“This means preparing students and their families to identify first and primary as members of the human family with a common responsibility for the entire world…” (Global Identifier #3, Global Citizenship, A Living Tradition, #179).
Pope Francis often argues that “we are not living an era of change but a change of era.” (Speech at the Decennial National Conference of the Italian Church, 2015). This new era requires an education that can respond to this new context. This is the reason why the Pope has insistently called for a new global compact on education that can prepare the new generations for this new era. The UNESCO in 2021 also made a similar call. It proposed a new social contract for education so that we can “reimage our futures together.” Both the Pope and UNESCO invite us to recognize that we live in a world that has indeed become the common home for all humanity. This new reality requires the exercise of a common responsibility for our planet and for all humanity. As Fr. General Arturo Sosa explained, there is the need to recognize the “radical brotherhood” that unites us all (JESEDU-Rio 2017). In this sense, Jesuit Education, faithful to its living tradition must also respond to this new challenge:
“We should be able to put together educational programs that help us to think and act locally and globally, without dichotomies between the two dimensions, moving towards interculturality while understanding the cultural, social and religious diversity of our world as something enriching, without losing our Christian and Ignatian identity.” (Fr. Sosa, JESEDU-Rio 2017).
Important steps have been made as a response to this new era of interconnectedness and interdependence:
(1) The recent official document on Jesuit Education, A Living Tradition (2019), proposes the global identifier #3: “Jesuit schools should be committed to global citizenship.” This identifier calls our schools to prepare “students and their families to identify first and primary as members of the human family with a common responsibility for the entire world rather than just members of a particular nation or group.” (#179) This means a new sense of solidarity that goes beyond the traditional solidarity to neighbor and nation. It really means to be able to recognize all other humans as siblings. In our divided and polarized world this is a huge challenge… However, as the document states “Our Ignatian vision allows us to find God in all things and to set the world aflame with the warmth and light of God’s saving love.” (#180) From an Ignatian perspective global citizenship is a concept that allows us to really live the radicality of the love of God and neighbor that is offered by Jesus in the Gospel. In our educational tradition “preparing students… to be global citizens is to prepare them to truly see God in all things, to be driven by compassion, and to utilize the power of religion for justice and peace.” (#180).
(2) The Worldwide Secretariat for Education led a taskforce to reflect on the topic of preparing students for global citizenship. As a result, the taskforce offered a general framework for our schools: Global Citizenship: An Ignatian Perspective – Global Citizen: A True Companion of all Humanity and Creation. The taskforce offers an inspiring definition of a global citizen:
Global Citizens are those who continuously seek to deepen their awareness of their place and responsibility, both locally and globally, in an increasingly interconnected world; those who stand in solidarity with others in the pursuit of a sustainable earth and a more humane world as true companions in the mission of reconciliation and justice.
This definition of global citizenship is consistent with our educational tradition that calls us to be always attentive to “times, places and people” and respond accordingly. As the Ignatian Pedagogy document (1993) advises, we always need to consider the context so that our education can really respond to reality. Our historic context, as we have seen, requires us today to respond to the reality of a new era of humanity in which we realize the interconnectedness of our lives. The enormous challenges of climate change, the pandemic and immigration, to name just a few, make clear this new reality.
As A Living Tradition affirms, Ignatian spirituality invites us to find God in all things. Today the concept of global citizenship allows us to find God at the core of the struggle of our era: a struggle for peace and reconciliation within humanity, with Creation and with God. This struggle brings new meaning and centrality to the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel. The Good Samaritan is able to recognize a stranger as his fellow human being. In this sense, the Good Samaritan is the stranger who is a stranger no longer… he is the person who realizes our common humanity and the need to build a solidarity beyond our small community of reference.
50 years ago, Fr. Pedro Arrupe SJ invited the Jesuit alumni to become “person for others” like Jesus the true person for others. Today this invitation is more relevant than ever. The person for others is the global citizen that accepts the responsibility for all humanity. Moreover, Fr. General Arturo Sosa has called us to extend the meaning of persons for others to all creation:
Today, then, the person for and with others must also be a person for and with creation. A person for and with others is a person who discovers the face of God in everything created. Pope Francis took his name from that man, Francis of Assisi, who knew how to discover in the sun and the moon, in the wolf and the lamb, his brothers and sisters. The invitation is therefore to become people for and with other human beings and all creation. Just as we can no longer be without others, so we can no longer be without a more harmonious relationship with creation. (Jesuit alumni invited to be partners in the mission of reconciliation and justice in today’s world, Barcelona, 2022)
A global citizen must also discover God in all Creation as St. Francis of Assisi did in his time. Today in the context of global warming and climate change there is a sense of urgency to do this that cannot be ignored in education. Quality education today means also to prepare the new generations to replace the depredatory attitude of the past for one of solidarity and harmony with all creation. As Pope Francis affirms, Mother Earth “cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsiblGlobal Ce use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.” (LS 2)
Pope Francis has made clear in Fratelli Tutti that “[t]o care for the world in which we live means to care for ourselves. Yet we need to think of ourselves more and more as a single-family dwelling in a common home.” (FT 17) Fr. General Sosa explains (Barcelona 2022): this ‘single family’ does not refer to a closed group of friends or self-referential groups but to an expanding ‘single-family’ that comes to embrace everyone and that in the international context implies accepting the common destiny that we all share as humanity: “the ever-increasing number of interconnections and communications in today’s world makes us powerfully aware of the unity and common destiny of the nations.” (FT 96)
Ignatian pedagogy and spirituality should help us to respond to the change of era and hear the cries of our time: a cry for meaning and God, a cry of the marginalized, a cry of the young generations and the cry of creation. The four Universal Apostolic Preferences are an invitation to continue discovering God in all these cries and respond with generosity knowing that God is laboring in the world and helping us to build a new earth and new heaven.
Pope Francis has reminded us in Laudato Sì that the ecological and social crises should not be separated but understood as “one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (LS 139). Educating for Global Citizenship will help us to meaningfully contribute to be part of the solution and find God in all things!
