EVERYBODY'S CHALLENGE - Jesuit Refugee Service | USA

Put simply, JRS is a network of projects and services that rely
on the Ignatian spirit and which are promoted and supported by
the Jesuit Order, centrally and through its various institutions. Our
workers underline the importance of presence. To be a refugee is a
spiritual condition. When one is rejected, driven from home, has lost
family, social identity, possessions, future, even perhaps a limb, it
means a great deal that other persons come from outside and stay
in the camps. We come to listen, to foster initiatives, to promote
organisation – in short, to offer a source of hope. We believe in the
refugees. To let them know this in some practical way is to change
their lives.
In February 1990, Fr Kolvenbach extended the call to be concerned
for refugees to every Jesuit. He believed the response of Jesuits
to the Refugee Service had already been magnificent, and added: The
Society’s universality, our mobility, and above all our apostolic availability
are the qualities rooted in our tradition which should help us to meet the
challenges offered by the refugee crisis of our time. The response to this
new call has been outstanding.
The vision and structure of the Society of Jesus are indeed well
geared to the world-wide refugee problem. Jesuit formation aims
to develop a sensitivity to human needs, the ability to assess the
degree of urgency, and flexibility to act as needed. The Society’s
local units have authority to take decisions, while remaining in
constant communication with the centre in Rome. In each region,
Jesuit institutions have collaborators who share their ideals and
orientation. Because of this, JRS has been able to develop in its first
10 years a world-wide infrastructure.
Action required
Any human person is suited to answer the call of another person
in need. But where the problem is great, community action is
more effective than individual response. JRS seeks to collaborate
with groups committed to the preferential option for the poor, and who
are sufficiently organised to make practical co-operation feasible.
World-wide networks such as those of the Christian Life Communities
and Jesuit Alumni Associations share the Ignatian spirit, but
need to develop definite local or national structures to be of use to
JRS in a corporate sense. Christian groups can promote practical
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