Editorial: Current Challenges of Ignatian Pedagogy

The Jubilee Ignatian Year began on 20 May 2021 and it will last until 31 July 2022. In the jubilee year of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) celebrates the 500th anniversary of the conversion of St. Ignatius Loyola and the 400th anniversary of his canonization. The starting date of the jubilee is related to the anniversary of the event that took place in Pamplona on 20 May 1521, when a cannonball injured Ignatius during a battle. It altered the course of his life, marking the beginning of his conversion, and leading to the founding of the Society of Jesus. The date of the end of the jubilee coincides with the liturgical commemoration of St. Ignatius of Loyola, that commemorates the day of his death. The conversion of Ignatius was associated primarily with a change in his lifestyle. Once a vain nobleman focused on world success, he has turned into an ascetic and inner-motivated man. Under the influence of these experiences, Ignatius and his Companions founded an order and initiated the creation of a “new” spirituality.

Ignatian Pedagogy and Its Religious Inspirations

Research Objective: The aim of this article is to shed light on the religious inspirations that underpin Ignatian Pedagogy. The research problem and methods:The research problems involve questions concerning the most important ideas of Ignatian spirituality, which are based on the existential experience of St. Ignatius Loyola, and which are a source of inspiration for Ignatian Pedagogy. Based on the literature, the fundamental ideas of Ignatian Spirituality and their influence on the emergence and development of Ignatian Pedagogy were analysed. The process of argumentation:Starting from the historical stages of the formation of the key elements of Jesuit spirituality, the key moments of the spiritual experience of St Ignatius of Loyola are shown. The interpretation of the tenets of the Ignatian tradition and its spirituality made it possible to identify the vital ideas that constitute the sources of Ignatian Pedagogy. Research results:The analysis leads to the conclusion that the modern concept of education should be built on the proper concept of the human being. One of the proposals is the concept of a person that we find in Ignatian Pedagogy. It is inspired by Ignatian Spirituality and describes humanity in the perspective of God’s creative act and His love. In this context, the issues of individuality and freedom of each person are especially important. Conclusions, innovations and recommendations: Human existence in the changing and globalised world means a constant need to respond to change. Therefore, education should be understood as the familiarisation of students with change, which is a necessary condition for their development and thus for the progress of society. The Ignatian Pedagogy is effective in this regard, as it assumes an all-round development of a person and involves another person, an educator/mentor, who acts as a kind of witness to the ongoing history of life.

The Idea of „Depth” in Ignatian Pedagogy in Face of some Tendencies of Digital Education

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to present some contradictory tendencies and draw attention to two phenomena that prove their contradiction. The first one is the missing dimension of depth of knowledge which suggests that the ubiquitous source of information and student awareness is not automatically a qualitative asset. On the other hand, the gradual digitalization of education increasingly indicates the fragmentation of such a teaching process. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The article intends to emphasize the importance of two pillars of Jesuit pedagogy, which historically date back to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and which were revived by the interpretations of two former superiors of the Society of Jesus, P. Arrupe and A. Nicholas. However, the present times seems to bring different goals in the perspective of digital media and professional profiling of the student. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article is structured as follows. In the first part, the author presents the conclusions resulting from research and measurements conducted in Slovakia in recent years, which aimed at examining students' skills in reading comprehension and indicates the growing support for the digitalisation of education in Slovakia, which the author (and not only he) perceives as highly contradictory. On the other hand, the article makes an attempt to counter the notions: the “reference to depth” and the integrity of the human being, more and more often mentioned in the literature. RESEARCH RESULTS: The present study is to demonstrate that Jesuit pedagogical appeal to the need for “integral” development of the person and “depth” is extremely actual in this field. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS: The aim of the study is to show the need to re-develop these threads of depth and integral development of the human being, along with other pillars of Jesuit education, and rethink its message.

Integration of Ignatian Principles in Emergency and Disaster Management Education

This study seeks to explore, understand, and develop a comprehensive application of Ignatian principles into academic emergency and disaster management programs. The research focuses on relevant work discussing Ignatian principles, Ignatian pedagogy, and emergency management training and education. This exploratory and novelistic research approach utilizes document analysis as the strategy for inquiry on how Ignatian principles and pedagogy interact with emergency and disaster management. The document analysis conducted presented limitations due to constraints in the amount of literature available. The study is original; no direct research associating the fields involved is available. The research identified the use of Ignatian principles in several professional disciplines. There is a focus on the application of a modern version of the spiritual exercises, discernment, reflection, and contemplation as tools for improvement of critical thinking, academic excellence, ethics, social analysis, and justice as they apply to emergency and disaster management.

