VATICAN CITY (UCAN) — The Vatican has announced that all papal texts will be available in Chinese on the Holy See website from March 19.

The Pope’s letter to Chinese Catholics in 2007 was available on the Vatican website in traditional and simplified Chinese

From that date, Internet users worldwide will be able to access all of Pope Benedict XVI’s texts in both traditional and simplified Chinese.

The Vatican announced this development on March 16, on the eve of the Pope’s first visit to Africa from March 17-23, his 11th foreign trip.

Significantly, the Vatican made the announcement not only in Italian and English but also in Chinese.

“The official website of the Holy See will be enhanced by the addition of a new section in Chinese,” the Vatican stated in a press communique. It said the service will begin on the feast of Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church.

Chinese is the eighth language and the first non-European one to be used by the Holy See to make papal texts and other major Vatican documents available online. The other seven languages are English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese and Spanish.

Chinese Church leaders, at a Vatican meeting earlier, had expressed the wish that Vatican documents be published in Chinese in addition to the other European languages.

In a first this year, the Pope’s Lenten message was published in Chinese in February. Sources told UCA News in Rome that the Pope’s forthcoming social encyclical, which will deal with the present economic crisis and other social issues, will also be published in Chinese.

Thanks to this new service, Chinese Catholics and other Chinese internet users will be able to access all these texts, provided they are not prevented from doing so by authorities blocking the sites.

This new Church development could mean that the Vatican Channel on YouTube could also become accessible in Chinese.

Since 1998, the Holy See has been present on the Internet in Chinese through the Fides International Agency (www.fides.org), the news service of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The Holy See has also presented its information in Chinese on the Vatican Radio site (www.radiovaticana.org) since 1990, though these have not always been accessible to Catholics and others in mainland China due to official blocking of access.

China broke off diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1951, but in recent years the two sides have recommenced a dialogue and relations have begun to improve. The two sides now engage in dialogue, aimed at understanding and overcoming problems mostly relating to the situation of the Catholic Church on the mainland. The Holy See hopes this dialogue can help both sides find mutually acceptable solutions and open the path to diplomatic relations.

The establishment of a Chinese section on the Holy See’s website is yet another sign of the importance the Holy See attaches to developing its relations with China, and to improving its communication with the estimated 15 million Catholics on the mainland and with Chinese Catholics as a whole.

By Hu Yi-fen
Translated by Wu Hsiao-ting
Photographs by Kuo I-teh

Reprinted with permission of By Rhythms Monthly Issued in summer 2001

Fr. Stephen Jaschko is originally from Hungary, but he has put down roots in Taiwan and devoted his life to the Chinese people and to taking care of a group of mentally handicapped children. Never waiting until there was enough money to do things, he started a center for the mentally handicapped with only US$100. His greatest wish in life is to establish a permanent home for them.

A winter wind rose, and the night was wet with dew. In the small Hakka town of Kuanhsi, in northern Taiwan, stood a church which seemed to have long sunk into oblivion. The signboard, inscribed with “Kuanhsi Catholic Church” and “Catholic Hua Kuang Center,” looked even more desolate in the relentless chilly wind.

In a cramped but clean little room by the church, Fr. Stephen Jaschko, sj, who just entered the ninth decade of his life last year, diligently punched the keys of a forty-year-old typewriter. Even though he has retired, he still leads a busy life with his heart set on improving the welfare of the retarded children in the Catholic Hua Kuang Center.

A birthday wish

Fr. Jaschko was born on August 18, 1911, in Kosice, an industrial city then in Hungary but now in the Slovak Republic. He was greatly influenced by his mother. “My mother was a very nice person. She was always so happy. She often led me in prayer and told me how God loves us.” Like an innocent child, Fr. Jaschko said that the most precious things he learned from his mother were how to love and be grateful.

He has dedicated sixty-four years of his life to the Chinese people–twenty years in mainland China, and over forty years in Taiwan taking care of a group of “old children” who are unlikely to grow up (two thirds of the two hundred Hua Kuang residents are adults).

At the insistence of the Hua Kuang residents, Fr. Jaschko celebrated his ninetieth birthday. But in order to save the birthday cake for the children, he did not take so much as a tiny bite of it. He made only one wish–to build as soon as possible a home with medical, educational, vocational and functional purposes for the Hua Kuang children so that they can lead a dignified life like other normal, healthy people.

“Building the Hua Kuang Welfare Establishment is my dream. I hope the kids here can lead a dignified life.” In order to spread the message, the Sagem Group financed a commercial for Fr. Jaschko to call for help from the public. The commercial was dubbed by the famous Taiwanese writer, Hsiao Yeh. “A ninety-year-old foreigner came to Taiwan to take care of other people’s children. If a foreigner can do that for our own children, how can we not do something for them?”

At a fund-raising press conference for the Hua Kuang Welfare Establishment, Fr. Jaschko said, “I am often touched by the abundant love of the Taiwanese people. The children at Hua Kuang do not have other abilities, but they do have the power to attract the love of the people on the island.”

Eight years ago, a series of tragedies occurred in which retarded parents, fearing that after they died there would be no one to take care of their retarded children, killed their children and then committed suicide. Shaken by these tragedies, Fr. Jaschko resolved to build a home where mentally disabled children could be nurtured and brought up in good health.

After several years of efforts, he finally managed to procure 14.6 acres of land in Hsinpu Township, Hsinchu County. He paid more than NT$20 million [about US$650,000] for it by means of a loan and with help from other people. It took another NT$330 million to level the land and build the Hua Kuang Welfare Establishment. Fr. Jaschko and the staff of the Catholic Hua Kuang Center have to raise at least NT$230 million before they can apply for a subsidy from the government. So far they have raised nearly half the amount, but there is still NT$150 million to go.

Reform through labor

In 1936, Fr. Jaschko was sent by the Jesuit missionary society to mainland China to preach the Gospel. Before he left, his family held a farewell party for him. The close-knit family was unwilling to let him go to such a faraway place. Ever since he was a little boy, he had not spent much time at home. His family saw even less of him after he turned sixteen and decided to join the Jesuits. None of them knew when they would see him again after he went to China. Therefore, the farewell party was filled with profound sorrow.

Fr. Jaschko settled down in Anhui Province, eastern China, to learn Chinese. His teacher gave him the Chinese name “Yeh Yu-ken” based on the pronunciation of his Hungarian name, Jaschko. The Chinese name, meaning “putting down roots,” augured his future–he would remain on Chinese soil for the rest of his life.

During the nearly twenty years he spent in mainland China, the missionary witnessed an era in which the country was torn by war and strife. He himself was deeply involved and affected by it.

War broke out between China and Japan and sickness and poverty plagued the Chinese people, but there was not a single hospital for those who were ill or injured. Hoping to relieve the pain and suffering of these people, Fr. Jaschko, who had studied both theology and medicine, set out to establish a hospital in Hebei. With one hundred beds, his hospital was the first of such a large scale in Hebei Province.

During the twenty years the hospital was in operation, Fr. Jaschko saved countless people who would otherwise have been killed in the war. “Near Daming, Hebei Province, we managed to save lives among the Japanese army, the Chinese Communist army, the Chinese Nationalist army, and local bandits.” But to his complete astonishment, after mainland China fell into the hands of the Communists, the vice superintendent of the hospital rose up to “struggle” against him. He reported to the authorities that Fr. Jaschko had beaten a boy for climbing a church wall and entering the vegetable garden of the church. Fr. Jaschko was consequently imprisoned.

He said with a smile that the accusation was completely unconvincing. Everyone who knew him knew that this priest never beat children. He really couldn’t figure out why the vice superintendent did this to him. Later he discovered that he had done so in order to save his father’s life–the Communists had seized his father in order to force him to say things against Fr. Jaschko. As soon as he found out about this, he immediately felt relieved.

“At that time, what the Chinese people did really touched me,” Fr. Jaschko said. “As we all know, it is unavoidable that people die in hospitals. But when the Chinese Communist government asked families of patients who had died in the hospital to testify against me, nobody came forward. I was greatly touched.”

In 1953, the Communist party sent Fr. Jaschko to a reform-through-labor farm in the countryside of Changyuan County. During the three years that he was there, he did nothing but feed cows and weave ropes. But he said that he did not feel lonely or depressed at all at that time, because God was in his heart.

In October last year, Fr. Jaschko returned to mainland China to see the men who had once served as his acolytes. At their tearful reunion, they hugged each other and cried in each other’s arms. “When I saw them cry, tears filled my eyes too.”

Together, they reminisced about the past–Father’s vegetable garden, the Changyuan hospital during wartime, and how they couldn’t bring themselves to yell “Bring down Yeh Yu-ken” when Fr. Jaschko was arrested. The men who used to be so young had all grown old. The priest and his acolytes had missed each other terribly during the forty years they had been separated. Now they were finally comforted at the sight of each other.

A center for the mentally challenged

When Fr. Jaschko was released from the labor farm in 1955, he was deported to Hong Kong. From there he came to Taiwan and settled down in the coastal area of Chiayi, south-central Taiwan.

Most people who lived in the coastal villages of Tungshih and Putai bred and sold oysters for a living, and life was not easy for them. Feeling that these poor fishermen were in urgent need of a small medical center to take care of their health, Fr. Jaschko raised money from overseas and built a two-story reinforced-concrete hospital in one of the villages. He then took up his lodgings in a small bamboo hut halfway up a mountain.

During rainy days, he had to fasten an umbrella to the back of a chair so that he could continue typing letters on his old typewriter to ask for financial aid. As time went by, Taiwan’s economy gradually took off and the local medical environment also improved. When fewer and fewer people came to the charity hospital for medical care, Fr. Jaschko closed it down and went to serve as pastor of a Catholic parish in Hsinchu.

There he decided to devote his life to the education and cultivation of mentally disabled children. “There was a street urchin whose parents refused to claim him and take him home. I have him to thank for my decision.” Fr. Jaschko brought the retarded child back to his place, and made up his mind to start an educational institution for children like him.

Although he had neither money nor people to help him, he did not balk at the task. He never waited until there was enough money to start doing things. An American patron donated US$100 to start his charity work, and with this money Fr. Jaschko set up the Jenai Center for Mentally Challenged Children.

During the initial phase of the center, more than ten retarded children were taken in. Because Fr. Jaschko could not find qualified teachers to educate them, he did everything himself, including feeding them. Once he started feeding these children, his hands would never stop.

The Jenai Center is now under the supervision of another Catholic priest. Fr. Jaschko has shifted all his attention to the development of the Catholic Hua Kuang Center. The number of teachers working at the center has grown from under ten to more than seventy. Every teacher is responsible for taking care of three or four children.

Fr. Jaschko worked very hard to obtain benefits for mentally deficient persons. At a time when Taiwan was still under martial law and the democratic movement was still considered taboo, he led five hundred retarded children and their parents to the Legislative Yuan to petition for their basic rights. They hoped that the government would provide more assistance for families with retarded children and pay more attention to these children’s rights to receive a better education and live a better life.

Fr. Jaschko’s petition received a warm response from the government. From that time on, educational centers for the mentally deficient sprang up one after the other all over the island. Parents no longer needed to keep their retarded children, who used to sit in despair at home waiting for a hopeless tomorrow, within the bounds of their households. Considering the grim political atmosphere on the island before martial law was lifted, what Fr. Jaschko did–going into the streets to protest for the rights due to the mentally deficient–made him a “radical” priest.

Over the past eighteen years, the Catholic Hua Kuang Center has brought up hundreds of retarded children and others with multiple handicaps. In addition to providing the children with daily care, the center also teaches them to take care of themselves and gives them job training. With their education, some of the students are able to go out and earn a living by themselves and even make plans for the future.

