Invited to collaborate
2. THE DIMENSION OF JUSTICE IN THE SOCIETY The state of the justice dimension in the Society took up a major part of the questionnaire which we sent to the Provinces, and we later dedicated a great deal of time, in the Coordinators’ meeting, to reflecting and discerning with regard to the responses received. In this section we present the information gathered and some of the reflections that arose from our subsequent dialogue. We have organized it as follows: first, we will focus on the justice dimension; we will then examine the specific situation of the Social Apostolate; and we will end by referring to the challenges that this situation presents to us.
2.1. Our commitment to the promotion of justice We have detected three aspects to review with regard to the promotion of justice as a dimension: a growing sensitivity in the Society to the promotion of justice, the difficulty of transforming our rhetoric into works of justice, and the need to reach a deeper understanding of the meaning of the term “justice” for us Jesuits.
Growing sensitivity in the Society to the promotion of justice This fact is reported in all the Conferences, although not with the same force in all. This is certainly good news: the promotion of justice is in large measure readily assumed to be part of the Society’s mission, something that was not so extensively recognized in the past. While in earlier times there was opposition and latent conflict between those dedicated to the Social Apostolate and those working in more traditional ministries, this has given way now to a growing sentiment of mutual appreciation, affection and companionship. This tendency is confirmed by the fact that nowadays most of the Society’s institutions desire to demonstrate their commitment to social justice. Some undertake this commitment in a systematic way, while others do so according to the occasions and opportunities that offer themselves.
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