GIAN: Global Collaboration through Advocacy.

While Father General and his extended Council devoted a week of work to the theme of collaboration in the Society, the Secretariat for Social Justice and Ecology published a networking document that shows its strong involvement in this process, forming and supporting networks at the Province, Conference and international levels.

In fact, in a letter dated May 26 “To the whole Society,” Fr. Arturo Sosa affirms that “in today’s globalized context, we are faced with the need to act as a universal body with a global mission, capable of integrating the diversity and uniqueness of the contexts, cultures, times and peoples in which we live and work. Collaboration and networking offer richness, solidarity and a challenging opportunity for our engagement in today’s complex and changing socio-economic, political and religious situations. Therefore, the urgency of discerning together the appropriate apostolic structures to achieve the ambitious apostolic goals we have set for ourselves is evident.”

One of the paths already tested since 2008 is that of GIAN: the Global Ignatian Advocacy Network. Father General reiterates that this network advocates for the poor and vulnerable with the goal of making their voices heard. It seeks to concretely implement the Universal Apostolic Preferences and efforts “to see all things new in Christ” in the spirit of the Ignatian Year.

For this reason, the Secretariat for Social Justice and Ecology has just published a “Governance Document”, an orientation document that presents what the GIAN is, its vision, how the Society can play an advocacy role in favor of the necessary social transformation and how its “Ignatian” way of proceeding gives a particular color to its interventions. This text will be particularly useful for those, Jesuits and lay, who are involved in the work of the social apostolate and who seek to give their commitment a dimension beyond their local or regional context.

GIAN is an excellent example of a Jesuit network that, without substituting itself for the Society’s ordinary structures – those of the central government, Conferences and Provinces – offers “added value” by opening avenues of collaboration that go beyond these structures and allow the Society to engage in truly global issues.

This post was originally posted at the SJES website