Standing on their own feet

After more than ten years of strenuous effort, the Hua Kuang Center can finally offer a more adequate and refined education to its students and enable them more or less to stand on their own feet. The excellent performance of these children has made Fr. Jaschko really proud of them.

The teachers at Hua Kuang like to tell a story. “One day a hunter was walking on the road when he saw a sparrow lying on its back with its feet pointing towards the sky. Curious, the hunter approached the sparrow and asked why it kept its feet that way. The sparrow answered, ‘Someone told me that the sky was going to fall down. I’m learning to hold up the sky with my feet.'” The children at Hua Kuang are like the little sparrow–they want to contribute their little efforts to society. Even though their contributions might be insignificant, they should still be given the chance.

At present, about forty or fifty Hua Kuang residents work at jobs in Taipei and Hsinchu. A team of nine residents led by a teacher pack toys at a toy factory in Hsinchu. Teacher Li Jui-yun, who assists the team members with their work, remarked, “It’s not hard to cultivate their working abilities, but when it comes to interpersonal communications problems often arise.”

Li mentioned a Hua Kuang resident who worked at a rice-flour noodle factory. He envied people who were able to give their own business cards to others. One day he took his boss’s card to a printing company and asked to have his own cards printed, replacing the boss’s name with his own. After the cards were printed, he distributed them to everyone he met. The teachers at Hua Kuang had to put their heads together and think up a title for him to put on his cards. Finally they came up with one–President of the Hua Kuang Alumni Association.

For those residents who are less independent, the center often arranges for them to work as a team. When we visited the residents working at the toy factory, they seemed excited at our coming and began to work even harder. “Why are you suddenly so hard-working? You weren’t like this just a minute ago,” Li teased them.

The factory foreman voiced his opinion of this group of workers. “When I first met them, I found them different from the mentally challenged children we usually see on TV. When I got to know them better, I realized that as long as they’re properly trained, they can become very good workers.” But since most of the factories that employ retarded persons are categorized as sunset industries, they are in danger of losing their jobs when these factories close down or are relocated abroad.

Because many Hua Kuang residents have to work during the day, Fr. Jaschko can only see them two nights a week when he teaches catechism classes at the church. One evening at seven o’clock, he found that some of the children were just having their dinner because they had had to work overtime at the factory. He felt so sorry for them that he even went to the factory to find out about their working conditions there.

The staff at the Hua Kuang Center revealed that Fr. Jaschko is very strict with them. No matter how busy they are, whenever he sees children who are not clean or tidy, he starts to sulk. “After coming so far on the road, we should realize that the most important thing is the quality of our education, not the number of teachers we have.” Thanks to his insistence, the education offered at Hua Kuang is of the best quality in Taiwan. This helps put the anxious minds of parents at ease.

Fr. Jaschko usually gets up at four in the morning. He makes a point of not having breakfast because he wants to experience what it is like to suffer so that he can sympathize better with other people’s pain. “As for my body, I have already signed a donation contract with a hospital.” He plans to donate his body to the National Taiwan University Hospital. In this way he may be able to save even more people.

The old veteran and his retarded wife

Ever since it was established, the Catholic Hua Kuang Center has been growing with each passing day as more and more people are taken in. Currently there are two hundred and two residents. With a floor space of 64,800 square feet, the center was obviously far from big enough to accommodate all these residents. There was an urgent need to expand.

Because Fr. Jaschko cannot bear to see Hua Kuang students end up with no place to go after they grow up, he allows them to stay on at the center. As a result about two-thirds of the residents are over twenty years old. It is not uncommon to see whole families living there. Once the center even took in a family of six. The place is full of sad stories.

Mrs. Wang, more than fifty years old, is one of the older residents at Hua Kuang. If you ask her how old she is, she answers with a vacant smile, “I don’t know.” The answer saddens her husband, who is many years her senior, and makes him look even older.

Mr. Wang is a veteran of the Nationalist army that came to Taiwan in 1949. When he was younger, he worked for the government forestry department in the mountains of the island. Life was easy and carefree. But his life took a sudden turn when he was found to be afflicted with mountain sickness. According to the regulations at that time, married personnel were to be sent out of the mountains first. Anxious to leave, Wang looked hard for someone who would marry him.

A matchmaker introduced a young retarded girl to him. Of low social status and no longer young, Wang knew that he couldn’t afford to be too critical or picky. He quickly married the girl, and the two of them moved down to the plains and began to live a peaceful and uneventful life.

Not long afterwards, their son and daughter were brought into the world. Unfortunately, they were both retarded like their mother. Shouldering this heavy burden, Wang worked in a road crew for the highway bureau by day and as a janitor at a university by night. Yet even more misery was in store–a gravel truck killed his beloved son while he was riding his bicycle.

Hua Kuang director Wu Fu-mei said that every time Wang talked about his life, tears always streamed down his wrinkled face. “What awful things have I done that I should have to work like a beast for them all my life?” he would say. Old and feeble, he decided to settle his wife and daughter at Hua Kuang so that they won’t be left helpless when he leaves this world.

Unable to see his mother again

When Fr. Jaschko was little, his father made a living by selling typewriters and books. They were originally quite well off, but when World War I broke out, his father’s business slumped badly and their life became very hard. For a period of time, his mother had to help support the family by begging from the army. “Although life was hard at that time, my mother was as tender and loving as ever. She really was a great woman.” When he talked of his mother, his eyes showed profound gratitude.

Fr. Jaschko believes that after one dies, God delivers a fair judgment on one’s life. “What did you do in your life?” God will ask him. “I don’t know, just look at my conscience,” he will answer. He does not in the least fear the coming of death. He believes that he will see his mother again in Heaven. He was once so laden with responsibilities that he missed the chance to see his mother one last time.

Fr. Jaschko’s only wish is to establish a permanent home–the Hua Kuang Welfare Establishment–for the children at the Catholic Hua Kuang Center. Only after he has fulfilled this wish can his mind rest at ease. The eyes of the ninety-year-old priest look so bright and magnanimous. He makes those who are near him feel warm and peaceful.

Fr Roger Champoux (PHI), Tertian Director, wrote on February 25, “The Common Tertianship is moving very fast toward its end on March 7. The Tertians just came back from their last experiment. They were scattered all over, from Thailand, where Toto Yulianto (IDO) went for an immersion into the activities of the Jesuit Refugees Service, to the mountains of Bukidnon where Vids Gornez (PHI) went for pastoral ministry and Ehi Omoragbon (ANW-Nigeria) for exposure to environmental work.

Some others went hopping from place to place: Jerry Gomes (CCU-Bangladesh) visited some of our schools in Manila, Cebu and Cagayan to learn more about Ignatian Pedagogical Principles, Sali Augustine (KER) went to Zamboanga, Davao and Cagayan to meet people involved in interreligious dialogue and peace initiatives, and John Wu Po-en (CHN) visited various spirituality centers in Manila and Cebu. The others were more stationary, but no less active: Luat Hoang (CFN) was in Cagayan for campus ministry, Panus Winarto (IDO) spent his three weeks in Iloilo for parish and hospital ministry, Chris Dumadag (PHI) went to jail (but eventually was released from it) for pastoral ministry, and Paul Yang (KOR) started already in his future ministry as Socius for the Chinese Novitiate in Novaliches, near Manila. Some came back sick but they were all happy with their encounters and discoveries. One of them was delighted and comforted in seeing that all Jesuit communities have problems and conflicts and yet still manage to cooperate for the Kingdom!

The last days will be spent on an evaluation of their Tertianship experience and on a Triduum of recollection and prayer. Most of them will already be leaving Loyola House and Manila on Saturday March 7, ready to assume their new “missions”. Meanwhile, Bill McGarry (NYK) and myself are finalizing the list of the ten tertians who will be coming next September. It will be again an international group and we hope to have all their names for the next issue of EAO News.”

Vol. XIII, N. 5, March 6, 2009

LETTER TO THE WHOLE SOCIETY

• On February 19 Father General wrote a letter to the whole Society on “Universal Vocation of the Jesuit”. The letter was released at the end of February to allow translations in different languages. In the letter Father Nicolás speaks, first of all, about the “renewed awareness of our universal vocation” as a “fundamental element of our Jesuit identity”, making a reference to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the Constitutions and the strong call of the 35th General Congregation (D.2, n. 16, 20-24). This vocation also involves the need to restructure the Society at all levels with the view to “better respond to new and more universal challenges”, a response which requires “great agility and flexibility while maintaining or promoting excellence and responsible management in whatever we do locally.” The last part of the letter is devoted to reflections on formation and the importance to foster in our young men in formation “this awareness of our universal mission”, the availability “to be sent anywhere in the world;” all this is to be “a permanent attitude for all our men in the Society”. Father General adds: “We want to have well formed men who can understand reality with depth of heart and breadth of mind.”

FATHER GENERAL IN INDIA

• As mentioned in the previous edition of the S.J. Electronic Information Service, Father Nicolás is presently visiting several the Indian Provinces. Thanks to e-mails sent by Father Lisbert D’Souza, who is accompanying Father General, we can offer our readers some interesting, and sometimes curious stories of this long trip. The first stop was Delhi. The visit at Vidyajyoti College of Theology was most interesting, especially meeting with the staff and students. He addressed them briefly on “the challenge of the mission at the frontiers and of theological research” and invited them to speak three languages: the language of the scholar, the language of the simple communication that can be understood by the faithful, and the language which will help those who are far from the Asian context to understand this reality.

The next stop was Patna Province. Among other things Father General made two visits to projects for dalits, the lower caste of people traditionally regarded as “untouchables.” One of these projects, “the Province Solar Energy Park” for solar energy production, is of special interest and the 2007 Yearbook carried an article on it. The dalits are trained to manufacture and maintain such solar equipment. Then followed a visit to a leadership training programme for dalit boys and girls who staged a very powerful street play built around the Abba song: “I have a dream, a fantasy” in which they expressed their hopes for and commitment to struggle for dignity and justice. Fr General was quite moved and expressed it in the words he used to address the group.

Several days have been devoted exclusively to Jesuits. On February 23 in Patna, the meeting was with superiors, directors of works and coordinators of different apostolates. Father General answered questions and seemed glad that the issue of the accountability of superiors for implementation of directives of the General Congregation was of interest to the audience. He suggested that this may be a point to address in the programme for new Provincials. Since both local superiors and directors of work were present, he spoke of how the tension between these often arose as each wanted to be boss, and the need to change this attitude particularly if lay collaboration was to succeed. In a word: nobody is boss as we all serve the same mission with each having his distinctive role. He also invited those present to learn to live joyfully and dynamically even though we are far from being able to solve the massive problems that confront us. If we do not care for ourselves adequately in terms of space for ourselves, rest and relaxation, and learn how to live in tranquility even though we feel helpless, we would not really be able to care for those we wish to serve as overwork, anxiety and strain would result in burnout.

Father General also enjoyed meeting with the staff and students of the Regional Theology Centre. He was introduced to the rationale and the benefits of this programme which seeks to do theology in the context and values of the local community in which the house is inserted. But he also challenged the group to reflect on the quality of their social interaction with the neighborhood and to ensure that social interaction, essential though it is, does not result in low level academic work and mediocre scholarship. He was also insistent that there was no opposition between inculturation and universality and that, in fact inculturation in depth was essential for true universality else we will have nothing to share and contribute.

