Jesuit Higher Education, Religious Diversity and Secularization (JHERDS) is a project focused on the promotion of Jesuit spirituality/Pedagogy/Values in Jesuit Universities all over the world. It departs from the reality that many faculty, staff and students of IAJU Centers are not Christian but can share in fullness our Jesuit inspiration.
History
JHERDS started with an online Congress organized by ESADE Business and Law School in July 2020. The Pandemic did not prevent the steering Committee (Dorian Llywelyn SJ, Teo Mellén and Pep Mària SJ) from gathering around 40 scholars from different Jesuit Universities to gather during 3 days (in three time slots: The Americas, Africa and Europe; Asia) in order to discuss and define the subjects and objectives of our project.
Between September 2020 and July 2022 JHERDS Members met online to share practices of each IAJU center in the fields of teaching theologies, Identity&Mission, and Campus Life&Ministries.
In July 2022 JHERDS met at ESADE (Barcelona) for a face-to-face Workshop. Around 30 scholars from IAJU (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia) gathered to share communications, to visit Manresa and Montserrat, and to further discuss the focus of our project. Fr Joseph Christie inaugurated the workshop and provided orientation to our Project. Fr Garanzini’s support was highly valuable.
In august 2022 Fr Pep Mària presented JHERDs and its activities in the IAJU assembly at Boston College.
Present activity
Since September 2022 the number of members of JHERDS has expanded thanks to the support of Fr. Garanzini, Fr. Christie and of the Presidents of the Jesuit Universities of the six Jesuit Conferences (North America, Latin America, Africa and Madagascar, Europe, SE Asia, Asia-Pacific).
JHERDS members gather in two kinds of activities online
a) Plenary sessions- Presentation of approaches or theoretical proposals by one member of the Project. 60 minutes.
b) JHERDS Cafés – Presentation of the activities of an IAJU Center linked to JHERDS. 45’.
