Discerning and Acting on our Shared Jesuit Educational Mission in the Region: Moving Forward

Joel E. Tabora, S.J.
Chairman, AJCU-EAO
University President
Ateneo de Naga University
AJCU-EAO General Assembly 2009
25 August 2009

To the words of welcome of our hosts, Fr. Gerald Healy for Fr. Frank Brennan, Fr. Steve Curtin (Provincial Superior), and Fr. Mark Raper, President of the JCEAO, I wish to add my own words of welcome…

We have 16 members in the AJCUEAO.  There are 23 of us present representing 13 of our Higher educational institutions and endeaveors from 7 different countries.  Among us are 9 CEOs or Principals (We have a quorum!)  It is  Always something of grace when we come together in Jesus’ name in order, as our Constitution explicitates, “to support and promote Jesuit higher education in this region.”  We come together in the AJCU-EAO as our consitution says  “to promote friendship in service and leadership, to share discernment in mission, to facilitate cooperation and service, to develop the appropriate “Jesuit” brand of higher education, to engage in strategic planning, projects and programs for the higher educational apostolate in southeast Asia and Oceania, and so in higher education to propagate the faith, promote justice, appreciate culture, and engage in inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue.”   We come together “for the ongoing exchange of experience, information and expertise” among ourselves.”

Time for this type of sharing is provided for this evening, in our traditional “Sharing of CEOs”  Not all will be heard, clear.  But we will be all ears to those willing to share. And all willing to lend expertise and advise to those who share. Of course, there is more time outside of the formal sessions for exchanging experiences.

At this meeting, however, As I mentioned to you in my letter of July 9, we wish to thematize our shared Jesuit educational Mission in the region, and very possibly our shared Jesuit mission in the globe.  We want to discern.  We want to Act.  We want to move forward.

We will therefore have two major foci in the meeting:  one is a discernment towards self-understanding of our identity, the other is discernment towards working more closely together. 

In discernment, we want to be able to answer Fr. Locatelli’s question together:  What distinguishes the AJCU-EAO in terms of Catholic Identity and Jesuit Educational Mission.  We are very diverse.  Some may say that is what characterizes us most.  We speak different tongues. Some of us eat preferably with chopsticks, others with forks and spoons, or just spoons, yet others with just our hands. Some of us function in relatively rich, relatively developed societies, others come from relatively poor, developing societies.  We have differing governance structures, and are answerable to different constituencies beyond the university and beyond Society of Jesus. Some of us have Catholic populations hungry for nourishment in their faith;  others have predominantly non-Catholic populations whose interest in Catholicism might yet have to be awakened.   Some of us can proclaim Jesuit Christ rather freely, and perhaps must criticize ourselves for not doing this enough, or at least, not effectively enough;  others hope in enduring silent, oft-unnoticed, personal witness to Jesus Christ and pray for the day when open proclamation might be possible or welcome.  We are providers of education and/or are committed to the intellectual apostolate, yet what distinguishes us from other private or state Universities? Some of us run universities that have phenomenal resources and great impact on local society,  others are struggling to survive despite myriad apostolic challenges; others run universities that contribute greatly to new insights into truth;  yet others are great contributors to universities that are not ours.  Through these contributions they impact significantly on their local societies.  Some of us are outstanding in instruction, but weak in research.  Others score comparatively high in research in comparison with other universities in the region, but wonder about how to help their faculty grow in Ignatian spirituality.  Others are seeking true integration between instruction, research and service to the community. In the diversity of educational conditions, clienteles, languages, cultures, religions, the challenge is to understand our identity.

What distinguishes us as Jesuit schools in East Asia?  As much as an ever-more refined conceptual definition of what distinguishes ourselves in mission may be desirable, it might also be less fruitful in helping us move forward.  More fruitful would be a to come to quicker agreement on what we might do together.   We come together every year in camaraderie, friendship, brotherhood and sisterhood;  but, as valuable as this is, some insist we should be doing much more than that. Some of us have begun bi- and multilateral exchanges of students among ourselves, and have found this very fruitful.  Ongoing now in Jakarta is  service learning exercise where for 20 days  students from 8 different schools and 8 different cultures are immersing themselves in Indonesia's predominantly Muslim culture.   We are also beginning – despite the labor pains – to lay the groundwork for shared research among ourselves. 

What we actually do together is in all honesty modest. At the same time, coming together, we may not be satisfied with what is modest.  There may be a restlessness within opening ourselves to more, especially as the Pope challenges us “to reach the geographical and spiritual places where others do not reach or find it very difficult to reach,” GC 35 challenges us to where “new frontiers beckon,” and Fr. General challenges us to greater depth, or greater universality, or greater creativity.  So the key question in the matter of what distinguishes us as AJCU-EAO may in fact be – what do we really want to do, not just parallel to each other – each Jesuit higher educational institution or Jesuit intellectual running his own set of atomized apostolic activities – but together in synergy? How do we act together so that we do not just coordinate a status quo, but break into a higher level of shared effectivity where our apostolic output is far greater than the sum of our contributions? 

Of course, what we do is dependent on what we understand ourselves to be. But it is also incontestable that we understand ourselves more deeply in how we act together.   Obedience, as we know, is a great unifier in diversity, and St. Ignatius trusted that the most extreme diversity could be bridged through obedience to God’s will mediated by the command of a superior from above.  However, the obedience it seems that we are called to exercise is an obedience to the mandates of GC 35 from below – that needs deliberation and discernment on where the Spirit is calling our institutions and our intellectuals through understanding from deep within where the Spirit moves what we really want to do together. 

What do we really want to do together?  Because if we don’t want to do it, no matter the inspiring definitions of our identity, it’s not going to get done.  If we don’t want to do it, fixed ways are not going to change, busy people won’t be moved, budgets won’t be approved, email won’t be answered. Are we really willing together to respond with a helping hand to our member schools in need? Are we willing to respond to the needs of sectors of our constituencies like the campus ministers, the religion teachers, the deans, the administrators?  Do we want to expand the bi-lateral and multilateral exchange among ourselves?  Do we want to better collaborate in shared research?  Do we want to pro-actively dovetail our research activities with the research needs of the Conference or of the Universal Society?  How do we realistically reach out together to contribute to the evangelization of our region, to the struggle against ignorance, injustice, environmental degradation and corruption, to the appreciation and transformation of cultures, to the struggle against commercialization, to the dialogue among the great religions of our region. Is there a way of exploiting cyberspace and the powerful potentials of social communications in order to better work together.

I think this is what this meeting is about – “Discerning and Acting on our Shared Jesuit Educational Mission in the Region:  Moving Forward.”  Or:  finding our real identity as AJCUEAO through willed synergy where we each pay a price to make this possible. 

I thank all of you for coming – especially Fr. Locatelli from Rome, Fr. Mark Raper from Quezon City, and Mr. Duncan MacLaren.  I thank the Australian Province under Fr. Steve Curtin and Canisius College for its hospitality in making this possible here in Sydney.  Together, may we have a fruitful meeting!