Of note: Father Lisbert writes: “Colour dominates all the encounters: colour during the Eucharist, during the meals, on the seasoning of the foods… Father General seems to be enjoying what is served as they are careful to prepare it with no spices, though there are other Indian herbs and condiments used.” And something about the traffic: “The only lack on the whole program has been the roads, or non-roads, full of holes, with traffic jam, even more chaotic than that of Manila, according to Father Nicolás.” And regarding the security item: “Very often we have a police escort. This escort will clear traffic to ensure speedier travel. Today we saw that the escort vehicle carried four armed guards. Fr General said he did not know whether to be relieved at the armed security or to feel nervous that he was considered a potential target of attack! Any way, the security will be with us till he leaves”.

During the trip there were also some hitches, for instance the cancelled flight from Delhi to Poona, and the arrival in Poona with almost 4 hours late. The truncated session with the Province disappointed some Jesuits. During the meeting with the Jesuits of Poona, Father General was asked again what he expected from South Asian Jesuits. His response was: depth, creativity and life in the Spirit.

Beginning March 1, Father General participated in the meeting of Jesuit Conference of South Asia (JCSA). He will conclude his travels in India with a visit to the Jesuits in Goa and Mumbai.

Vol. XIII, N. 5, March 6, 2009

LETTER TO THE WHOLE SOCIETY

• On February 19 Father General wrote a letter to the whole Society on “Universal Vocation of the Jesuit”. The letter was released at the end of February to allow translations in different languages. In the letter Father Nicolás speaks, first of all, about the “renewed awareness of our universal vocation” as a “fundamental element of our Jesuit identity”, making a reference to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the Constitutions and the strong call of the 35th General Congregation (D.2, n. 16, 20-24). This vocation also involves the need to restructure the Society at all levels with the view to “better respond to new and more universal challenges”, a response which requires “great agility and flexibility while maintaining or promoting excellence and responsible management in whatever we do locally.” The last part of the letter is devoted to reflections on formation and the importance to foster in our young men in formation “this awareness of our universal mission”, the availability “to be sent anywhere in the world;” all this is to be “a permanent attitude for all our men in the Society”. Father General adds: “We want to have well formed men who can understand reality with depth of heart and breadth of mind.”

FATHER GENERAL IN INDIA

• As mentioned in the previous edition of the S.J. Electronic Information Service, Father Nicolás is presently visiting several the Indian Provinces. Thanks to e-mails sent by Father Lisbert D’Souza, who is accompanying Father General, we can offer our readers some interesting, and sometimes curious stories of this long trip. The first stop was Delhi. The visit at Vidyajyoti College of Theology was most interesting, especially meeting with the staff and students. He addressed them briefly on “the challenge of the mission at the frontiers and of theological research” and invited them to speak three languages: the language of the scholar, the language of the simple communication that can be understood by the faithful, and the language which will help those who are far from the Asian context to understand this reality.

The next stop was Patna Province. Among other things Father General made two visits to projects for dalits, the lower caste of people traditionally regarded as “untouchables.” One of these projects, “the Province Solar Energy Park” for solar energy production, is of special interest and the 2007 Yearbook carried an article on it. The dalits are trained to manufacture and maintain such solar equipment. Then followed a visit to a leadership training programme for dalit boys and girls who staged a very powerful street play built around the Abba song: “I have a dream, a fantasy” in which they expressed their hopes for and commitment to struggle for dignity and justice. Fr General was quite moved and expressed it in the words he used to address the group.

Several days have been devoted exclusively to Jesuits. On February 23 in Patna, the meeting was with superiors, directors of works and coordinators of different apostolates. Father General answered questions and seemed glad that the issue of the accountability of superiors for implementation of directives of the General Congregation was of interest to the audience. He suggested that this may be a point to address in the programme for new Provincials. Since both local superiors and directors of work were present, he spoke of how the tension between these often arose as each wanted to be boss, and the need to change this attitude particularly if lay collaboration was to succeed. In a word: nobody is boss as we all serve the same mission with each having his distinctive role. He also invited those present to learn to live joyfully and dynamically even though we are far from being able to solve the massive problems that confront us. If we do not care for ourselves adequately in terms of space for ourselves, rest and relaxation, and learn how to live in tranquility even though we feel helpless, we would not really be able to care for those we wish to serve as overwork, anxiety and strain would result in burnout.

Father General also enjoyed meeting with the staff and students of the Regional Theology Centre. He was introduced to the rationale and the benefits of this programme which seeks to do theology in the context and values of the local community in which the house is inserted. But he also challenged the group to reflect on the quality of their social interaction with the neighborhood and to ensure that social interaction, essential though it is, does not result in low level academic work and mediocre scholarship. He was also insistent that there was no opposition between inculturation and universality and that, in fact inculturation in depth was essential for true universality else we will have nothing to share and contribute.

Of note: Father Lisbert writes: “Colour dominates all the encounters: colour during the Eucharist, during the meals, on the seasoning of the foods… Father General seems to be enjoying what is served as they are careful to prepare it with no spices, though there are other Indian herbs and condiments used.” And something about the traffic: “The only lack on the whole program has been the roads, or non-roads, full of holes, with traffic jam, even more chaotic than that of Manila, according to Father Nicolás.” And regarding the security item: “Very often we have a police escort. This escort will clear traffic to ensure speedier travel. Today we saw that the escort vehicle carried four armed guards. Fr General said he did not know whether to be relieved at the armed security or to feel nervous that he was considered a potential target of attack! Any way, the security will be with us till he leaves”.

During the trip there were also some hitches, for instance the cancelled flight from Delhi to Poona, and the arrival in Poona with almost 4 hours late. The truncated session with the Province disappointed some Jesuits. During the meeting with the Jesuits of Poona, Father General was asked again what he expected from South Asian Jesuits. His response was: depth, creativity and life in the Spirit.

Beginning March 1, Father General participated in the meeting of Jesuit Conference of South Asia (JCSA). He will conclude his travels in India with a visit to the Jesuits in Goa and Mumbai.

By Fr. Jose M. Calle, SJ

I feel very grateful to Fr. Jeyaraj and the members of the staff for giving me this opportunity to be with you today. The last time I gave a lecture here was 20 years ago.

People come to the EAPI to EXPLORE the FUTURE;  

I am here today to REMEMBER the PAST.

And I say this for two reasons. First, remembering is what old people do best. And then, remembering is also a very biblical thing to do. How often the Lord is telling His people: “Remember the days when…” “Don’t you remember…? “Do not forget…”

As I stand here with you today, as the last survivor of the EAPI  Founding Team, I feel somehow obliged to do some remembering of the  Past. In this way I may be able to give credit and call to presence those of my colleagues who have the first dreams of the EAPI and in many hidden ways helped the dream come true.

Like the grand classical symphonies, the EAPI history, has a prelude.
 

A little booklet & The Catholic Catechetical Academy

From 1941 to 1949, Fr. Hofinger was a missionary in North China, as professor in the Regional Seminary of Kinghsien, province of Hebei.

The prelude begun with the publication of a little booklet published by Hofinger in Latin and Chinese in 1946 . Its title was Nunctius Noster.  

The small booklet was actually a popular version of the famous work of Joseph Andreas Jungmann The Good News and its Proclamation where he established the foundations for a more kerygmatic theology and catechesis.
 

Amazingly that small booklet made a great impact, especially in North China. As a result, in 1948 the then Apostolic Internuncio, Antonio Riberi, encouraged the Superior of the Mission of Kinghsien  to establish in Peiping, with Hofinger as moderator, “The Catholic Catechetical Academy”.  

Alas! The beautiful dream of creating a “Catechetical Academy” somewhere   in Peking evaporated the following year with the communist takeover in 1949.  The Internuncio was expelled, the missionaries were dispersed and Fr. Hofinger with his seminarians went into exile
 

In Exile. 1949

Fr. Hofinger with the staff and students of the San Jose Jing Hsien seminary arrived as refugees in the Philippines at the end of 49. As soon as they could, they reorganized their life in exile in the quonset huts of an abandoned army camp in a deserted area of Mandaluyong.  

The institute of Mission Apologetics: 1953

There, in 1953, in the Spartan setting provided by three of those quonset huts, Fr. Hofinger, with the help of a small team dared to open with unashamed determination a Catechetical and Liturgical Center. It was called The Institute of Mission Apologetics.

It was, in that Spartan setting of Chabanel Hall, a reincarnation in the Philippines of the “Academia Catechetica” which the Jesuit refugees from China dreamed to have in Beijing. And some of us could even glimpse there the first profile of the now famous East Asian Pastoral Institute .

The EAPI TEAM

In 1957 Fr. Hofinger had four collaborators, who remained with him until 1966, namely Frs. Paul Brunner, Martin Ramsauer, John Seffer and myself.  

One evening in September 1961 Fr. Brunner and myself were taking a walk with Fr. Hofinger around the quarters of Chabanel Hall. He had just arrived from giving several courses in South Africa. At one point he stopped and said: “You know, quite a good number of people who attend my lectures, find rather strange the name of our institute. They don’t know what do we mean by “Mission Apologetics”.  “Neither do I” – I said. That evening of September 1961, among the Quonset huts of Mandaluyong, through a very informal sharing, the name East Asian Pastoral Institute was heard for the first time. And as a result, the EAPI Team was born

Work of the EAPI Team

Going through the records of those days, it is amazing to see the amount of work done by that small team, newly baptized EAPI , in the fields of  Liturgical Renewal; Catechetical Training, Publications and International Study Weeks

The liturgical Renewal.

It was initiated by Paul Brunner. Two years before the 2nd Vatican Council, he obtained permission from the Archbishop of Manila to introduce, “ad experimentum”, the so far totally unknown “Community Mass”, in the chapel of Chabanel Hall, for the people living in the squatters around our place. The group of his “Alleluia Singers” became well known in many parishes. Little by little, that poor chapel of Chabanel Hall, filled with the poor neighboring families, became litterally the first center of Liturgical Experimentation in this part of the world.

Catechetical renewal

Within the EAPI team, I was responsible for the Catechetical Renewal. Early in 1960, the Secretary General of the Bishops conference, Msgr. Gaviola, had made clear to me that the main pastoral problem of the Church in the Philippines was the lack of Religious Instruction in the Public High Schools, where the great majority of the Filipino Youth were educated. Less than 20% could attend the private Catholic High Schools.

I was then involved in a very ambitious project: To bring into the 29 Public High Schools of Metro Manila sufficient number of Professional Religion Teachers. Cardinal Santos , the Archbishop of Manila, was so impressed by the way the project had been implemented, that he  asked me to establish and to act as director of Manila Catechetical Institute. The newly created Catechetical Institute, in the Pius XII Catholic Center, at United nations avenue, became the ideal venue for the weekly in-service training of the 58 newly chosen Public High Schools Religion Teachers. 38 of them were young sisters from 18 different Congregations. This was the first time sisters from different congregations were working together in a common apostolic project. The other 22 were young leaders of SCA  trained by Ms Tessie Nitorreda. These “ well trained, well chosen, well paid, full time  Public High Schools Teachers” were assigned to 29 Public High Schools, where, in those days, there were approximately 45.000 students.

Publications

Fr. Ramsauer with the help of the other members of the team, took care of the three Reviews of the EAPI, namely Good Tidings, Amen & Teaching All Nations, as well as the Book Service, which in those days before and after the Council, expanded far beyond anybody’s expectations.

International Study-Weeks

The International Study Weeks were without any doubt one of Fr. Hofinger’s unique contributions to the preparation and follow-up of  Vatican II. He organized six of them in the years immediately preceding and following the Council: Nijmegen in Holland (1959), Eichstadt in Germany (1960), Bangkok in Thailand (1962);  Katigondo in Uganda (1964),  Manila, in the Philippines, ( 1967),  Medellin, in Colombia (1968)     

From the EAPI Team to the EAPI Training Center

Obviously the work of the EAPI team in Chabanel Hall, namely:  The renewal of the Parish Liturgy; the new wave of teachers of religion in the 29 Public High Schools; the popularity of the three Reviews; the expansion of the Book Service and  the wide resonance given to the International Study weeks of Fr. Hofinger, had attracted the attention  of a number of persons in position of authority.

