004, Fr. Turner was the assistant general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

“The core of that job was to brief and represent the bishops of the 22 dioceses of England and Wales on matters of international justice: regional issues, such as relations between Israel and the Palestinian territories, or the Church’s advocacy to government about the Western allies’ path to war against Iraq,” Fr. Turner wrote on the website Jesuit Vocations: Britain.

From 1981 to 1986 and 1990 to 1994, the priest did “community-based work in the poorer parts of Liverpool and Manchester” while also teaching part-time at Manchester University, he told National Catholic Reporter.

Past scholars-in-residence have included Mary Jo Bane of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Jesuit Father A. E. Orobator, provincial of the Jesuits’ East African Province; Margaret O’Brien Steinfels of Fordham University Center for Religion and Culture; Jesuit Father James Keenan, professor of theological ethics at Boston College; and Jesuit Father Tom Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

[National Catholic Reporter]

Sometimes, the journey is anything but. On June 14, 2012, a group of Jesuits began a five-week journey along the “migration corridor” from Central America to the United States. Along the way, they have been visiting shelters, human rights organizations and parishes that assist migrants as they move through the migration corridor.

On a blog site they’ve established to chronicle their journey, http://themigrantjourney.wordpress.com/, the Jesuits say they hope to attain “a better understanding of the reality of migration and the difficulties encountered by migrants on their journey to the U.S.”  The blog, called Journey Moments: The Migrant Corridor, includes photos and a map of the journey and is presented in English and Spanish.

In Honduras, the Jesuits met up with a group of deportees recently returned to their country.

“With little governmental support, the human mobility ministry of the Catholic Church, along with other initiatives, has established an attention center to receive these migrants. Here, the migrants are given some food, medical attention (if needed), and a personal care kit. As we ourselves saw, this return contrasted wildly with the festive ambiance of more familiar airport reunions. Thursday, in the back of San Pedro Sula´s airport, there were no hugs, no smiles, no balloons, no joy. Instead, the travel-weary migrants exuded only sadness, disappointment, and apprehension.”

Several days later in Honduras, the group visited a community in the countryside, about 30 minutes outside of El Progreso, where they spent time visiting with families whose lives have been tragically affected by migration.

“Victoria told us her story through grief and tears. Her husband is counted among the ‘desaparecidos’, those migrants who are never heard from again after beginning the long, dangerous journey to the States. Victoria recounted how her husband left their home in order to provide a better life for their daughters. She has not heard from him in eight years and clings desperately to the hope that she will find out what happened to him.”

At another stop in Honduras, the Jesuits visited those who have suffered devastating injuries attempting to migrate to the United States.

“Many hoping to migrate to the United States ride on top of cargo trains.  The train reaches high speeds, with occasional sudden stops, easily causing people to fall. Sometimes, these falls are fatal. Other times, they injure people so badly that it takes years to recover. Meanwhile, their dreams of providing a better life for their families disappear. This is the case of Jose Luis Hernandez.  On the train up North, he suffered a terrible accident, losing one leg, one arm, and four of the fingers from his remaining arm. It has taken him years to recover, not only from the physical wounds, but also from the emotional wounds: the stigma of now being disabled, the shame of returning home with nothing, the sense of being a burden for his family.”

We invite and encourage you to follow this blog during the coming weeks as the Jesuits travel through El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico before entering the United States and stopping in El Paso, Texas and Nogales, Ariz.

In addition, thanks to the magic of Skype, internet cafes and file-sharing, The Jesuit Post, www.thejesuitpost.org  will also be following the journey.   Founded in February of this year, The Jesuit Post was launched by a group of young Jesuits who hope to draw the connection between contemporary culture and spirituality using a language and tone to which young adults can relate.

“Life without Homeboy would be bleaker, meaner and more expensive in a society already too bleak, too mean and strapped for cash,” says Newton in his column.

Founded at the height of the gang violence that was ripping the city apart in 1992, Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, himself now an icon in the city, started Homeboy Industries  to help gang members leave their lives formed on the streets and in prisons and instead learn skills to improve their lives. Offering tattoo removal, counseling former “homies” in drug rehabilitation and mental health, and even providing jobs in its bakery, café and t-shirt store, Homeboy Industries is a haven for former gang members looking to turn their lives around. The ministry helps approximately 12,000 individuals each year learn life skills to lead them away from the streets.

With the economic downturn pulling back donations a few years ago, the concept of a Los Angeles without Homeboy Industries almost became a reality and Fr. Boyle had to canvas all of his contacts and benefactors to help stave off insolvency. Jobs for the homeboys and homegirls are still scare but the program does help keep these former gang members off the streets. “You want people to make the connection between public safety…and giving these people a chance,” Boyle says.

Read more about Homeboy Industries and what it and Fr. Boyle provide to Los Angeles in this column from the LA Times.

