The Center News

On the 10th and 11th April, a spiritual retreat took place at the Casa Santa Marta, (in the Vatican), with the leaders of South Sudan, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the most prominent figures in the South Sudanese conflict. The retreat ended with the presence of Pope Francis, who called for peace, but in such a special way that the whole world took notice: he got down on his knees and kissed the feet of the leaders responsible for the conflict, one by one, and without exception.

In this essay the author proposes ten reasons for involving the world’s religions in the environmental debate. The ten reasons offer important keys for understanding the religious declarations of recent years as valid strategies for personal, institutional, and social transformation. The author seeks to open up the prophetic, ascetical, penitential, apocalyptic, sacramental, soteriological, mystical, wisdom, communitarian, and eschatological dimensions that pervade the spiritual experience of humankind.

Jorge Riechmann calls the 21^st century the “Century of the Great Test,” for he sees it as the century in which the future of the planet and the survival of the human race are at stake.

Carles Marcet, sj. has a degree in Theology, and for a number of years has been Parish Priest of Bellvitge (L’Hospitalet del Llobregat), whilst also giving the Spiritual Exercises to groups of ordinary lay people. He is a team member of the International Spirituality Centre attached to the Cave of Manresa, where he runs an Ignatian Immersion Course and another course, ‘Two Months of The-ological Recycling’. In the series EIDES (in Catalan and Spanish), he has also published Ignacio de Loyola: un itinerario vital [Ignatius of Loyola: A Lifelong Journey] (no. 75, 2015).

When we speak about government finance and taxes, we are confronted with a lot of questions: do we pay too many taxes? are they really put to good use? could we save on them? does it make sense for me to pay taxes when there is so much government corruption? For a long time the question of tax policy has been left out of political and social debate. Only in recent years, with the impact of economic crisis and globalization, are we again focusing on this question that is crucial for maintaining our welfare states.

In the face of the hells created by violence, oppression, and repression, the victims of injustice seem to have no other alternative than fight (action-reaction) or flight (silent submission). This booklet explores the “third way” of Jesus, which goes far beyond those two options. This “third way” is the path of active non-violence, a path that requires great lucidity, creativity, faith, and constancy. It comes out of a long biblical tradition, and it acquires special meaning in the context of our present-day society.

The policies of the so-called New Right and its questioning of the most basic human rights, especially as regards migrants and refugees, undermine the deepest foundations of the Old Europe. The present text seeks to investigate the causes and conditions that lie behind this specter that is haunting the continent, and it warns of the attempts by movements of the extreme right to use Christianity and religious confrontation in order to justify their ideology.

Given that the worldwide movement of migrants and refugees is a “sign of the times,” the situations that give rise to this reality cannot remain on the margins of theological reflection. Responding to this need is the theology of migrations, a new discipline grounded in biblical tradition and the magisterium. The author of the present booklet examines this pressing concern in depth, highlighting the five most important issues for our day and age: identity, dignity, justice, hospitality, and integration.

Francesc Riera sj was director of Cristianisme i Justícia almost from its beginning and served for 25 years before becoming director of the Cave of Saint Ignatius in Manresa. He is presently coordinating the EIDES project, a collection of booklets on Ignatian spirituality. In an effort to help with evangelization in poor neighborhoods, he has prepared five pedagogically oriented commentaries on the synoptic gospels (published in Catalan and Spanish). He has published several works on the Exercises in Ordinary Life.

We cannot understand modern-day Europe without understanding the role played by Luther in the Reformation of the 16th century. That event went far beyond the religious realm and revealed the existence of two cultures, two models of social relations, two manners of understanding political power, and even two economic systems. Many of the topics debated during the Reformation and the early Renaissance period are still being debated in our contemporary European society, which is as perplexed and perplexing today as it was in those days.

Change and social transformation, addressed form a polyhedral point of view, are the central issues of this booklet. 

In a time where it seems the course of history is accelerating, we reflect on the present time drawing from some of the most relevant political events in the last years; we make an approach to the notions of change and transformation and, finally, we take a closer look to some of the areas from which we can work for social change and transformation, attempting to start from a hopeful gaze over reality although this is not always easy. 

From Barcelona, with deep sadness, we join the pain of the victims and their familiars of the attack perpetrated yesterday, 17th August 2017. Our city, plural and diverse, always welcoming and peace defending, has been a victim of this terrorist barbarism that affects our 21st century.

St Ignatius dictated his autobiographical reminiscences to Fr Gonçalves da Câmara shortly before his death. This booklet aims to help us re-examine our own biographies in the light of Ignatius’s, not something purely anecdotal or chronological but one attending to force lines that are at work within. We may grow through the discovery that God has led our own lives too, ‘dealing with us in the same way as a schoolmaster deals with a child, teaching him’ [Au 27].

Throughout history, God acts and shows himself in many ways, and especially in his martyred male and female friends. Even at the cost of their lives such women undeniably witness to the identification and rejection of political systems that turn their backs on the most basic huuman rights. This booklet seeks to further their recognition and help us understand why such apparently fragilebeings should have come to threaten those who are powerful in worldly terms.