Both Cardinal Santos, the Archbishop of Manila, and the Apostolic Nuncio were appreciative of the work done by the EAPI team of Chabanel Hall.  

Soon the president and academic vice-president of the Ateneo de Manila University began to explore the possibility of a closer collaboration between the EAPI and the Ateneo University.   

Meanwhile, a number of Bishops and major Superiors of East Asia were asking Fr Hofinger to facilitate the creation of a Training Pastoral Center, as desired by the 2nd Vatican Council.

Besides, the Jesuit Roman authorities began to consider more seriously the option of making the EAPI an inter-provincial work , not only of the Far East Province and of the Province of the Philippines, but of all the Provinces of the East Asian  Region. But before reaching any decision, they asked the Provincials of the East Asian Assistancy to send delegates to meet in Manila with the EAPI team.

Manila meeting, Sept. 64  

In the last session of the two days meeting, out of 10 delegates, 8 voted to make a strong recommendation to the Provincials to consider Fr. Alfonso Nebreda  as the first director of the new EAPI Training Center, with Fr. Johannes Hofinger as Assistant director for publications .  

A large majority felt that Fr. Nebreda was well qualified for the new work envisioned by the Center, because of his research on Pre-Evangelization, his teaching experience in the Gregorian University, his ability to organize pastoral programs as the one he did in Loyola University of Chicago, and his talents as communicator.   

Role of Fr. Horacio de la Costa  

It was at this moment that Fr. Horacio de la Costa, newly appointed Provincial of the Philippine Province, played a decisive role in the foundation of the EAPI.

First of all, under the newly established inter-provincial work, Fr. De la Costa became the Major Superior of the EAPI Team, who were all Jesuits.  As such, he was the one who officially informed Fr. Alfonso Nebreda, that on the 15th of August 1965, Fr. General Arrupe had appointed him first Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute. Moreover, thanks mainly to him, Cardinal Santos (who at that time, for various reasons,  was not very well disposed towards the Jesuits of the Ateneo), granted the permission for the new pastoral Institute as part of the Ateneo University. Also in order to complete the building of the EAPI, Fr. De la Costa made some financial arrangements with the Maryland province of the Society of Jesus, and finally he negotiated with the President of the Ateneo, to lend to us this piece of land within the Ateneo University campus, where we are now.
 
 

The First Director

Fr. Nebreda arrived in early August 1965. He was just 40 years old, a tall, youthful man, very approachable and mentally very alert. Alfonso Nebreda and I were old time friends.  As we were walking those days through the campus of the Ateneo, we  both realized that the plan to transform the small center of research and publications of Fr. Hofinger into an International, Intercultural, and Coeducational Pastoral Training Center for the Local Churches of East Asia, was a very  big thing and also an unheard of novelty.

Never before had there been any attempt in this part of the world to bring priests and sisters, lay men and lay women, to be trained together in one place for 7 months. The Archbishop of Manila may have had some objections… Under those circumstances, it was helpful that some of us, in the EAPI team, were well accepted by Cardinal Santos.

Regarding the program and other problems concerning Faculty and Students, it was also very helpful that both of us have gone a few years earlier, 57- 58 through the common experience of Lumen Vitae, in Belgium, the pioneering International Pastoral Institute , founded by Fr. George Delcuve in response to the pastoral needs of  Europe, Africa and Latin America.

This common experience of Lumen Vitae, plus the program of studies prepared for the Summer Pastoral Institute in Loyola University in Chicago, influenced in many ways the early design of the EAPI.

Daring & urgent enterprise

In those days of 1965, people in the Church were still enjoying the “fresh air” brought into the world by John XXIII.  Nonetheless some signs of approaching  turbulence began to be felt  and soon the youth was in revolt and priests and religious in crisis. To attempt such a project in those days after the Council, was quite a daring enterprise but, on the other hand, extremely urgent and timely.  

Alfonso Nebreda irradiated calm and confidence. And soon people in the campus felt that for this kind of enterprise Nebreda was the right man, at the right time, in the right place. Moreover, from the very beginning, he felt the full support and encouragement of Fr. De la Costa, Provincial of the Philippines, of Fr.  Donelan, President of the Ateneo University and of Fr. Hofinger himself.  

The First Year

In his skimpy personal diary, Nebreda wrote this.  “We  began the first year of the EAPI in the campus of the Ateneo University on September 15th, 1966, with a group of  37 students from 12 different Asian countries. Average age, late thirties. Most of them bring along some years of missionary experience. To lecture to them is indeed quite challenging. In the final evaluation they were very appreciative for the program offered to them and did enjoyed the rich polyphony of more than 25 different lecturers. They were aware that this was our first experiment and accepted with patience and understanding our lack of proper accommodations.”  

They had the lectures in a class room of Bellarmine Hall, boarding and lodging in different places inside and outside of the Ateneo Campus.

But the men’s dormitory with 45 rooms, would be ready for the next year together with the Faculty House and the rest of the building.

First Year’s grand finale

The first year of the EAPI ended with a really grand finale, namely, The International Study Week on Mission Catechetics and Liturgy held  in Manila, the  last week of April.  

It followed those seminars, previously organized by Fr. Hofinger in Assisi, Nijmegen, Eichstaett, Bangkok and Katigondo. This one, in Manila, was held In the grand auditorium of Loyola House of Studies and gathered more than 150  experts, including  20 bishops, and delegates the Major Pastoral Centers as well as some Protestant observers. Of course, this was a unique opportunity for our small group of first-year’s graduates to be exposed, before going back home, to this array of specialists in the pastoral field, including the venerable Fr. Joseph Jungmann, the mentor and life-long friend of Fr. Hofinger.
 

Miss Teresita Nitorreda joins the staff

When in September of 1966, 37 participants gathered in one of the class-rooms of Bellarmine Hall to listen to Fr. Nebreda in the first EAPI course, Miss Tessie Nitorreda was one of them. In those days the Student Catholic Action was very much alive and Tessie was very well known, loved and respected by the young SCA’s leaders in the various colleges and universities of Manila. At the end of the first  EAPI course, Nebreda convinced her to remain in the staff as his personal assistant. She accepted reluctantly and became a very important figure in the EAPI since its foundation until the year 1990,  she made a distinctive contribution to the development and supervision of many of the activities of the Institute, as well as to the elaboration of the program and the search for competent professors, inside and outside of the Philippines. Her presence and position as a lay woman in the permanent staff, was emblematic of a new era. Aside from being an excellent communicator and administrator, she had special expertise in group dynamics, applied to training people and was recognized in South East Asia as the pioneer of Experiential Methodology, applied to Religious Education.

In the brand-new building

The second year of the EAPI begun on the 15 of September 1967. In some ways one can say that the previous course was somehow experimental. Some would say that the real EAPI thing began rather in this September of 1967, when the new group of 67 participants took possession of their brand new building  These 67 participants came from 14 different nations and belonged to 25 different religious congregations.  27  women  and 40  men. The men had their individual living rooms in the right wing of the new building. The women continued living in nearby convents until their hostels were ready within the campus. But it made a big difference, over the previous year, now that  the auditorium ,  the Library, the dining room, the recreation room and the chapel were  all found in the same building.

What about the early EAPI Program

Obviously, the program of the Institute intended, first of all, to carry forward the vision of the Second Vatican Council, which had just been concluded on December 8, 1965.  

Therefore from the early days of the EAPI, we had courses, workshops and seminars with experts on a variety of pertinent post-Vatican II questions: Scripture, Liturgy, Religions in Asia, cultural anthropology, pastoral sociology, pastoral psychology, linguistics, catechetics, theology of mission, spirituality, visual aids, film, social development, modern philosophy, group dynamics, etc  One of the participants of the early days wrote to one of his friends: “It is indeed a great experience, to discover with our lecturers here the hidden treasures of these brand-new Conciliar documents”. Tessie described the program of those years as “Pastoral Liberal Arts”.

Among the many things worth remembering during this second year of the EAPI, we may just mention two: The blessing of the new EAPI’s buildings and the International Study Week of Medellin (Colombia).

The Blessing

On April 1st, 1968, a few days before the departure of that year 67 participants, arrangements were made for the blessing of the brand-new EAPI buildings .  At 12.00 midday most of the major superiors of the East Asian Assistancy of the Society of Jesus concelebrated in the opening Eucharist. Early in the afternoon, I was sent to Malacañan to fetch the First Lady. Mrs Imelda Romuáldez Marcos . As soon as she arrived, she was greeted by the Apostolic Nuntio and the Provincial, Fr. De la Costa. The program began  with the Philippine National Anthem, followed by the Invocation given by Fr. James Donelan, President of the Ateneo de Manila University, and some words of Welcome by Fr. Alfonso Nebreda, Director de EAPI.  Fr. Horacio de la Costa, Provincial of the Philippine Jesuit Province delighted everybody with some very well crafted closing remarks. By then the First Lady, Mrs Imelda Romuáldez Marcos, escorted now by the Apostolic Nuncio, Carmine Rocco performed the ribbon cutting and the blessing began. A light supper followed to close the day.

EAPI in Medellín

The other important event  in 1968, was the Sixth International Study Week, in which Fr. Hofinger and the EAPI staff were very much involved.  

It began on the 11 of August with a solemn Eucharist in the chapel of the Major Seminary of Medellín and closed on the evening of the 17th with an exciting Open Forum with the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Veillot. Some of the main points we stressed during our position papers and general groups discussions, were approved by the general assembly and incorporated in the Final Conclusions published in a  book entitled Medellin Papers.
 

Exciting Years. The right blending of talents

The third and fourth Regular Courses,  68-69 and 69-70, began as scheduled  on September 15, with 89 participants in 68-69 and 92 in 69-70. These two years will be remembered by some of the original members of the staff as extremely exciting.

First of all, we were overwhelmed by the sheer number of participants, who for the first time fully occupied the brand new facilities of the EAPI. This in itself was very encouraging, and assured us that what we were trying to do trough the different courses, the experimental liturgies, the prayer sessions, the cultural activities, the dynamics for community building, etc., responded somehow to the felt needs of the people sent to us by the various Local Churches of East Asia. In that period of the EAPI history, there was, it seemed, the right blending of talents among the members of the resident staff. For somehow,, they were able to create a warm ambiance of mutual trust and graceful acceptance of one another in such a multinational and multicultural group of people. Fr. Toni Leetai, of very happy memory, contributed a lot to this spirit.

In 68 and 69, the participants represented 21 different nations: (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Borneo, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Ceylon, Pakistan, India, Iraq, New Guinea, Guam, Caroline and Marshall Islands.)

The missioners from abroad were from England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Canada, United States, Mexico and Australia. Altogether they belonged to over 15 different religious Congregations. The Sisters offered an even wider variety of cultures and congregations.
             

Fr Hofinger departs for Latinamerica

The relationships between Fr. Hofinger and Fr.Nebreda were always excellent. But after the Study Week in Medellin, and while working with Fr. Terence Sheridan on the editing of the Medellin Papers, serious conflicts emerged in the publications department under Fr. Hofinger. These internal conflicts,  eventually, led to his departure from the EAPI and from the Philippines in 1969. On the other hand, within the new program design of the EAPI, more directly concerned with the evangelization of non Christian cultures, it was not easy to find the proper place for the program offered by Fr.  Hofinger. Moreover after the experience of the Study Week in Medellin (Colombia ) he  felt the call to put his knowledge and expertise in Catechetics to the service of the Latin-American people. He learned Spanish and  began to work in various places of Latin-America, coming back to the EAPI only once a year     

Timely arrival of Fr. Francis X. Clark

In those early beginnings of the EAPI, there were two very important areas, which so far had not been handled as well as they should: The Library and the finances of the Institute. Fortunately, Fr. Francis Clark, former Provincial of the Philippine Jesuit Province, joined the staff In 1968. Rightaway he took charge of these two areas. Thanks mainly to him, the EAPI had soon a well organized library, while taking care of our finances and of paying in time the debt we had with the Manhattan Chase Bank.  

