European Association of Jesuit Alumni/ae
Working for others
"En Todo Amar Y
Servir"
Presidents' Conference, Madrid, 19-21 October 2006
Minutes - Suggestions for Action Plan
Report by the President
The October 2006 meeting of the Presidents’ Committee of the European Confederation in MADRID (Spain)
The European Confederation President Committee met the last weekend in Madrid (Spain) with the participants of Vth National Congress of the Spanish Federation : from Friday October 19 till Sunday October 21, these were three days full of work and meetings with our Spanish friends because our group had been invited to participate in their Congress while foreseeing for it four internal specific working sessions.
It was a big "first" event for our European group – which is composed essentially by the national Federation Presidents of 13 European countries along with their Jesuit spiritual counsellors* - to go and meet a national member Federation, especially that of Spain. Following a suggestion from its President, Gonçal Fabregas Alegret, the decision had been taken at the end of our 2006 first meeting, in Namur-Brussels, last March. The Congress theme (“the alumni social commitment : solidarity and testimony”) was consistent with one of our current preoccupations, which had been already strongly expressed in our action chart elaborated by our group, en todo Amar y Servir, which, since its approval at the Gent meeting (in Belgium) in October, 2000, has since become the European Confederation’s reference text.
We especially enjoyed the fact that our Spanish friends have chosen this topic ; and also, made the choice of a Jesuit and two laymen to deal with; we knew that the Jesuit Ntra. Sra. del Recuerdo High School (in Madrid) who welcomed the Congress was pioneering to establishing an educative social program bound for the pupils : through these three outstanding presentations, we had it clearly confirmed.
Great was also our joy to discover that so many Spanish young attended this Congress, coming from Barcelona, from Gijon, of course from Madrid and from other cities of Spain (which counts in Europe the biggest number of Jesuit high schools and institutions and, therefore, of alumni associations).
The local organizer association, « la Asociación de antiguos alumnos de los colegios de Nuestra Señora del Recuerdo y de la Inmaculada de Areneros”, that of Madrid chaired by Rafaël Serano, also allowed us to discover the University of Alcala de Hénares, located at some tens of kms east of Madrid, the Cervantès's native town, where Saint Ignatius has been studying a little while, before going on his universitary studies in those of Salamanca and Paris : particularly, moving for us was the visit paid to his kitchen-room in a home centre, as was also that of the university buildings and its lecture rooms. Common times of conviviality with our Spanish friends also enjoyed a lot our stay in Madrid.
On the agenda of our specific working sessions, we had put two topics to work : first, following the Namur-Brussels meeting, we had to establish the guidelines of the European Confederation programme for the incoming years (the executive board elected in the Lisbon Congress, in July 2005, having been mandated for a 3 years period (2006-2008): a draft was distributed during the first session, in which had been listed a set of actions related to the main current European Confederation concerns, i.e. its internal and external communication, the presence of the young inside its structure and the activities to be proposed to them, its solidarity action, the alumni commitment in the educative field carried out by the Jesuit high schools and universities, the European political construction (we have again discussed about a topic which is cheerfully favoured by some of them, that of the mentioning of the Christian roots of Europe in the future Constitution of the new Europe which is still in a building-up process), the collaboration with the Society of Jesus; and, secondly, we also had to start to preparing a specific message of the European Confederation to be sent to the Society of Jesus in the prospect of its next General Congregation foreseen in January 2008. Father Pierre Salembier s.j. as the Jesuit spiritual European counsellor was fortunately attending our meeting : he reminded us very conveniently that we had, as Jesuit alumni, some points to be addressed by us to the Society of Jesus, to be proposed also, since our action aims have already been clearly defined in the European chart, “en Todo”. Our group exchanged a lot on this topic, which will doubtless allow us to elaborate a specific message in the next months; finally, we were happy to know that four of our members will be present in Miami to celebrate early November the 50th anniversary of the World Union with responsibles of other continents and, of course, with Father Salembier, who is also the World Union Father General’s Delegate : Being present in Miami on this special event, sure, our European representatives will remember that we are the heirs of Pietro Addonino, Théo Lombard, Enzo Sala and many other great alumni personalities, who were the founders of the Jesuit alumni European Confederation and World Union ; no doubt that they will be very keen to bring their testimony, their convictions, their experience for a better service of the worldwide Jesuit alumni action.
In Madrid, we often heard quoting the principle of subsidiarity as the
benchmark for an appropriate action from the European Confederation ; it seems
that this principle has become very useful to shred light the way each of the
existing associative structures has to go, each of them working at one out of
these four levels : local, national, European, worldwide ; we have also under
way a revision of the European Confederation statutes to put them in
compliance with the new provisions of the Belgian law concerning international
associations. And, at the end of our working sessions, we agreed to meet
ourselves for our first 2007 meeting, if possible with more young people, in
Paris, on the first weekend of March, where we’ll foresee a more consequent
spiritual time before and in the end of our meeting : and this, to become,
each of the members of our European committee, even more " friends in the Lord
" with the aim of better fulfilling the mission which falls to us as
Ignatian-inspired lay: in Madrid, our group has again confirmed its great wish
to remain closely linked to the Society of Jesus, as it is clearly asserted in
the “en Todo” chart (§ 2.3) ; and as a conclusion, I express the wish that
every associative responsible from all our respective countries, read again
our common chart, as our group did it in its Namur-Brussels and Madrid
meetings, in order to make it their own reference text and, thus, to be able
to communicate to their alumni members, friends and collaborators, both its
letter and spirit, so that all of us, as European Jesuit alumni/ae, we’ll be
able to be convergent in our inspiration and future AMDG action !
Eric de Langsdorff
President
October 29th, 2006
National Federations or Association members of the European Confederation: Germany, Austria, North Belgium, South Belgium, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland (Gdynia's association), Portugal, Spain.