President Ram Baran Yadav of Nepal, left, attends the 60th anniversary celebration of the Jesuits' service in the country / Photo Credit: UCAnews.com

The Society of Jesus in Nepal recently celebrated a milestone in its service when the Republic of Nepal’s first president Ram Baran Yadav graced the Jesuits’ 60th anniversary function on the St Xavier’s School grounds in Jawalakhel, Kathmandu.

Sixty years after Jesuit Fathers Marshall D. Moran, Francis Murphy and Ed Saxton first arrived in Kathmandu and set up the St. Xavier’s School with 65 students in Godavari, north of Kathmandu, there has been no looking back for the Nepal Jesuit Society (NJS).

Owing to the steady growth in the number of students, the primary section of the Godavari school was shifted to Jawalakhel in 1954.

“The NJS sapling planted by the three Fathers in 1951 has today grown into a beautiful tree with branches spread all over Nepal,” said  Jesuit Father Amrit Rai, the principal of St. Xavier’s School.

In an address during the celebration, President Yadav lauded the work of the Jesuits and said the NJS brought about a revolution in the education system of the country.

“Nepal has always been a land of tolerance and religious harmony … with people allowed to practice the faith of their choice without fear,” he said.

The Maoists in Nepal waged a 10-year-long insurgency that ended with the government and the former rebels signing a peace accord in 2006. Subsequently, a freshly elected assembly in 2008 abolished the 239-year-old monarchy in Nepal and declared the then Hindu kingdom a republic.

Apart from the two schools in Godavari and Jawalakhel and two more in Jhapa district in Eastern Nepal, the Jesuits run a social service center, a drug rehabilitation center, a center for the sick and elderly and the Human Resource Development Center in Kathmandu.

They also run a child care center in Pokhara in western Nepal, while around 3,500 students pursue higher education at the St. Xavier’s College in Kathmandu.

[UCAnews]

In 1995, Jesuit Father Don MacMillan, a newly minted campus minister at Boston College (B.C.), was approached by a student interested in honoring the memory of the six Jesuits and two lay partners who had been massacred in 1989 in El Salvador.  That chance encounter led Fr. MacMillan on the path to a long and fulfilling new role as a social justice activist, a commitment that will be honored tonight as the Ignatian Solidarity Network presents its “Robert M. Holstein: Faith that Does Justice Award” to Fr. MacMillan.

The Holstein award honors one individual annually who has demonstrated a significant commitment to leadership for social justice grounded in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. The award’s namesake, the late Robert (Bob) M. Holstein, was a former California Province Jesuit, labor lawyer, fierce advocate for social justice and one of the founders of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice (IFTJ) – the precursor to the Ignatian Solidarity Network.

The first memorial service commemorating the El Salvadoran victims was organized by Fr. MacMillan and the Boston College students on the B.C. campus, but by the next year, the group had taken their commemoration to Fort Benning, Ga.  Here, they held a prayer vigil at the gate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas in order to call attention to the school that, according to a U.S. Congressional Task Force, had trained those responsible for the executions in El Salvador.

Over the years, thousands of students have been empowered by Fr. MacMillan’s teaching and ministry. At Boston College, Fr. MacMillan coordinates the Urban Immersion Program, a weeklong experience of prayer and service for undergraduates to learn about the lives of those in Boston suffering from poverty and homelessness. He also organizes an annual trip to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where B.C. students have direct experience with Latin American refugees and the poor of Mexico.

Fr. MacMillan earned two Boston College degrees: a bachelor’s degree in 1966 and a master of divinity degree in 1972. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1960 and was ordained in 1972.  He previously served as both a teacher and administrator at Boston College High School and Bishop Connolly High School.

The Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) promotes leadership and advocacy among students, alumni, and other emerging leaders from Jesuit schools, parishes and ministries by educating its members on social justice issues; by mobilizing a national network to address those issues; and by encouraging a life-long commitment to social justice grounded in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Since the Ignatian Solidarity Network’s inception in 2004, Fr. MacMillan has been an integral part of ISN’s effort to mobilize a national network of leaders committed to justice grounded in Gospel teachings.

The previous “Robert M. Holstein: Faith that Does Justice Award” honorees include Jesuit Father Charlie Currie, former president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges & Universities; and Jesuit Father Steven Privett, president of the University of San Francisco.

Learn more about the “Robert M. Holstein: Faith that Does Justice Award” at: www.ignatiansolidarity.net/holstein.

Jesuit Father Jeff Putthoff has picked this unlikely place to try a bold initiative that uses digital technology and entrepreneurial business practices to help Camden’s youth find their way forward. Burnt-out homes and empty lots surround the three-story row house headquarters of Hopeworks ‘N Camden, a technology training center where as many as 250 Camden youth can learn technical skills in Web design, programming languages and information systems. They range in age from 14 to 23 and might begin with just a seventh-grade reading level. They leave with technological training, greatly enhanced self-confidence and job experience in the bigger world.

