Communicating the mission of the Society of Jesus amidst a looming pandemic
Communication directors from the six Jesuit Conferences for the first time met virtually on October 12-16. The sessions were held for 3 hours every day, and were tailor-made into presentations, break out sessions, and prayer. Usually, the annual meetings take place in the General Curia in Rome, but due to the current global health emergency and crisis, this was not possible.
Despite the challenges the looming Covid-19 pandemic has brought forth, the meeting was a success, as participants were able to hold the sessions which mostly involve sharing of ideas and strategising on ways to collaborate more and network at the conference level through presentations, and group sessions. This year the virtual meeting focused on Ignatian Year plans, vocations promotion, reflecting on where we at on the implementation of the Universal Apostolic Preferences and making guidelines for how our respective communications offices can assist in their implementation and action plans for better collaboration/networking between Curia, and Province-Conference Communications offices.
From the Conference, those who attended are: Tiffany Carolina Trejo Durán CPAL - Latin America; Anastasia Makunu, JCAM - Africa; Ria Limjap, JCAP - Asia-Pacific; Vanessa Gorra, JCAP - Asia-Pacific Michael Jordan Laskey, JCCU - Canada-USA; Eric Clayton, JCCU - Canada-USA; Philip Debruyne SJ, JCEP - Europe; Herminio Rico, JCEP - Europe; and Siji Chacko Noorokariyil SJ, JCSA - South Asia. The team was also joined by the communications team in Rome namely: Robert Ballecer SJ; Pierre Bélanger SJ; Pascal Calu SJ; Mikołaj Cempla; John Dardis SJ; Stefano Maero; Mikel Muñoz; Caterina Talloru; and Luca Pirola.
The most outstanding moment, however, is always when Father General graces the annual meetings to address this team that ensures information is distributed across regions and globally, informing, creating awareness, and engaging audiences that are, or have become part of the Jesuit mission. Unfortunately this year, this was not possible. However, this team has created working groups to ensure all the key objectives and action points from the meeting are attained to further advance the mission of the Society.
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