Apostleship of Prayer

What is the

  Jesuit Refugee Service?  The Jesuit Refugee Service is an international Catholic organisation, at work in over 40 countries,  with a mission is to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced  people. The mission given to JRS embraces all who are driven from their homes by conflict,  humanitarian disaster or violation of human rights, following Catholic social teaching which applies  the expression ‘de facto refugee’ to many related categories of people.

 JRS undertakes services at national and regional levels with the support of an international office in  Rome. With a priority to working wherever the needs of displaced people are urgent and  unattended by others, JRS offers a human and pastoral service to refugees and the communities  who host them through a wide range of rehabilitation and relief activities. Services – including  programs of pastoral care, education for children and adults, social services and counselling, and  health care - are tailored to meet local needs according to available resources.

 The purpose of JRS is intimately connected with the mission of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits),  namely to promote the justice of God’s Kingdom, in dialogue with cultures and religions. JRS was  set up in 1980 by Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, then Superior General of the Society of Jesus, as a  spiritual and practical response to the plight of refugees at that time. Given the increased incidence  of forced displacement in the 1980s and 1990s, the Society of Jesus has several times restated its  commitment to refugees.

 The mission of JRS was confirmed by Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ in a letter to the whole Society in 1990. “Our service to refugees is an apostolic commitment of the whole  Society, and in particular of those Provinces where the refugees come from, where they seek  protection and first refuge, and where they finally settle. In the local context, the role of the JRS is  to help our Provinces initiate and develop this work in collaboration with other Church and secular  organisations, voluntary and governmental, which are active in the same field.”

Our Australian Mission Office's site is well worth visiting.

The Jesuit Refugees Services has its own page from which you can obtain more information.

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