JSRI Mission
From a tradition based upon the principles of Catholic social thought, the institute offers participatory research, social analysis, theological reflection and practical strategies for improving the social and economic conditions in the Gulf South states and in select countries of the Caribbean and Latin America, with a particular focus on issues of migration, poverty, and racism. Through fostering close collaboration with faculty, staff, and students of Loyola University—within a network of Jesuit social centers in the United States, partnering countries, and links with other universities—the Jesuit Social Research Institute combines academic research, education, and social action in a new paradigm based on the union of faith and justice, the integrating factors of all Jesuit ministries.
To gain further insight about JSRI's mission read The Importance of Social Research published by the Social Secretariat of the Society of Jesus in 2007.
The Need for the Jesuit Social Research Institute
In 1837 French Jesuits established a mission in the southern United States, which became the New Orleans Province of the Society of Jesus in 1907, serving in southern and southwestern areas of the United States as well as in foreign missions such as Sri Lanka, Brazil, Paraguay and parts of Africa. Loyola University New Orleans, founded and sponsored by the Society of Jesus in 1904, serves as one of the major Catholic higher education institutions in this region and has a long tradition of social involvement. JSRI continues in this tradition of social justice research and action.
While planning for the Jesuit Social Research Institute preceded Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the ensuing floods, the need for the institute became increasingly apparent since this devastation of the Gulf Coast region. The images of children, women, and elderly people, mostly poor and black, left behind in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are indelibly etched on the conscience of our nation. They raise hard questions about how our churches, schools, communities, society, and governments have failed in our moral duty to protect, defend, and uplift our neighbors, the poor in our midst. In their own post-Katrina reflections, the Jesuits of the New Orleans Province realized that they too have failed in some ways to address important social concerns and the need to restore right relations and respond to the unjustly suffering and oppressed in the region. People of color, African Americans and Hispanics, bear disproportionate percentages of persistent and pervasive poverty in the South. Such chronic poverty contributes to higher rates of unemployment, illiteracy, illness, and incarceration among persons of color. JSRI aims to direct its efforts at research, education, and advocacy towards the alleviation of these conditions and their underlying causes.
During the last fifteen years, and especially following Hurricane Katrina, there has been a significant increase in the numbers of migrants – both documented and undocumented – in the southern states. More and more immigrants are settling into nontraditional urban and rural receiving communities in the South, where the Hispanic population more than doubled during the 1990’s. The Jesuit Social Research Institute seeks to provide practical, collaborative participatory action research, social analysis, theological reflection, and advocacy related to the issue of migration in the Gulf South in collaboration with Jesuit social and migration networks, Loyola’s College of Law, and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC).
Strangers No Longer: On A Journey Of Hope (November 2002), a joint pastoral letter on migration issued by the bishops of Mexico and the United States, recognizes that migration is both “necessary and beneficial” for both countries and calls upon people of good will to “work toward changes in church and societal structures” to comprehensively serve the needs of migrants. In his 2003 letter outlining five apostolic preferences for the world-wide the Society of Jesus, Very Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ—then the Superior General of the Jesuits—mandated that in addition to directly serving refugees through agencies such as the Jesuit Refugee Service “…it seems necessary to widen this appeal, so that we come to the aid of the numerous migrants, according to their manifest needs on the various continents.” (January 1, 2003: p. 3). The 2007 Jesuit General Congregation 35 and the superior General elected then, Very Rev. Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., have strongly reasserted this priority for the universal Society of Jesus. For the past 25 years, the Society of Jesus has engaged in a systematic and intentional effort to assist refugees through the international Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). As the United States engages in a nationwide debate on reform of the immigration system, JSRI will provide information, education, and advocacy on immigration reform in conjunction with the national Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform--Justice for Immigrants.