The so called “Aggiornamento course” begins

Sometime in  February 1969 the Regional Superior of Maryknoll  Missionaries, Fr. Jim Gavin, shared with Fr. Nebreda and myself his concern for the spiritual and pastoral renewal in the light of  Vatican II of all his men working in Taiwan and the Philippines. But since it was impossible for most of them to attend the long Seven Month course, He suggested to reserve the facilities of the EAPI for one month (April 10th to May 10th) for the next two years and asked us to prepare a program of one month for his men. The EAPI academic staff, whose chairman was Ms.T. Nitorreda, prepared the program with three inter-twinning objectives: 1. Spiritual renewal, 2. Theological reflection & 3. Pastoral effectiveness. The very positive feedback given to this program by the Maryknollers, encouraged the staff to continue it for the sake of the many other missionaries who were unable to participate in the long course. And this is how, thanks to the suggestion of Jim Gavin, MM, the famous EAPI Agiornamento courses  began. In the decade 1968 to 1978, 623 missionaries from 32 East Asian and South Pacific Region participated in it.
 
 
 
 

A unique meeting place of the Local Cultures & Churches

While the program of studies was unfolding fairly well, we were made aware that the EAPI was not only a Training Pastoral Center. It has also the potential to become a unique Meeting Place for the Loca Cultures &l Churches of East Asia and the Pacific. In fact nowhere in Asia there were in those days so many representatives from so many different Local Churches who were following as a community of men and women of the Church such an intensive  seven month training program. Such awareness triggered a rich variety of group’s interaction, intercultural activities, pastoral exchanges, oriental prayer exercises , inculturated Eucharistic celebrations, and missionary pastoral research..  
 

The 70’s, a period of consolidation

The early 70’s was a period of consolidation. The original resident staff, in spite of the uncertainties and tensions of the first 4 years, was still in very good health and eager to respond to the many requests addressed to them from inside and outside the Country.

The vision and the mission of the EAPI was by now more clearly defined, thanks to the personality of the Director and his assistants, the team spirit of the men and women of the resident staff and the impressive array of more than 15 visiting professors.

As an Intercultural Coeducational Academic Community,  the EAPI was certainly unique. The exposure to and immersion in such a group was in itself a process of authentic concientization. It sharpened the sensitivity and widened the understanding of social, cultural and political situations, as experienced those days by the participants from Asia and the Pacific. It offered numerous points of reference to evaluate local situations and to discern specific plans of action. It challenged in many subtle ways the quality of our Christian vision and, of course, the degree of one’s personal, psychological maturity. It is useful to remember that the beginnings of the EAPI coincided with the turbulence of the Post-Conciliar era, with the youth revolt of Paris in 68 and with the Cultural Revolution in the China of Mao Tze Tong. Those were exciting but also turbulent days.

No wonder that even within the Church some important people could not fully appreciate what was going on in the EAPI. In fact some of  those in charge of convening and programming, for November 1970, the  Pan-Asian Bishops Conference in Manila had the plan of inserting in the agenda the proposal to establish in Manila a new Pastoral Institute for Asia.

Nebreda handled this first serious crisis very well. He immediately sent a Memorandum to Cardinal Kim of Korea and Cardinal Darmojuvono of Indonesia. And they also felt that there was indeed a need for Pastoral Institutes in many places, but not for two Asian Pastoral Institutes in one place.  

One important highlight of 71: The Hostels

In September, the course began with 84 students, 47 men and 37 women. Some of the highlights of that year ( 71-72 ) were, first of all, the inauguration  of the two beautiful hostels for women, built behind the book service, which now is the Community Room, a short distance away from the main building. For the first time, everyone was on campus and this meant a great difference for the daily routine of lectures, meals and group-activities

                                       

Under the Martial Law

The course 72-73 began when the Philippines was in a very critical political situation. On September 22, 1972 , President Ferdinand Marcos placed the whole nation under Marcial Law. Some of our close friends, like Chino Roces, the publisher of Manila Times, Ninoy Aquino and several prominent Ateneo Alumni were jailed or placed under House arrest . There was much tension among the students and faculty in the Ateneo campus where we live. The Jesuit Scholastics with their superiors spent hours in discernment sessions, to find out the proper ways of protesting against such a violation of Human Rights. Jesuit Scholastics were quite often seen with their soutanes in the streets of Manila, leading antigovernment demonstrations. Paradoxically, this was the year when the EAPI attracted  the largest  group of 92 participants ,  54 men and 38 women,  from 22 different countries.

As you can easily imagine, the declaration of Marcial Law brought some panic to the EAPI. The new regulations for the enrollment of foreign students into the universities of the Philippines were very strict. Were they to be applied to our foreign students, we will be forced to cancel the whole operation of the EAPI. The process to obtain the permit for a foreign student to study in the Philippines was a very time consuming process and very difficult to obtain.

Fortunately some of the members of the staff had some friends who were close to the Malacañan palace. Their advice was to write a letter to President Marcos, explaining our problem and requesting a special permit for the foreign students applying to the EAPI.

With the help of Mrs Marcos (who fondly remembered the EAPI from cutting the ribbon in the opening ceremony) the permission was granted on the 28 of March 1973.

This was an epoch-making permission. Since then our participants got the visa to enter in the Philippines by simply presenting the letter of acceptance into de EAPI. Obviously such a special permit from the office of the President of the Philippines, which facilitated the entrance into the country of all our foreign applicants, was vital to the EAPI, in order to have every year sufficient number of foreign students, attending the program. But it was granted one year after the Declaration of Martial Law and consequently the people of the EAPI had to be particularly careful in any demonstrations against the Government. Anyhow, the long course ( 72-73 ) ran very smoothly and it was closed with a most solemn Easter Vigil celebration moderated by Fr. Juan Mateos, s.j., of Rome’s  Oriental Institute.

Bishops’ Aggiornamento & the Christian Communities Program

In June (1973), we had our first “aggiornamento” for  23 bishops . Soon after that, the Apostolic Nuncio and the President of the CBCP requested from the EAPI to take charge of giving a series of  “the Retreat-Renewal Seminars”  to the Clergy and Bishops of all the dioceses of the  Philippines.  Frs. Nebreda and Parisi , Ms. Nitorreda and myself were in charge of this project. In one year and a half, this EAPI Team addressed 650 priests and close to 30 bishops. Meanwhile, based on the catechetical insights I presented in the International Study Week of Medellin (Colombia), and the Experiential Methodology developed by Ms. Nitorreda, and in collaboration with Srs. Angie Villanueva, rc; Teresita Fiel, rgs, Julma Neo, dc; Andy Collantes. osb. and Toni Cruzada, the EAPI produced   the Christian Communities Program. This program became very popular and was soon introduced in several dioceses of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. In those days the Theology and Methodology of what we called Environmental, Experiential and Communitarian Catechesis was an important unit of the EAPI program.

                                      

The Central Board  

It was around this time, 73 to 74  that the resident Staff began to evolve into a mini “ecclesial community”, with some representatives of the diocesan clergy, some members of the laity and members of different religious Congregations. Special mention should be made here of Fr. John O’Regan, OMI, Bob Mc Kee, H.C., Desmond Crowe FMM, Joseph Castellino and Srs. Idmara SSpS, Sr. Victorina de la Paz, scmm, Sr Diosdada, RVM and Victoria Faicol, to mention just a few.  Eventually the experience of this multicultural, inter-congregational ecclesial community, suggested the creation of the EAPI Central Board. Several factors were at work in the genesis of this rather novel administrative structure. The insistence of the Vatican Council on co-responsibility in apostolic leadership was one. Also some of the members of the resident staff, who already had several years of experience with such an international and inter-Congregational group, felt the need of having within the resident staff, a policy-making body with decision-making power to be called the Central Board. The members of the Central Board were to be elected by the resident staff. And they must include, not only Jesuits but also men and women from other congregations and from the laity. In the mind of experienced administrators, the attempt to give to  such a mixed group the responsibility for the proper functioning of such a complex project as the EAPI, was a dream. On the other hand, to prepare the way to the future it was felt in those days after the Council the urgent need to foster Subsidiarity, Co-responsibility and Collaboration within the Church. And the EAPI seemed to be a right place to expose the participants to a model of administrative structure, where men and women of the laity and of different Religious Congregations are made responsible of a common apostolic  work.

Some of the Bishops and Major Superiors in their visit to the EAPI were appreciative of such a model of administration, because they could see that, with the shortage of vocations, more inter-Congregational groups will have to work together among themselves and with the clergy and the Laity, in response to the new challenges of the Church. In hind sight there was something “prophetic” in that peculiar administrative structure of EAPI Central Board. It worked quite well for about four years.  
 

Towards the first Ten Years Anniversary

We were now approaching the first ten years anniversary of the EAPI. We have the records of participants, faithfully kept by Ms. Faicol, the famous head of the EAPI secretariat for the first 32 years. During the first ten years, a total of 759 participants have attended the regular 7 month course, 575 the one month aggiornamento and 929 the special courses given in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.  

Looking back to the past 9 years we felt grateful that the original mission of the EAPI, namely the renewal of the Local Churches of East Asia and the Pacific in the spirit of the II Vatican Council, was, by the Grace of God, quite successful and far beyond our early expectations. For example, in spite of some negative incidents, we felt widely accepted by most of the Bishops and Religious Major Superiors, inside and outside of the Philippines. In Fact, it was around this time that Fr. Nebreda and myself were invited to give, in the Major Seminary of Sydney, a one week course to the joint Bishops Conferences of Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific .

Also a good number of our Alumni and Alumnae were in positions to share with others what they have learned and experienced in the EAPI. In 1975, 48 of them were Masters or Mistresses of Novices and Juniors; 39 were Local Superiors; 38 were Diocesan Directors of Religious Education; 35 Staff members in Pastoral Institutes or Formation programs; 35 Heads of Schools; 30 Provincials or Regional Superiors; 12 Rectors of seminaries; 12 Chancellors or Vicar Generals; 11 Generals and Assistant Generals. The above figures were taken from the Annual Report sent by Fr. Nebreda to the Jesuit Major Superiors of East Asia

I wish I could finish my story  right here, in May 75. But In July 10th 1975, due to a decision made by the Central Board regarding a Jesuit of the staff, the chairman of the Conference of major Superior, Fr. Bernard Chu, wrote to Fr. Nebreda, saying that the Conference of Major Superiors wanted to be more directly involved with the EAPI. Their involvement was not so much focused on evaluating the past, but on finding ways on how to replace and renew the present staff,  and how to respond to the needs of the future.  Actually this decision  of the Major Superiors as we were approaching the first ten year’s anniversary, was very timely and providential. Those of us who have been involved in the origins of the Institute for ten consecutive years without a break, were exhausted and needed urgently to be given a rest and an opportunity for personal and professional renewal.