Integrating the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm with Buddhist-Inspired Compassion Meditation

While Ignatian pedagogy is distinctive in Jesuit education, scholarly attention on its applications is scanty. This article demonstrates the relevance of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) to compassion cultivation through showing how it integrates into a Buddhist-inspired contemplation program, Cognitively-Based Compassion Training® (CBCT®). Using a case study of a CBCT® course at a Jesuit University that developed students’ “whole person” and ethical discernment, this research analyzes how CBCT® works with the IPP’s five elements: context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation. This study evaluates participants’ changes in their emotional well-being and ethical concerns by employing psychological measurements such as the Compassionate Love for Humanity Scale. The discussion concludes by elucidating how I have adapted this integrative pedagogical method to teach an undergraduate credited course, “Buddhist Meditation and Practice.” Broadly, this study contributes to a larger conversation about how educators can create an environment that supports both cognitive and affective learning.

La formazione spirituale ignaziana al sacerdozio. Dal Collegio Romano all’Istituto di Spiritualità della Pontificia Università Gregoriana di Roma

"The Ignatian Spiritual Formation in The Priesthood. From the Roman College to the Institute of Spirituality of The Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome. The present study aims to analyze the importance of the spiritual formation of Seminarians and Priests in the present times. Assuming that the most delicate part of the formation concerns the work of the divine grace, the exhortations of the Pontiffs, from Leo XIII to Francis insist that the good dispositions of the Seminarians help them to find in their Formators the spirit, better understanding and all the help to reach the state of perfection, called priestly holiness. As one of the forms of the celebrations of the 60° anniversary of the Institute of Spirituality of the Pontifical Gregorian University, this paper also has the purpose of some genuine expressions of gratitude for the contributions of Fathers Herbert Alphonso and Maurizio Costa, two Jesuits who have been called to the Father’s House. Together with Father Franco Imoda, they were sensible toward the needs of the Church with great courage. As an answer to these expectations and on the explicit request from Congregation for the Catholic Education of the Holy See, Father Joseph Pittau S.I., the then Magnificent Rector of Pontifical Gregorian University, founded, the Interdisciplinary Center for the Formation of the Formators in Seminaries (CIFS = Centro Interdisciplinare per la Formazione dei Formatori nei Seminari) in May 1996. Our conclusions synthesize the results of the research, and place in prominence the mission of the Institute of Spirituality as an expression of its fidelity to the inheritance of the Roman College. Keywords: priestly spirituality, priestly and spiritual formation, formation of the formators, Ignatian pedagogy, prayer, theology, Roman College, the Ignatian vision of man, pastoral charity."

Perkuliahan Bernuansa Layanan Bimbingan Menggunakan Pembelajaran Kontekstual dan Paradigma Pedagogi Ignatian untuk Meningkatkan Sikap Penghargaan Diri dan Orang Lain

The purpose of this study is to determine the level of effectiveness of lecture with nuances of guidance services using Contextual Teaching Learning and Ignatian Pedagogy Paradigm in Group Dynamics Course to increase self-respect and others attitudes of students. The research subjects are 36 students participating in the Group Dynamics Course. This research method is a pre-design one-group pre-test-posttest design. The research instrument used the Scale of Self-Respect and Others Attitudes totaling 25 items with a reliability value of 0.936. This study uses descriptive data analysis techniques with categorization, and t-paired sampel test. The results showed that 27.78% of students had self-respect and others in the very high category before accepting lectures increased to 55.56% after receiving lectures. In the high category, 47.22% of students are required after attending college from 58.33% before receiving college. In the category there was a decline, namely before college there were 19.44% of students became absent (0%) after attending college. The conclusion of the results of this study is that lectures with the nuances of guidance services using CTL and IPP in the Group Dynamics Course effectively increase the self-respect and and other attitudes based on the t-paired sampel test with a significance value Sig. (2-tailed) (0.001) <(0.05).