Preparing ourselves to spread the spirit of St. Ignatius during the upcoming Ignatian Year, supporting Father General in his desire to build a culture of vocation promotion, learning about new media-sharing tools that can be used by all Jesuit institutions worldwide, and supporting efforts to keep the Universal Apostolic Preferences at the forefront of our concerns by using various forms of media but especially video... That is an ambitious agenda. It is the one that the Society’s communications team set for itself during the week of 26-30 April.

During this week, the entire General Curia communications team, including members working remotely from Krakow and Barcelona, met - virtually - with the communications officers of the six Jesuit Conferences based respectively in Manila (JCAP - Jesuit Conference of Asia-Pacific), New Delhi (JCSA - Jesuit Conference of South Asia), Nairobi (JCAM - Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar), Brussels (JCEP - Jesuit Conference of European Provincials), Washington (JCCU - Jesuit Conference of Canada and the USA) and Lima (CPAL - Jesuit Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean).

This is the second time that the coronavirus pandemic has prevented Conference delegates from attending a session in Rome, where they would usually have the opportunity to meet with various members of the Curia. These “in person” meetings, as they are now called, had the advantage of nurturing connections between, for example, Father General’s Assistants, the heads of the Society’s Secretariats and other officers. All this contributed to their understanding of the context of the universal Society which they have the responsibility to reflect in their respective regions.

Although the pandemic does not allow for this type of meeting, there are still positive elements to the virtual meetings. In our case, it allows more than one person per Conference to participate, thus broadening the base of the network of communications officers. The meetings are also more concentrated in time, which forces discipline and a sense of conciseness in dealing with topics as broad as those mentioned above.

Crucially, this time a great deal of the discussion is on the Ignatian Year, even during the sessions that don’t explicitly deal with this theme. We are now three weeks away from the official opening of this year of spiritual renewal, marked by the themes of conversion and the desire to have the same experience of Ignatius of Loyola, of “seeing all things new in Christ”. Initiatives are springing up everywhere and the communications teams, both in the Curia and in the Conferences, must share all these inventive projects that will allow the vast Ignatian family to benefit from this anniversary... this is quite special. Indeed, what organisations take a whole year or more to recall the moment of an apparent failure? Ignatius was wounded by a cannonball 500 years ago, but it was the beginning of a great and beautiful adventure... that deserves to be known, communicated, even spread around the world.