Just weeks short of his 100th birthday, Fr Geoffrey Schneider SJ was declared the world’s oldest teacher by Guinness World Records.
Fr Schneider, who was born on December 23, 1912, is the first Jesuit in the Australian Province’s 164-year history to reach the age of 100. He has taught in schools in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and has spent the last 47 years at St Aloysius College in Sydney.
Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiolá, the new Jesuit secondary school in Timor Leste, is on track to open as scheduled on January 15, with its first batch of students in Year 7.
On December 15, 79 boys and girls were informed they were successful in their application to the school. They had undergone a three-stage selection process that began in August.
The Conference team is expanding and strengthening. Consultations between the President and Provincials over several months have resulted in the missioning of Jesuits from various Provinces to core positions in the Conference. This generosity of spirit will greatly help the Conference to keep the Society in Asia Pacific oriented towards the service of faith and the promotion of justice.
The appointments announced by Conference President Fr Mark Raper SJ in December are:
From September 23 to 25, 2012, 340 delegates from 10 Jesuit schools converged in Zamboanga City to participate in the 2nd Jesuit Basic Education Congress and join Ateneo de Zamboanga University in celebrating its centennial year.
A funding pitfall in education for the Burmese refugees along the Thai border may negatively affect their preparedness to go home.
The focus of the international donor community is shifting from the camps towards Burma, and a lack of sufficient resources has forced many organisations working in the camps, such as Jesuit Refugee Service, to make cutbacks to critical programmes like schooling.
At the International Colloquium on Jesuit Secondary Education in Boston, Fr Danny Huang SJ, Regional Assistant for Asia Pacific, posed 10 points of reflection from the Procurates, that he said would be useful to discuss in Jesuit schools, Provinces and Regions.
1. Apostolic instruments
Do we understand ourselves and function as apostolic missions? How?
Students from five countries in Asia Pacific gathered in the Philippines in July for a reflective and experiential forum designed to give them an understanding of what it means to be Ignatian leaders.
After a year in borrowed space at St Mary’s Parish and grammar school, Yap Catholic High School (YCHS) opened its new campus with a celebratory mass on August 19. About 300 people made their way to Lamar for the official opening celebration.
Father John Hagileiram SJ, Regional Superior of the Jesuits in Micronesia, presided at a Mass of Thanksgiving. “This is a historic day,” he reminded the congregation, “on which we should all be proud of what we have achieved together with God’s help.”
Fr Jeremy Clarke SJ, an Australian Jesuit and assistant professor of history at Boston College in the United States, has launched Beyond Ricci, www.bc.edu/beyondricci, a searchable website that provides scholars and researchers access to books containing historical narratives, maps, correspondence and musical compositions in five languages that depict life in China in early modern
Students and teachers from Jesuit and Partner Schools across Australia took part in a Timor Leste Immersion over the school holidays in July. A group of 16 students from eight schools, with three teachers, participated in the programme. Stella Korlaki, a teacher at Xavier Catholic College in Hervey Bay, describes their experience.
We arrived in Darwin in two different groups. Little did we know that we would develop close and supportive friendships through our shared encounters in East Timor.