The JPIC Office in Rome has planned a series of webinars for 2019 on the four topics that are the general directions of JPIC promotion decided at the last International Council for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation in Verona, Italy. The topics are Migration, Climate Change, Laudato si’, and Mining(extractive industry). And it held the first three on the theme of MIGRATION in three official languages of the Order. Here is the list of them. The video recordings of them are available on our web site and our YouTube channel.
- The Italian webinarwas on Jan 14. The speaker was Flaminia Vola (Regional Coordinator in Migrants & Refugees Section, Vatican).
- The English webinarwas on Feb 20. The speakers were Fr. Julian Jagudilla, OFM (the Migrant Center at St. Francis Church, NY), Fr. David Buer, OFM (Fraternity Ite Nuctiante, AZ) and Ottoniel Perez (St. Camillus parish, MD)
- Lastly,the Spanish webinarwas on Mar 13. The speaker was Fr. Tomás González Castillo (La 72, Tenosique).
The speakers of each conference have shared their visions, experiences, initiatives and suggestions on the issue of migration according to their respective regional contexts, which was helpful and enlightening to the respective audiences. Especially, those in Spanish and English were very interesting and meaningful because they dealt with the phenomenon of migration and the migrant brothers and sisters in Central America and the Franciscan Network for Migrants. It was the first attempt by the office to offer an opportunity of JPIC formation and discussion on the online platform. Even though the participants were not yet many, it was still a significant starting point of the new initiative that can reach out to more brothers and sisters on our way to the Gospel values, JPIC. Hopefully, there would be much bigger participation in the coming webinars, and this new initiative could deepen our understandings of global issues and foster collaboration on the ground. The topic of the next webinar is Climate Change. The schedule of the next webinars can be found in “Agenda” on the web site of the JPIC Office.
Br. Rufino Lim, OFM
Assistant, JPIC Office – Rome