Fr. Putthoff created Hopeworks as a service for commercial and non-profit clients that pay for work by young Hopeworks trainees. Initially, Web design was the main product, but Hopeworks is moving beyond that into other areas and applications such as social media and Geographic Information Systems.

“We are not a business that has internships; we are a youth development program that has a business, and that business is part of our strategy for engaging our youth,” Fr. Putthoff said.

Hopeworks requires no entrance exam and charges no tuition. Most other job development programs for college-age students demand some prerequisite skills just to get in the door, a requirement that would keep out most of the Camden youth. The young people who want to come to Hopeworks are not illiterate, just poorly trained; but they learn quickly, Putthoff said.

“There is nothing the matter with the youth except that they have not been given what they need,” he said.

Young men and women come in with few skills and lots of damage from their environment. They cannot imagine themselves belonging in a corporate setting in what seems a world apart in Philadelphia. Hopeworks challenges them to think about themselves and their futures in new ways. They start to reimagine their lives with a different trajectory.

The data show that this innovative approach works. Nearly 100 alumni have progressed to junior college and around 300 jobs have been created.

Fr. Putthoff graduated from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City and taught at St. Louis University High School, both elite institutions far different than those in Camden that he first visited as a theology student before his ordination. He decided to spend a semester living in Holy Name Parish there while he studied theological and social issues related to serving the poor. After his ordination as a priest in 1998, he asked the head of the Missouri province to assign him to Camden, even though it was outside the boundaries of the province.

The young assistant pastor was asked to focus on the youth of the parish. During a community-organizing training program in New Orleans, he met a Lutheran pastor from Camden. The two became enthusiastic about the concept of using technology to engage youth. When Fr. Putthoff heard about a Milwaukee, Wis., organization that used Web design as a tool for youth development, he had a starting point.

It was not very pretty at first. Fr. Putthoff confesses that he knew nothing about technology at the beginning, but was undeterred.

“One of the phrases that we have coined at Hopeworks is ‘Learning to Learn,’” Fr. Putthoff said, and he has lived it. A Jesuit novice helped Fr. Putthoff set up the first network.

“We knew nothing,” Fr. Putthoff said. “We had a server and five computers, and we taught ourselves how to network. We dove in not because we had a great resource that we knew how to use but because we had a youth crisis, and we had to figure out how to work with the youth.”

Hopeworks continues to evolve. The Crib is a former convent that was recently renovated to house and support up to eight Hopeworks students in college. Residents work in corporate internships while they study. Hopeworks also started a video operation this year and is close to starting a cloud-computing administrative group and a social media consulting group.

“We are trying to grow with the market and grow in the market where we can fit,” he said. “I like that part of the job. It is always new and always evolving, so I am always having to learn.”

The Jesuit is fearless about trying new things. “Being an entrepreneur means seeing an opportunity,” he said. “If you don’t move fast, someone else gets there.”

Hopeworks’ 10 full-time and four part-time staff members, along with 30 to 40 volunteers, help around 250 youth per year in an intense one-on-one program. Since the students don’t pay tuition, Fr. Putthoff must raise money to make up the difference between Hopeworks’ revenue and costs.

He tries to help supporters see the challenges that a youth in Camden faces. That does not mean that he thinks young people should get a handout. Hopeworks pushes them to meet their commitments.

“We have a phrase, ‘Be big,’” the director said. “If a youth comes late to Hopeworks, and we don’t confront him, we don’t respect him. Respect means that you hold them to a standard that they are not used to when they are outside Hopeworks.

“Respect means you have to take up the privilege you have. Being Big means seeing the possibilities in yourself, of having a sense of your own development compared to six months previous. Being Big means actually becoming a resource for someone else and owning the resources inside yourself.”

Fr. Putthoff has to work against the perception that Camden is hopeless.

“We have to distinguish ourselves not in the problem, but in the solution we have,” he said.

“People often assume I do this work because it is what ‘Jesuits do’ and I suppose that is mostly correct,” he added. “However, more personally, I find Jesus alive here. This is the place where my relationship with him has grown. Living and working in such poverty with its accompanying violence and terrible traumatizing abuse challenges my sense of justice, my understanding of sin.”

“I don’t find easy answers every day, nor is God readily giving me platitudes. Rather, I often find myself with the crucified Christ of Camden. As a Jesuit, I have asked to be close to Jesus, especially in his sufferings. How truly little did I understand that till I began working in Camden.”

This article, by Jesuit Father Tom Rochford, originally appeared in Southern Jesuit Magazine. To download the full magazine, please click here. For more information on Hopeworks Camden or to learn how to donate, go to http://www.hopeworks.org/.

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: