The two-week programme brought together thirteen Jesuits in formation and three religious sisters from diverse national origins and ministry contexts, many of whom have engaged in work with Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) or other Jesuit social ministries.
You can watch a short video about the event on the Jesuits in Britain YouTube channel here or by clicking the video link below.
The course was led by Sister Maryanne Loughry RSM (PhD), Fr Rampe Hlobo SJ, Professor Lisa Sowle Cahill, Nacho Eguizábal, and Fr Gregoire Catta SJ. It aimed to provide a formative experience for Jesuits and their partners in accompanying, serving, and advocating for forcibly displaced people.
Participants explored the global situation of forced displacement through social scientific insights, theological reflection on the Church’s response, Ignatian spirituality, and Catholic social teaching.
Dr Hiba Salem, Pedro Arrupe Research Fellow in Forced Migration Studies, said: “What I've loved about the Pedro Arrupe Summer School is that it really brings people [together] who have been actually very much embedded in their communities for a long time from different contexts in the world.”
The curriculum covered topics such as the drivers of displacement, international protection frameworks including the Global Compact on Refugees and Migration, and barriers to protection within national policies. Participants engaged with lectures, group discussions, presentations, films, and excursions. The programme included expertise from JRS leaders, Jesuit scholars at Campion Hall, the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre, Boston College faculty, and Jesuit universities worldwide.
Fr Marco Tulio Gómez SJ, Director of Fe y Alegría Panama, said: “In Panama, right now, we are serving a group of deportees from the United States—none of them is from Latin America. They come from countries in Asia and Africa. So, it gives us a sense, not only of globality, but of how necessary it is to instil human dignity. You know, we're all created equal. We're all children of God. So for me, it's important to bring all that together, and also to inform and communicate, because there are good news, also, of things that Jesuits are doing in the world.”
Dr Maryanne Loughry RSM, Associate Director of Jesuit Refugee Service Australia and Research Professor at Boston College, said: “The Summer School in Enforced Migration has enabled many of the JRS people to come here to Campion Hall... to live here and study, looking at how we work pastorally, how we are with the refugees, the knowledge we bring from the field to the study, so it's not just purely academic, but we bring it with a sense of knowing some of the populations and having ourselves being transformed by that experience of working in some very harsh settings.”
The international makeup of participants provided a rich exchange of experiences and challenges. On successful completion of the course, including a final reflection paper, participants received a certificate from Campion Hall and JRS.
The Pedro Arrupe Summer School forms part of Campion Hall’s Jesuit commitment to justice and solidarity with forcibly displaced persons worldwide, in partnership with JRS and Boston College. They also offer a Research Fellow in Forced Migration Studies. Read more about this year’s summer school here.
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