Violence and War:
Cultural and Economic Interests

September 4 - 17, 2005
Santa Severa, Italy

HOME -- PARTICIPANTS -- METHODOLOGY -- DOCUMENTS -- REFLECTIONS -- PICTURES

 

Welcome to this web site on the Violence and War.
 
We present this site to share the process and findings we have made during our two week of workshop held in September 2005 at Santa Severa, near Rome. 
The workshop, sponsored by the Social Justice Secretariat of the General Curia of the Society of Jesus (www.sjweb.info/sjs), has involved participants (Jesuits and lay people) from around the world that attended, prayed, discussed, disagreed, agreed and grew together in addressing these matters of concern from the perspective of the entire family of the Society of Jesus.

Please feel free to investigate this site and what we have done during these two weeks.  This time represents a phase in a longer ongoing process and is in no way definitive.  If you have   comments feel free to write to the Jesuit Secretariat (sjs@sjcuria.com).  If there are technical problems with the website our webmaster is Ray Bucko, S.J. (bucko@creighton.edu).

So you may better understand what we were about these two weeks we present a short overview of the rationale, structure, and methodology of the Advanced Workshop

1.    Rationale
The entire world has witnessed during the last years new forms of violence and conflict that have engulfed many developing countries in a spiral of conflict and war, and have generated an unprecedented preoccupation with issues of national and international security vis-à-vis the widespread phenomenon of terrorism. From a global point of view, this complex phenomenon has had a considerable impact on the goal of achieving sustainable levels of development and peace, on a fair and credible system of local and global governance, and on the respect for human dignity.

This reflection arise from a more general reflection on the situation and the challenges faced by the Social Apostolate started in 2003 at Rome from a group of 11 Assistancy Coordinators for the Social Apostolate representing Jesuits from all over the world. During the second meeting in 2004, the group of Assistancy Coordinators approved the idea of a having a Workshop on the theme of Violence and War: Cultural and Economic Interests.

2.   Objectives of the workshop
It seems that a process of reflection-formation engaging a sufficiently large number of young Jesuits and lay partners may be an efficient way of responding to the issues and challenges outlined above. This process may generate a group of Jesuits and lay persons, a sort of “think-live-tank” capable of providing, on certain occasions, an integrated, flexible, and Ignatian response to some of the most crucial social issues of our times. By ‘integrated’ we refer to the possibility of operating and inter-acting through a horizontal networking system. By ‘flexible’ we mean the capacity to deal with various issues in an inter-disciplinary manner. By an Ignatian response we refer to the concern for an engagement with social issues that is specific to our Ignatian tradition and carries forward an ethical and theological perspective.

The main objectives of this workshop are:

  1. Analyse the world-wide reality of conflict, war and violence, its cultural and economic roots, and the various approaches that have been put in practice to resolve and/or transform them.
  2. Prepare a Jesuit response, however limited and preliminary, to these issues grounded in an ethical, theological and Ignatian perspective.
  3. Reflect on and draw the relevant conclusions from the process engaged by the group during the Workshop so that we may discover the methodological tools that bring creativity, freshness and Ignatian specificity to our way of proceeding in the Social Apostolate.

The Jesuit response will be concretised in a document to be prepared jointly and to be submitted to Fr. General containing four distinct elements:

    1. Causes and consequences of the present forms of war and violence. What is new in them?
    2. Causes and consequences of the new movements for peace. What is new in them?
    3. A theological, ethical, and Ignatian reflection on conflict and peace. What is our specific Jesuit response?
    4. Recommendations in the context of our Faith and Justice dimension. What new Jesuit structures are required to respond to this issue?

3.   Methodology
The whole advanced-workshop aims to be a communitarian discernment process, following the pedagogy of the Spiritual Exercises, in a continuous dialogue between a cognitive and an experiential approach, in which trough a constant discernment of our internal movements of the spirit, personal and as a group, we will try to get closer to God´s plan for this world ridden with conflict and violence, and blessed with many efforts for peace. This process will use the following approaches:

  1. Cognitive: to be facilitated by the presence of experts, and by the reading, experiences, reflection, and the combination of critical and creative thinking of all.
  2. Experiential: to be achieved by sharing of personal experiences and other exercises aimed at touching our heart.
  3. Prayerful: allowing times for personal and communitarian prayer and for celebration of life.
  4. Dialogical: frequent work in small groups and in plenary-sessions aimed at fostering listening and understanding of one another

4.   Process of the workshop
The Workshop has been divided in the following interrelated stages.

  1. A pre-Workshop preparation in which proper reading materials will be sent to all the participants, and each participants will be asked to write a short presentation to be circulated.
  2. The Workshop itself has been divided in four moments or phases: 
    1. Phase 1: Introduction will help us to get acquainted and to have an overview of the issues of violence, war and peace.
    2. Phase 2: Analysis and reflection on the Case Studies (Tchad, Colombia and India). Three complementary approaches will be used in the analysis and reflection of each case: the cognitive perspective, the experiencial approach and the personal prayer and group sharing. The group reflections will be collected after each case study and they will become the basis for the final document.
    3. Phase 3: Preparation of the final document.
    4. Phase 4: Evaluation of the process: discern “the methodological tools that bring creativity, freshness and Ignatian specificity to our way of proceeding in the Social Apostolate”.

Grateful to those has participated, collaborated and supported this workshop I hope that could represent a step towards new ways of building common answers to the challenges of the times we are leaving as a common body of the Society of Jesus.

 

Fernandez Fernando Franco SJ
Social Justice Secretary