Father General Arturo Sosa SJ gave a speech at the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU) Assembly at Boston College on 4 August, challenging Jesuit higher education institutions to use an Ignatian perspective to discern the specific contribution they can offer to the world.
“The experience of our universities shows that full and meaningful lives are led by different persons with an amazing variety of personal religious, cultural, and political options… This is one of the signs to which the proposed discernment must pay attention. Humanity is the common substratum of all persons, cultures, religious experiences, beliefs…” said Fr Sosa.
Fr Sosa’s address was presented in six parts:
- To prepare the future requires discerning the present
- Persons with a life full of meaning
- Sowing in thirsty soil
- From the experience of intergenerationality and interculturality
- The university, politics, global citizenship, reconciliation and peace
- With and for others
Fr Sosa addresses the IAJU assembly at Boston College.
“Making the university a space of discernment helps to overcome the tendencies to fragmentation that exist in secular society.” said Fr Sosa.
Fr Sosa speaks from experience, as he is a former founder and rector of a university of the Society of Jesus and is an alumnus of Jesuit universities.
“The characteristic identity of Jesuit university institutions leads to finding meaning also in public life. It demands thinking seriously, in the dynamic of the Ignatian magis, about how to better contribute to the deepening and expansion of democracy”, said Fr Sosa.
You can read Fr Arturo Sosa SJ’s full speech from the IAJU assembly.
Find out more from the General Curia.
Source: Curia Generalizia della Compagnia di Gesù – Roma
Feature photos by Communications Office, Curia, Rome.