The new Beginnings

The first good news was that the Viêtcông had expelled two talented men  from Vietnam, and were now ready to join in 1976  the ranks of the EAPI resident staff. Felipe Gómez and Roger Champoux. Excellent acquisitions as you know. Then the search for the new director had begun and after one year of searching in different directions, finally in his letter for Christmas of 1977, Nebreda could write: “The long search has ended to the satisfaction of everyone. The new director is a much appreciated theologian in Japan and is well known in other parts of Asia. Here in the EAPI we have made it clear to the superiors that he was our favorite candidate, and are therefore delighted with the choice.” His name you know: Adolfo Nicolás, the pioneer of new beginnings…

By Fr. Jose M. Calle, SJ

I feel very grateful to Fr. Jeyaraj and the members of the staff for giving me this opportunity to be with you today. The last time I gave a lecture here was 20 years ago.

People come to the EAPI to EXPLORE the FUTURE;  

I am here today to REMEMBER the PAST.

And I say this for two reasons. First, remembering is what old people do best. And then, remembering is also a very biblical thing to do. How often the Lord is telling His people: “Remember the days when…” “Don’t you remember…? “Do not forget…”

As I stand here with you today, as the last survivor of the EAPI  Founding Team, I feel somehow obliged to do some remembering of the  Past. In this way I may be able to give credit and call to presence those of my colleagues who have the first dreams of the EAPI and in many hidden ways helped the dream come true.

Like the grand classical symphonies, the EAPI history, has a prelude.
 

A little booklet & The Catholic Catechetical Academy

From 1941 to 1949, Fr. Hofinger was a missionary in North China, as professor in the Regional Seminary of Kinghsien, province of Hebei.

The prelude begun with the publication of a little booklet published by Hofinger in Latin and Chinese in 1946 . Its title was Nunctius Noster.  

The small booklet was actually a popular version of the famous work of Joseph Andreas Jungmann The Good News and its Proclamation where he established the foundations for a more kerygmatic theology and catechesis.
 

Amazingly that small booklet made a great impact, especially in North China. As a result, in 1948 the then Apostolic Internuncio, Antonio Riberi, encouraged the Superior of the Mission of Kinghsien  to establish in Peiping, with Hofinger as moderator, “The Catholic Catechetical Academy”.  

Alas! The beautiful dream of creating a “Catechetical Academy” somewhere   in Peking evaporated the following year with the communist takeover in 1949.  The Internuncio was expelled, the missionaries were dispersed and Fr. Hofinger with his seminarians went into exile
 

In Exile. 1949

Fr. Hofinger with the staff and students of the San Jose Jing Hsien seminary arrived as refugees in the Philippines at the end of 49. As soon as they could, they reorganized their life in exile in the quonset huts of an abandoned army camp in a deserted area of Mandaluyong.  

The institute of Mission Apologetics: 1953

There, in 1953, in the Spartan setting provided by three of those quonset huts, Fr. Hofinger, with the help of a small team dared to open with unashamed determination a Catechetical and Liturgical Center. It was called The Institute of Mission Apologetics.

It was, in that Spartan setting of Chabanel Hall, a reincarnation in the Philippines of the “Academia Catechetica” which the Jesuit refugees from China dreamed to have in Beijing. And some of us could even glimpse there the first profile of the now famous East Asian Pastoral Institute .

The EAPI TEAM

In 1957 Fr. Hofinger had four collaborators, who remained with him until 1966, namely Frs. Paul Brunner, Martin Ramsauer, John Seffer and myself.  

One evening in September 1961 Fr. Brunner and myself were taking a walk with Fr. Hofinger around the quarters of Chabanel Hall. He had just arrived from giving several courses in South Africa. At one point he stopped and said: “You know, quite a good number of people who attend my lectures, find rather strange the name of our institute. They don’t know what do we mean by “Mission Apologetics”.  “Neither do I” – I said. That evening of September 1961, among the Quonset huts of Mandaluyong, through a very informal sharing, the name East Asian Pastoral Institute was heard for the first time. And as a result, the EAPI Team was born

Work of the EAPI Team

Going through the records of those days, it is amazing to see the amount of work done by that small team, newly baptized EAPI , in the fields of  Liturgical Renewal; Catechetical Training, Publications and International Study Weeks

The liturgical Renewal.

It was initiated by Paul Brunner. Two years before the 2nd Vatican Council, he obtained permission from the Archbishop of Manila to introduce, “ad experimentum”, the so far totally unknown “Community Mass”, in the chapel of Chabanel Hall, for the people living in the squatters around our place. The group of his “Alleluia Singers” became well known in many parishes. Little by little, that poor chapel of Chabanel Hall, filled with the poor neighboring families, became litterally the first center of Liturgical Experimentation in this part of the world.

Catechetical renewal

Within the EAPI team, I was responsible for the Catechetical Renewal. Early in 1960, the Secretary General of the Bishops conference, Msgr. Gaviola, had made clear to me that the main pastoral problem of the Church in the Philippines was the lack of Religious Instruction in the Public High Schools, where the great majority of the Filipino Youth were educated. Less than 20% could attend the private Catholic High Schools.

I was then involved in a very ambitious project: To bring into the 29 Public High Schools of Metro Manila sufficient number of Professional Religion Teachers. Cardinal Santos , the Archbishop of Manila, was so impressed by the way the project had been implemented, that he  asked me to establish and to act as director of Manila Catechetical Institute. The newly created Catechetical Institute, in the Pius XII Catholic Center, at United nations avenue, became the ideal venue for the weekly in-service training of the 58 newly chosen Public High Schools Religion Teachers. 38 of them were young sisters from 18 different Congregations. This was the first time sisters from different congregations were working together in a common apostolic project. The other 22 were young leaders of SCA  trained by Ms Tessie Nitorreda. These “ well trained, well chosen, well paid, full time  Public High Schools Teachers” were assigned to 29 Public High Schools, where, in those days, there were approximately 45.000 students.

Publications

Fr. Ramsauer with the help of the other members of the team, took care of the three Reviews of the EAPI, namely Good Tidings, Amen & Teaching All Nations, as well as the Book Service, which in those days before and after the Council, expanded far beyond anybody’s expectations.

International Study-Weeks

The International Study Weeks were without any doubt one of Fr. Hofinger’s unique contributions to the preparation and follow-up of  Vatican II. He organized six of them in the years immediately preceding and following the Council: Nijmegen in Holland (1959), Eichstadt in Germany (1960), Bangkok in Thailand (1962);  Katigondo in Uganda (1964),  Manila, in the Philippines, ( 1967),  Medellin, in Colombia (1968)     

From the EAPI Team to the EAPI Training Center

Obviously the work of the EAPI team in Chabanel Hall, namely:  The renewal of the Parish Liturgy; the new wave of teachers of religion in the 29 Public High Schools; the popularity of the three Reviews; the expansion of the Book Service and  the wide resonance given to the International Study weeks of Fr. Hofinger, had attracted the attention  of a number of persons in position of authority.

Both Cardinal Santos, the Archbishop of Manila, and the Apostolic Nuncio were appreciative of the work done by the EAPI team of Chabanel Hall.  

Soon the president and academic vice-president of the Ateneo de Manila University began to explore the possibility of a closer collaboration between the EAPI and the Ateneo University.   

Meanwhile, a number of Bishops and major Superiors of East Asia were asking Fr Hofinger to facilitate the creation of a Training Pastoral Center, as desired by the 2nd Vatican Council.

Besides, the Jesuit Roman authorities began to consider more seriously the option of making the EAPI an inter-provincial work , not only of the Far East Province and of the Province of the Philippines, but of all the Provinces of the East Asian  Region. But before reaching any decision, they asked the Provincials of the East Asian Assistancy to send delegates to meet in Manila with the EAPI team.

Manila meeting, Sept. 64  

In the last session of the two days meeting, out of 10 delegates, 8 voted to make a strong recommendation to the Provincials to consider Fr. Alfonso Nebreda  as the first director of the new EAPI Training Center, with Fr. Johannes Hofinger as Assistant director for publications .  

A large majority felt that Fr. Nebreda was well qualified for the new work envisioned by the Center, because of his research on Pre-Evangelization, his teaching experience in the Gregorian University, his ability to organize pastoral programs as the one he did in Loyola University of Chicago, and his talents as communicator.   

Role of Fr. Horacio de la Costa  

It was at this moment that Fr. Horacio de la Costa, newly appointed Provincial of the Philippine Province, played a decisive role in the foundation of the EAPI.

First of all, under the newly established inter-provincial work, Fr. De la Costa became the Major Superior of the EAPI Team, who were all Jesuits.  As such, he was the one who officially informed Fr. Alfonso Nebreda, that on the 15th of August 1965, Fr. General Arrupe had appointed him first Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute. Moreover, thanks mainly to him, Cardinal Santos (who at that time, for various reasons,  was not very well disposed towards the Jesuits of the Ateneo), granted the permission for the new pastoral Institute as part of the Ateneo University. Also in order to complete the building of the EAPI, Fr. De la Costa made some financial arrangements with the Maryland province of the Society of Jesus, and finally he negotiated with the President of the Ateneo, to lend to us this piece of land within the Ateneo University campus, where we are now.
 
 

The First Director

Fr. Nebreda arrived in early August 1965. He was just 40 years old, a tall, youthful man, very approachable and mentally very alert. Alfonso Nebreda and I were old time friends.  As we were walking those days through the campus of the Ateneo, we  both realized that the plan to transform the small center of research and publications of Fr. Hofinger into an International, Intercultural, and Coeducational Pastoral Training Center for the Local Churches of East Asia, was a very  big thing and also an unheard of novelty.

Never before had there been any attempt in this part of the world to bring priests and sisters, lay men and lay women, to be trained together in one place for 7 months. The Archbishop of Manila may have had some objections… Under those circumstances, it was helpful that some of us, in the EAPI team, were well accepted by Cardinal Santos.

Regarding the program and other problems concerning Faculty and Students, it was also very helpful that both of us have gone a few years earlier, 57- 58 through the common experience of Lumen Vitae, in Belgium, the pioneering International Pastoral Institute , founded by Fr. George Delcuve in response to the pastoral needs of  Europe, Africa and Latin America.

This common experience of Lumen Vitae, plus the program of studies prepared for the Summer Pastoral Institute in Loyola University in Chicago, influenced in many ways the early design of the EAPI.

Daring & urgent enterprise

In those days of 1965, people in the Church were still enjoying the “fresh air” brought into the world by John XXIII.  Nonetheless some signs of approaching  turbulence began to be felt  and soon the youth was in revolt and priests and religious in crisis. To attempt such a project in those days after the Council, was quite a daring enterprise but, on the other hand, extremely urgent and timely.  

Alfonso Nebreda irradiated calm and confidence. And soon people in the campus felt that for this kind of enterprise Nebreda was the right man, at the right time, in the right place. Moreover, from the very beginning, he felt the full support and encouragement of Fr. De la Costa, Provincial of the Philippines, of Fr.  Donelan, President of the Ateneo University and of Fr. Hofinger himself.  

The First Year

In his skimpy personal diary, Nebreda wrote this.  “We  began the first year of the EAPI in the campus of the Ateneo University on September 15th, 1966, with a group of  37 students from 12 different Asian countries. Average age, late thirties. Most of them bring along some years of missionary experience. To lecture to them is indeed quite challenging. In the final evaluation they were very appreciative for the program offered to them and did enjoyed the rich polyphony of more than 25 different lecturers. They were aware that this was our first experiment and accepted with patience and understanding our lack of proper accommodations.”  

They had the lectures in a class room of Bellarmine Hall, boarding and lodging in different places inside and outside of the Ateneo Campus.

But the men’s dormitory with 45 rooms, would be ready for the next year together with the Faculty House and the rest of the building.

First Year’s grand finale

The first year of the EAPI ended with a really grand finale, namely, The International Study Week on Mission Catechetics and Liturgy held  in Manila, the  last week of April.  