We take leave of the year 2016 with a long list of unresolved problems, to which new ruptures keep getting added. The pain keeps increasing, and the deaths of so many “saints Innocents” threaten to eclipse whatever hopes are engendered by the “birth” of many initiatives of solidarity. Those of us at Cristianisme i Justícia want to make a plea for dialogue and debate so as to keep from advancing toward the precipice. For, despite all the evidence, our faith in humanity and in what is most sacred therein encourages us to believe that we can help to turn the tide.

Eschatology is concerned with the 'beyond'. Politics, on the other hand, deals with this world, in its public dimension. Politics and eschatology are intimately linked : the former, because without the ultimate goal of a common good present dispensations degenerate into mere bureaucracy ; the latter, since invoking a Heaven that demands no historical transformation 'on Earth' is mere escapism and phoney spirituality.

The feminization of poverty has been long invisible, since analyses of poverty and social exclusion have not taken gender into account. The difficulty of access to education, to land and to credit together with greater in security and vulnerability in the labour market have contributed to female impoverishment, with the result that 'poverty has a woman's face'. This state of affairs needs to become more visible with gender understood as a risk factor when it comes to undergoing poverty.

In the thirty-fifth year of its existence, Cristianisme i Justícia now issues its 200th booklet. We have always sought to kindle hope and feed a widely-shared desire for a world that is more just and more fraternal. In keeping with that desire and alert to the world around us, the present publication aims to provide a clear account of the teamwork in which our Centre is engaged, and a reliable guide to the challenges on which Cristianisme i Justícia reflects now and in the future.

The Holy Spirit might seem at first sight absent from the Exercises, but such is not in fact the case. The author of our booklet re-reads the experience of the Exercises, uncovering the Spirit's silent presence there. What might initially have seemed a cerebral, tough, ascetic text is shown to be a source of mystical prayer of profoundly contemporary relevance.

You can download it by clicking here.

Spain is a leading arms exporter, and despiteregulation in theory, there is no absolute ban on exports to countries where there are grave violations of human rights. These are even authorised 'for humanitarian purposes'. Government's actions are characterised by secrecy and the active encouragement of arms exports, using theseas an instrument of foreign policy.Entering this link you will have the possibility to download this paper.If you have the possibility you can also help us with a contribution.

The Ignatian charism has clearly a valuable contribution to make to Christian life in our worldtoday.

Islam, the religion of the crescent moon, is expanding numerically and is present everywhere in the mass media. Presently it is in a state of turmoil, engaged in a profound internal debate about its relation to tradition. A great number of political, social, and economic components mix together in a true ideological civil war.

On Thursday, January 14, there took place in Brussels a meeting of several centers of social thought and action of the Society of Jesus in Europe. The purpose of the meeting, convoked by José Ignacio García, was to reinforce the bridges that have been created among these centers and to establish new common projects.

Drawing on various biblical, theological, and ecclesiological arguments, four theologians agree on the need to apply the principle of mercy in the case of divorced persons who have remarried. Without slighting the value of the indissolubility of marriage, they grant greater centrality to acceptance and communion.Entering this link you will have the possibility to download this and all other booklets we publish.If you wish to receive them in paper remember you can sign up. If you have the possibility you can also help us with a contribution.

In a world that is hostile towards life and humanity, that hardens hearts and pulls us apart, we take as our starting-point, and as the lens through which to view the world and its people, a revolution favouring affection and tender-heartedness. As 2015 draws to a close, we want to spotlight five areas that we believe to be in particular need of acceptance or transformation.Entering this link you will have the possibility to download this paper.If you have the possibility you can also help us with a contribution.

Often we come to the Exercises thinking about ourselves, perhaps even a bit anguished at what we believe might turn into a new inspection of our interior lives. If this is the case with you, then you will certainly be relieved to know that the focus of the points for prayer that you will find here is not on ourselves but on Jesus, and more concretely it is on the Jesus presented to us in the Gospel of Luke.Entering this link you will have the possibility to download this and all other booklets we publish.If you wish to receive them in paper remember you can sign up.

On Monday, October 5, the Archbishop of Tangiers, Santiago Agrelo, took part in the inauguration of the academic year of the Cristianisme i Justícia study center in Barcelona, where he delivered a discourse titled, “Borders Against the Poor, Borders Against Christ.” Born in Galicia in 1942, Santiago Agrelo was a Franciscan missionary before being named archbishop of Tangiers in 2007, and since then he has become well known for his defense of the rights of migrants and for his condemnation of migratory policies that do not respect the rights of persons.

Recalling Saint Thomas’s "five ways" for approaching the reality of God, the author of this booklet proposes five other ways (science, philosophy, ethics, esthetics, and mysticism). While accepting that "in God we can only believe,” he does not concede that faith is irrational and unfounded. The booklet is dedicated “To all those who are searching, perhaps with great eagerness, and don’t seem to find anything.

59.5 million. This is the number of people who found themselves displaced from their country of origin in 2014 because of persecution, conflicts, widespread violence and human rights violations.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a free trade treaty which is being negotiated between the United States of America and the European Union since 2013. If you haven't heard about it yet, it is because the chief negotiators of the two regions have kept it a secret during the different stages of discussions.