• From March 28th to April 9th the Colloquium for English Speaking Major Superiorsappointed during this last year is held at the General Curia. The purpose of the meeting is to provide group reflection, with the participation of Father General, on important issues of the Provincial government, such as the statement of conscience and the personal accompaniment, the communitarian animation, the insertion into the reality of the local Church, the mission to the frontiers and the interprovincial and international collaboration. The colloquium is useful also to illustrate to the new superiors the various offices and services of the General Curia and to have a personal contact with the staff of Father General in the government of the universal Society. The colloquium has always an international character. This time the participants are 12 major superiors from Canada, Hungary, Ireland, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Japan, Micronesia, as well as the new presidents of the European and African Conferences. At the end of the colloquium the Provincials will visit and celebrate the Eucharist in the Rooms of St. Ignatius, as a sign of real commitment to the charism and mission of the Society. This Colloquium in English is the first of those in programme for this year.

• From April 3-7 the meeting of the Socii of the Assistancy of Western Europe (EOC)will take place. Following the format of the meeting of the African Socii, the purpose of this meeting is to familiarize the Socii with the administrative and bureaucratic system of the General Curia and to come to know Jesuit brethren working at the Curia. The meeting is also an opportunity for exchange and friendship. The Secretary of the Society and the Procurator General will help the participants in the study of the various aspects of the work of the Socii, especially with regard to the procedures contained in the various documents, as for instance, the Constitutions, the “Complementary Norms”, the “Legal-Practical Manual of the Society”, Acta Romana, the Practica Quaedam. The last have been renewed after the last General Congregation, and we hope that soon it will be published.

• From April 4-9, the five leaders of the Global Ignatian Advocacy Networks (GIAN) on Ecology, Education, Governance of Natural and Mineral Resources, Migration and Peace and Human Rights meet at the Jesuit Curia in Rome with four experts from Britain, Germany, Singapore and Spain. This workshop marks the beginning of a two-year formation program on advocacy and networking designed by the leaders and run by the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat.

Appointments:

Father General has appointed:

– Father Dermot Preston new Provincial of the British Province. Fr Preston is currently Jesuit Regional Superior in Guyana, South America. He is 53, has worked in Guyana, for the past 5 years. He also has experience in the Province’s other Region, South Africa, where he was Chaplain at Cape Town University and national chaplain to the lay Ignatian organisation, the Christian Life Community. On his return from South Africa, he was Socius (Assistant) to the Provincial for four years. Fr Preston was ordained priest in 1990 and was for a number of years vocations director for the British Province. 

– Father Alberto Teixeira de Brito Provincial of Portugal. 
Fr de Brito was born in 1945. He entered the novitiate in Soutelo in September 1961, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1973. He has got a license in Philosophy at the Catholic University of Portugal and in Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In Portugal, Fr. de Brito lived in Coimbra, Braga and Lisbon, and worked, for many years as Master of Novices. He was Director of the University Center Manuel da Nobrega, in Coimbra, National Secretary of the Apostleship of Prayer and National Assistant of the Community of Christian Life. In 2004 he was called to Rome, as Delegated Assistant of the World Community of Christian Life, where he remained until 2009. Since then, he lived in Brussels, in the European Jesuit community as Director of the Pastoral Foyer Catholique Européen. 

– Father Ante Tustonjic Provincial of the Croatian Province.
Fr. Ante was born 1969 in Vukovar (Croatia). He joined the Society of Jesus 1989. After finishing his novitiate in Split, and philosophy in Zagreb, he did his regency in the Croatian Section of the Vatican Radio in Rome. After theology in Zagreb, he was ordained priest 1999.
His first years of priesthood he spent as assistant parish priest in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where he also worked with the JRS. 
Later he studied biblical theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and business administration at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management. Since 2006 Fr. Ante has been the Treasurer of the Croatian Province. He will assume the office of the Provincial on September 8th this year.

– Father Emmanuel Mumba Provincial of Zambia-Malawi Province. Father Emmanuel, who was up to now parish priest of St. Mary’s Church in Lusaka-Matero, was born in 1968, entered the Society of Jesus in 1990 and was ordained a priest in 2003.

– Father Franck Janin Provincial of Southern Belgium and Luxembourg.

Father Franck, was born in 1958, entered the Society of Jesus in 1984 and was ordained a priest in 1990. He was Master of Novices from 1995 to 2001. Up to now he was director of the Spiritual Centre of Wépion, responsible for the pastoral of vocations and ecclesiastical assistant of the Christian Life Communities.

… Jesuits around the World, Rome, 5 & 19 April 2011