It followed those seminars, previously organized by Fr. Hofinger in Assisi, Nijmegen, Eichstaett, Bangkok and Katigondo. This one, in Manila, was held In the grand auditorium of Loyola House of Studies and gathered more than 150  experts, including  20 bishops, and delegates the Major Pastoral Centers as well as some Protestant observers. Of course, this was a unique opportunity for our small group of first-year’s graduates to be exposed, before going back home, to this array of specialists in the pastoral field, including the venerable Fr. Joseph Jungmann, the mentor and life-long friend of Fr. Hofinger.
 

Miss Teresita Nitorreda joins the staff

When in September of 1966, 37 participants gathered in one of the class-rooms of Bellarmine Hall to listen to Fr. Nebreda in the first EAPI course, Miss Tessie Nitorreda was one of them. In those days the Student Catholic Action was very much alive and Tessie was very well known, loved and respected by the young SCA’s leaders in the various colleges and universities of Manila. At the end of the first  EAPI course, Nebreda convinced her to remain in the staff as his personal assistant. She accepted reluctantly and became a very important figure in the EAPI since its foundation until the year 1990,  she made a distinctive contribution to the development and supervision of many of the activities of the Institute, as well as to the elaboration of the program and the search for competent professors, inside and outside of the Philippines. Her presence and position as a lay woman in the permanent staff, was emblematic of a new era. Aside from being an excellent communicator and administrator, she had special expertise in group dynamics, applied to training people and was recognized in South East Asia as the pioneer of Experiential Methodology, applied to Religious Education.

In the brand-new building

The second year of the EAPI begun on the 15 of September 1967. In some ways one can say that the previous course was somehow experimental. Some would say that the real EAPI thing began rather in this September of 1967, when the new group of 67 participants took possession of their brand new building  These 67 participants came from 14 different nations and belonged to 25 different religious congregations.  27  women  and 40  men. The men had their individual living rooms in the right wing of the new building. The women continued living in nearby convents until their hostels were ready within the campus. But it made a big difference, over the previous year, now that  the auditorium ,  the Library, the dining room, the recreation room and the chapel were  all found in the same building.

What about the early EAPI Program

Obviously, the program of the Institute intended, first of all, to carry forward the vision of the Second Vatican Council, which had just been concluded on December 8, 1965.  

Therefore from the early days of the EAPI, we had courses, workshops and seminars with experts on a variety of pertinent post-Vatican II questions: Scripture, Liturgy, Religions in Asia, cultural anthropology, pastoral sociology, pastoral psychology, linguistics, catechetics, theology of mission, spirituality, visual aids, film, social development, modern philosophy, group dynamics, etc  One of the participants of the early days wrote to one of his friends: “It is indeed a great experience, to discover with our lecturers here the hidden treasures of these brand-new Conciliar documents”. Tessie described the program of those years as “Pastoral Liberal Arts”.

Among the many things worth remembering during this second year of the EAPI, we may just mention two: The blessing of the new EAPI’s buildings and the International Study Week of Medellin (Colombia).

The Blessing

On April 1st, 1968, a few days before the departure of that year 67 participants, arrangements were made for the blessing of the brand-new EAPI buildings .  At 12.00 midday most of the major superiors of the East Asian Assistancy of the Society of Jesus concelebrated in the opening Eucharist. Early in the afternoon, I was sent to Malacañan to fetch the First Lady. Mrs Imelda Romuáldez Marcos . As soon as she arrived, she was greeted by the Apostolic Nuntio and the Provincial, Fr. De la Costa. The program began  with the Philippine National Anthem, followed by the Invocation given by Fr. James Donelan, President of the Ateneo de Manila University, and some words of Welcome by Fr. Alfonso Nebreda, Director de EAPI.  Fr. Horacio de la Costa, Provincial of the Philippine Jesuit Province delighted everybody with some very well crafted closing remarks. By then the First Lady, Mrs Imelda Romuáldez Marcos, escorted now by the Apostolic Nuncio, Carmine Rocco performed the ribbon cutting and the blessing began. A light supper followed to close the day.

EAPI in Medellín

The other important event  in 1968, was the Sixth International Study Week, in which Fr. Hofinger and the EAPI staff were very much involved.  

It began on the 11 of August with a solemn Eucharist in the chapel of the Major Seminary of Medellín and closed on the evening of the 17th with an exciting Open Forum with the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Veillot. Some of the main points we stressed during our position papers and general groups discussions, were approved by the general assembly and incorporated in the Final Conclusions published in a  book entitled Medellin Papers.
 

Exciting Years. The right blending of talents

The third and fourth Regular Courses,  68-69 and 69-70, began as scheduled  on September 15, with 89 participants in 68-69 and 92 in 69-70. These two years will be remembered by some of the original members of the staff as extremely exciting.

First of all, we were overwhelmed by the sheer number of participants, who for the first time fully occupied the brand new facilities of the EAPI. This in itself was very encouraging, and assured us that what we were trying to do trough the different courses, the experimental liturgies, the prayer sessions, the cultural activities, the dynamics for community building, etc., responded somehow to the felt needs of the people sent to us by the various Local Churches of East Asia. In that period of the EAPI history, there was, it seemed, the right blending of talents among the members of the resident staff. For somehow,, they were able to create a warm ambiance of mutual trust and graceful acceptance of one another in such a multinational and multicultural group of people. Fr. Toni Leetai, of very happy memory, contributed a lot to this spirit.

In 68 and 69, the participants represented 21 different nations: (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Borneo, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Ceylon, Pakistan, India, Iraq, New Guinea, Guam, Caroline and Marshall Islands.)

The missioners from abroad were from England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Canada, United States, Mexico and Australia. Altogether they belonged to over 15 different religious Congregations. The Sisters offered an even wider variety of cultures and congregations.
             

Fr Hofinger departs for Latinamerica

The relationships between Fr. Hofinger and Fr.Nebreda were always excellent. But after the Study Week in Medellin, and while working with Fr. Terence Sheridan on the editing of the Medellin Papers, serious conflicts emerged in the publications department under Fr. Hofinger. These internal conflicts,  eventually, led to his departure from the EAPI and from the Philippines in 1969. On the other hand, within the new program design of the EAPI, more directly concerned with the evangelization of non Christian cultures, it was not easy to find the proper place for the program offered by Fr.  Hofinger. Moreover after the experience of the Study Week in Medellin (Colombia ) he  felt the call to put his knowledge and expertise in Catechetics to the service of the Latin-American people. He learned Spanish and  began to work in various places of Latin-America, coming back to the EAPI only once a year     

Timely arrival of Fr. Francis X. Clark

In those early beginnings of the EAPI, there were two very important areas, which so far had not been handled as well as they should: The Library and the finances of the Institute. Fortunately, Fr. Francis Clark, former Provincial of the Philippine Jesuit Province, joined the staff In 1968. Rightaway he took charge of these two areas. Thanks mainly to him, the EAPI had soon a well organized library, while taking care of our finances and of paying in time the debt we had with the Manhattan Chase Bank.  

The so called “Aggiornamento course” begins

Sometime in  February 1969 the Regional Superior of Maryknoll  Missionaries, Fr. Jim Gavin, shared with Fr. Nebreda and myself his concern for the spiritual and pastoral renewal in the light of  Vatican II of all his men working in Taiwan and the Philippines. But since it was impossible for most of them to attend the long Seven Month course, He suggested to reserve the facilities of the EAPI for one month (April 10th to May 10th) for the next two years and asked us to prepare a program of one month for his men. The EAPI academic staff, whose chairman was Ms.T. Nitorreda, prepared the program with three inter-twinning objectives: 1. Spiritual renewal, 2. Theological reflection & 3. Pastoral effectiveness. The very positive feedback given to this program by the Maryknollers, encouraged the staff to continue it for the sake of the many other missionaries who were unable to participate in the long course. And this is how, thanks to the suggestion of Jim Gavin, MM, the famous EAPI Agiornamento courses  began. In the decade 1968 to 1978, 623 missionaries from 32 East Asian and South Pacific Region participated in it.
 
 
 
 

A unique meeting place of the Local Cultures & Churches

While the program of studies was unfolding fairly well, we were made aware that the EAPI was not only a Training Pastoral Center. It has also the potential to become a unique Meeting Place for the Loca Cultures &l Churches of East Asia and the Pacific. In fact nowhere in Asia there were in those days so many representatives from so many different Local Churches who were following as a community of men and women of the Church such an intensive  seven month training program. Such awareness triggered a rich variety of group’s interaction, intercultural activities, pastoral exchanges, oriental prayer exercises , inculturated Eucharistic celebrations, and missionary pastoral research..  
 

The 70’s, a period of consolidation

The early 70’s was a period of consolidation. The original resident staff, in spite of the uncertainties and tensions of the first 4 years, was still in very good health and eager to respond to the many requests addressed to them from inside and outside the Country.

The vision and the mission of the EAPI was by now more clearly defined, thanks to the personality of the Director and his assistants, the team spirit of the men and women of the resident staff and the impressive array of more than 15 visiting professors.

As an Intercultural Coeducational Academic Community,  the EAPI was certainly unique. The exposure to and immersion in such a group was in itself a process of authentic concientization. It sharpened the sensitivity and widened the understanding of social, cultural and political situations, as experienced those days by the participants from Asia and the Pacific. It offered numerous points of reference to evaluate local situations and to discern specific plans of action. It challenged in many subtle ways the quality of our Christian vision and, of course, the degree of one’s personal, psychological maturity. It is useful to remember that the beginnings of the EAPI coincided with the turbulence of the Post-Conciliar era, with the youth revolt of Paris in 68 and with the Cultural Revolution in the China of Mao Tze Tong. Those were exciting but also turbulent days.

No wonder that even within the Church some important people could not fully appreciate what was going on in the EAPI. In fact some of  those in charge of convening and programming, for November 1970, the  Pan-Asian Bishops Conference in Manila had the plan of inserting in the agenda the proposal to establish in Manila a new Pastoral Institute for Asia.

Nebreda handled this first serious crisis very well. He immediately sent a Memorandum to Cardinal Kim of Korea and Cardinal Darmojuvono of Indonesia. And they also felt that there was indeed a need for Pastoral Institutes in many places, but not for two Asian Pastoral Institutes in one place.  

One important highlight of 71: The Hostels

In September, the course began with 84 students, 47 men and 37 women. Some of the highlights of that year ( 71-72 ) were, first of all, the inauguration  of the two beautiful hostels for women, built behind the book service, which now is the Community Room, a short distance away from the main building. For the first time, everyone was on campus and this meant a great difference for the daily routine of lectures, meals and group-activities

                                       

Under the Martial Law

The course 72-73 began when the Philippines was in a very critical political situation. On September 22, 1972 , President Ferdinand Marcos placed the whole nation under Marcial Law. Some of our close friends, like Chino Roces, the publisher of Manila Times, Ninoy Aquino and several prominent Ateneo Alumni were jailed or placed under House arrest . There was much tension among the students and faculty in the Ateneo campus where we live. The Jesuit Scholastics with their superiors spent hours in discernment sessions, to find out the proper ways of protesting against such a violation of Human Rights. Jesuit Scholastics were quite often seen with their soutanes in the streets of Manila, leading antigovernment demonstrations. Paradoxically, this was the year when the EAPI attracted  the largest  group of 92 participants ,  54 men and 38 women,  from 22 different countries.

As you can easily imagine, the declaration of Marcial Law brought some panic to the EAPI. The new regulations for the enrollment of foreign students into the universities of the Philippines were very strict. Were they to be applied to our foreign students, we will be forced to cancel the whole operation of the EAPI. The process to obtain the permit for a foreign student to study in the Philippines was a very time consuming process and very difficult to obtain.

