From the Principal
Throughout the last few weeks of this term, the College has been privileged to host international visitors from Japan and Italy. The timing of our visitors from Japan coincided with John XXIII Day, enabling our visiting students the opportunity to share their culture through dance during the Secondary School Variety Concert. The enthusiastic, effusive response from the audience as our visitors finished their performance highlighted the importance of global connection and how highly valued this connection is for our students and staff. During the Principal’s Lunches with Year 12 students, travelling the world is often woven into discussions about students’ hopes and dreams. The keen sense to embrace different cultural experiences is very real to many of our students.
Learning about different cultures is enriched through relationships, and the infusion of our Japanese and Italian visitors into our community, even for a short time, has strengthened relationships and cultural understanding.
Deepening understanding of different cultures can occur outside of formal cultural exchange programs of course. Recently, our students and staff were privileged to hear from Sr Jwan Kada ibvm who visited the College from Sydney. Sr Jwan is a former refugee from Baghdad, Iraq and a passionate educational leader and strong advocate for social justice, especially for those communities whose voices are unheard. Jwan recently spent two months in Kolkata, India, working on projects to educate and empower children and women caught in trafficking and poverty. The engagement between Jwan and our students deepened relationships and served as an important opportunity to better understand the plight of communities in so much need. Thinking of ‘the other’ and better understanding why the funds raised during John XXIII Day are so needed, proved to be powerful learning opportunities.
Finally, and a little surprisingly, our global connection has even extended to the Vatican recently where our College was referenced by the Vatican Journalist Christopher White, in an article published on the feast of St Ignatius.
During a July 16 lecture at John XXIII College in Perth, Australia, Jesuit Fr. Frank Brennan expressed "fatigue and frustration" following the pope's interview and the decision to relegate the question of women deacons to the Vatican's doctrinal office, rather than the full work of the synod assembly.
"I now more readily understand why so many women in the church are frustrated or angry or both," Brennan said. "The question about women deacons deserves an answer now."
"Is not the October session of the Synod the appropriate time to think about it?" Brennan said. "And would not the October session be the appropriate time to release the findings of the two commissions held by the pope to consider the question of women deacons?" he asked.
"Is this not the bare minimum required for a transparent and inclusive, synodal church?" Brennan continued. "We need to demand better process from the top if we are to be a synodal church."
As I have written before, we are continually mindful of ‘keeping the windows open to let the fresh air in’. Long may we continue to cherish and emulate the virtues of our inspiring founders, Venerable Mary Ward, St Ignatius and St John XXIII, cultivating a spirit of discernment, love and service within our College community and beyond.
Daniel Mahon
Principal