Fifteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Jérôme Nadal, an early 16th century Spanish Jesuit priest, described “the world [as] “our house”. And while the precise meaning of that statement has been the subject of some debate, it is incontrovertible that from its inception, the Society of Jesus was known for its commitment to global engagement, including global education. Of course, the meaning and practices of that engagement have evolved in the last five hundred years, and Jesuit and Ignatian educators themselves acknowledge the importance of global collaboration toward the process of renewing, innovating, and re-imagining Jesuit education. This paper contributes to those conversations by putting the claim that a Jesuit education is necessarily a “global education” alongside the complicated and sometimes painful truths of the Church’s role in the violence and trauma of global colonialism. We take as our starting points (1) Pope Francis’s ‘Fratelli Tutti’—which in turn takes as its starting point, Saint Francis of Assisi’s call for a love that transcends the barriers of geography and distance—and (2) Father Arturo Sosa’s ‘Encounter as a Dimension of Cultures and a Path to Peace’ and its call for intercultural encounter as a foundationally “participatory, interactive encounter with the historical, social, economic, and political context in which it unfolds” (at p.4). Ultimately, we aim to elaborate on the meaning, relevance, and value of a global education in the Jesuit tradition as part of a truth, reconciliation, and renewal process—or encounter—with Indigenous Peoples.