Fortunately some of the members of the staff had some friends who were close to the Malacañan palace. Their advice was to write a letter to President Marcos, explaining our problem and requesting a special permit for the foreign students applying to the EAPI.

With the help of Mrs Marcos (who fondly remembered the EAPI from cutting the ribbon in the opening ceremony) the permission was granted on the 28 of March 1973.

This was an epoch-making permission. Since then our participants got the visa to enter in the Philippines by simply presenting the letter of acceptance into de EAPI. Obviously such a special permit from the office of the President of the Philippines, which facilitated the entrance into the country of all our foreign applicants, was vital to the EAPI, in order to have every year sufficient number of foreign students, attending the program. But it was granted one year after the Declaration of Martial Law and consequently the people of the EAPI had to be particularly careful in any demonstrations against the Government. Anyhow, the long course ( 72-73 ) ran very smoothly and it was closed with a most solemn Easter Vigil celebration moderated by Fr. Juan Mateos, s.j., of Rome’s  Oriental Institute.

Bishops’ Aggiornamento & the Christian Communities Program

In June (1973), we had our first “aggiornamento” for  23 bishops . Soon after that, the Apostolic Nuncio and the President of the CBCP requested from the EAPI to take charge of giving a series of  “the Retreat-Renewal Seminars”  to the Clergy and Bishops of all the dioceses of the  Philippines.  Frs. Nebreda and Parisi , Ms. Nitorreda and myself were in charge of this project. In one year and a half, this EAPI Team addressed 650 priests and close to 30 bishops. Meanwhile, based on the catechetical insights I presented in the International Study Week of Medellin (Colombia), and the Experiential Methodology developed by Ms. Nitorreda, and in collaboration with Srs. Angie Villanueva, rc; Teresita Fiel, rgs, Julma Neo, dc; Andy Collantes. osb. and Toni Cruzada, the EAPI produced   the Christian Communities Program. This program became very popular and was soon introduced in several dioceses of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. In those days the Theology and Methodology of what we called Environmental, Experiential and Communitarian Catechesis was an important unit of the EAPI program.

                                      

The Central Board  

It was around this time, 73 to 74  that the resident Staff began to evolve into a mini “ecclesial community”, with some representatives of the diocesan clergy, some members of the laity and members of different religious Congregations. Special mention should be made here of Fr. John O’Regan, OMI, Bob Mc Kee, H.C., Desmond Crowe FMM, Joseph Castellino and Srs. Idmara SSpS, Sr. Victorina de la Paz, scmm, Sr Diosdada, RVM and Victoria Faicol, to mention just a few.  Eventually the experience of this multicultural, inter-congregational ecclesial community, suggested the creation of the EAPI Central Board. Several factors were at work in the genesis of this rather novel administrative structure. The insistence of the Vatican Council on co-responsibility in apostolic leadership was one. Also some of the members of the resident staff, who already had several years of experience with such an international and inter-Congregational group, felt the need of having within the resident staff, a policy-making body with decision-making power to be called the Central Board. The members of the Central Board were to be elected by the resident staff. And they must include, not only Jesuits but also men and women from other congregations and from the laity. In the mind of experienced administrators, the attempt to give to  such a mixed group the responsibility for the proper functioning of such a complex project as the EAPI, was a dream. On the other hand, to prepare the way to the future it was felt in those days after the Council the urgent need to foster Subsidiarity, Co-responsibility and Collaboration within the Church. And the EAPI seemed to be a right place to expose the participants to a model of administrative structure, where men and women of the laity and of different Religious Congregations are made responsible of a common apostolic  work.

Some of the Bishops and Major Superiors in their visit to the EAPI were appreciative of such a model of administration, because they could see that, with the shortage of vocations, more inter-Congregational groups will have to work together among themselves and with the clergy and the Laity, in response to the new challenges of the Church. In hind sight there was something “prophetic” in that peculiar administrative structure of EAPI Central Board. It worked quite well for about four years.  
 

Towards the first Ten Years Anniversary

We were now approaching the first ten years anniversary of the EAPI. We have the records of participants, faithfully kept by Ms. Faicol, the famous head of the EAPI secretariat for the first 32 years. During the first ten years, a total of 759 participants have attended the regular 7 month course, 575 the one month aggiornamento and 929 the special courses given in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.  

Looking back to the past 9 years we felt grateful that the original mission of the EAPI, namely the renewal of the Local Churches of East Asia and the Pacific in the spirit of the II Vatican Council, was, by the Grace of God, quite successful and far beyond our early expectations. For example, in spite of some negative incidents, we felt widely accepted by most of the Bishops and Religious Major Superiors, inside and outside of the Philippines. In Fact, it was around this time that Fr. Nebreda and myself were invited to give, in the Major Seminary of Sydney, a one week course to the joint Bishops Conferences of Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific .

Also a good number of our Alumni and Alumnae were in positions to share with others what they have learned and experienced in the EAPI. In 1975, 48 of them were Masters or Mistresses of Novices and Juniors; 39 were Local Superiors; 38 were Diocesan Directors of Religious Education; 35 Staff members in Pastoral Institutes or Formation programs; 35 Heads of Schools; 30 Provincials or Regional Superiors; 12 Rectors of seminaries; 12 Chancellors or Vicar Generals; 11 Generals and Assistant Generals. The above figures were taken from the Annual Report sent by Fr. Nebreda to the Jesuit Major Superiors of East Asia

I wish I could finish my story  right here, in May 75. But In July 10th 1975, due to a decision made by the Central Board regarding a Jesuit of the staff, the chairman of the Conference of major Superior, Fr. Bernard Chu, wrote to Fr. Nebreda, saying that the Conference of Major Superiors wanted to be more directly involved with the EAPI. Their involvement was not so much focused on evaluating the past, but on finding ways on how to replace and renew the present staff,  and how to respond to the needs of the future.  Actually this decision  of the Major Superiors as we were approaching the first ten year’s anniversary, was very timely and providential. Those of us who have been involved in the origins of the Institute for ten consecutive years without a break, were exhausted and needed urgently to be given a rest and an opportunity for personal and professional renewal.

The new Beginnings

The first good news was that the Viêtcông had expelled two talented men  from Vietnam, and were now ready to join in 1976  the ranks of the EAPI resident staff. Felipe Gómez and Roger Champoux. Excellent acquisitions as you know. Then the search for the new director had begun and after one year of searching in different directions, finally in his letter for Christmas of 1977, Nebreda could write: “The long search has ended to the satisfaction of everyone. The new director is a much appreciated theologian in Japan and is well known in other parts of Asia. Here in the EAPI we have made it clear to the superiors that he was our favorite candidate, and are therefore delighted with the choice.” His name you know: Adolfo Nicolás, the pioneer of new beginnings…

PANAJI, India (UCAN) – Hundreds of people, including Hindus, attended the funeral of a Jesuit priest who promoted Konkani, the official language of the western Indian state of Goa.

Father Matthew Almeida died on Feb. 18, 10 days after a fall that injured his spine and abdomen. He was 73.

Archbishop Felipe Neri Ferrao of Goa and Daman led the funeral services on Feb. 19 at the Holy Cross Church in Porvorim, near the state capital of Panaji.

Spokesperson of Goa and Daman archdiocese, Father Francis Caldeira, termed Father Almeida’s death as a loss to the Konkani movement.

“Through his works, Father Almeida popularized Konkani not only in Goa but also overseas,” he said.

A press statement from the archbishop’s house on Feb. 19 described Father Almeida as a Konkani movement stalwart whose expertise greatly contributed to the development and promotion of the mother tongue of Goans.

Tomazinho Cardozo, former speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly, said the state lost “a doyen of Konkani.” He noted the deceased priest spearheaded a movement to popularize the state’s official language.

Some Hindus at the funeral also commended the Jesuit priest’s contribution to the language, generally associated with Goa’s Catholics. Some groups had tried to promote Marathi, the language of neighboring Maharashtra state, among Goa’s Hindus.

Shilpa Salvi, a Hindu researcher of the Konkani language, said Father Almeida was “a dedicated researcher.” Netra Veluskar, another Hindu, said the Jesuit priest was her guide for master’s degree and had instilled confidence in her.

Father Almeida wrote 13 books and co-founded the Thomas Stephen’s Konkani Kendr (center), or TSKK, a Jesuit institute to promote the language. Originally set up to teach Konkani to Jesuit seminarians, it later took in other students.

For the past one year, Father Almeida had been working on an English-Konkani dictionary. His works include two best-selling books, “A description of Konkani,” published in 1989, and “Konkani Course in Roman Script” in 2007.

TSKK director Father Pratap Naik said scholars from around the world are now trying to get hold of the first book, while common people are interested in the second one, to help them learn the language.

Ash Wednesday, 25 February, marks the tenth anniversary of Sacred Space, the online prayer website set up by the Jesuit Communication Centre in Leeson Street. It has been a phenomenal success. Today it is available in nearly twenty different languages, and up to 20,000 unique visitors come to the site every weekday. In more recent years it has extended beyond its core purpose of guiding visitors step-by-step through prayer and reflection; it now also offers scripture commentaries, e-mail greeting cards, novenas and podcasts – all “very much in line with the Jesuit approach to prayer,” according to Piaras Jackson SJ, director of the site, “…helping people find engaging and imaginative connections with the gospel”. The Jesuit community in Leeson Street marked the birthday with a lunch-time party on Tuesday – the feast before the fast.

TAIPEI (UCAN) – Catholic exhibitors at an international book fair in Taiwan not only displayed religious literature but also introduced a TV series and an interreligious documentary to highlight aspects of the local Church’s work.

Jesuit-run cultural organizations, the Taipei Ricci Institute and “Renlai Monthly,” were two of at least seven Catholic exhibitors who took part in the Feb. 4-9 Taipei International Book Fair.
The annual fair, one of the largest in Asia, attracted 906 local and overseas exhibitors and drew 500,000 visitors this year.

In addition to exhibiting Catholic publications, the Jesuit organizations screened a 52-minute documentary, “On the Fifth Day, the Sea Tide Rose,” produced by the “Renlai” team.”Renlai” is a Chinese-language monthly on social, cultural and spiritual issues founded by the Taipei Ricci Institute.

The documentary, broadcast on two local public TV stations earlier, portrays the interaction between Christianity and the ancestral beliefs of the Amis indigenous people in a village in eastern Hualian county.

On Feb. 8 at these booths, American Jesuit Father Jerry Martinson, vice director of the Jesuit-run Kuangchi Program Service, which produces Catholic multimedia programs, introduced a TV series he hosted for a charitable fund.

The series focused on the heroic efforts of 12 people in overcoming adversity. One of them is Taiwan’s Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi who shares his struggle against cancer and the spiritual lessons he has learned as a result.

The episodes come in the form of video compact discs, and were sold together with a book on the series.

According to Nakao Eki, deputy editor of “Renlai,” some teachers, after browsing copies of the magazine, showed interest in using it for lessons.

Some university students also said they were impressed by the diverse topics it touched on while more elderly readers appreciated its coverage of cultural and social issues, she added.

Jesuit Father Benoit Vermander, academic director of Taipei Ricci Institute, said more than 10,000 people, mostly non-Catholics, visited the three Jesuit booths.

Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei, president of the Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference in Taiwan, also visited the exhibition, including the booths of organizations from other religions. He sent copies of the Chinese version of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” to these exhibitors as a gift.

In addition to displaying their products, Catholic exhibitors provided information on the Year of Saint Paul and the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Catholicism in Taiwan, which falls this year. They also promoted an online Catholic bookstore (http://books.catholic.tw/tw/) which gives information on seven Chinese Catholic publishers.