Edmund Rice International

There’s not a lot these two countries have in common, apart from spectacular mountains and some German churches, but they can work well together. Switzerland hosts the world capital of human rights agencies (in Geneva) and Papua New Guinea hosts Callan Services, a vigorous branch of the Edmund Rice Network that promotes the rights of [...]

Despite the chilly rain, spring struggles on, here in France, and the pair of magpies nesting in the pine tree over the back fence finally saw their three offspring launched from the nest this week. I watched them during breakfast as they flopped about in the neighbouring birch, misjudging distances, pecking optimistically at trembling leaves, [...]

Of all the tragedies afflicting youth, one of the hardest for workers to handle is youth suicide. The numbing effect of grief, the undertow of despair, often render our efforts fruitless. Yet Brendan McCarthy cfc in Kolkata, and his co-workers, run an NGO called SERVE, which says it all – Students’ Empowerment, Rights and Vision [...]

ERI has been visiting Oceania, and we have found a place extremely conscious of itself as islands and oceans. On one hand, islands are separated by oceans. On the other, islands are joined by oceans. In a former life, Brothers down here lived in six provinces or regions, and their lay colleagues worked within those boundaries [...]

The three days in ‘short-term guest’ involvement at Findhorn (July14 – 16), on the Firth of Moray, in far north-eastern Scotland, gave me a good insight into Findhorn as a major eco-centre, with a strong base in eco-spirituality. In fact, along with my week in Schumacher College (Devon, UK) in late 2008, it seemed that [...]

Sometimes an email will arrive on my screen like a breath of fresh air. Daniel Devincenzi, from the City of Beautiful Breezes (Buenos Aires), sent me one with the refreshing title you see above. Isn’t that an idea to move the Edmund Rice Network to work? Colegio Cardenal Newman (yes, he who is moving towards [...]

On a flying visit to Auckland, in late May 2009, I had six energising encounters – Hayden Kingdon (religious studies, St Peter’s), Damaris Kingdon (Edmund Rice Network), Sam Drumm (social justice), all at St Peter’s, and the two dynamic communities in Queen Mary Road, the Brothers and the young lay community. The St Peter’s visit [...]

In 2006, when I first visited the site of the present novitiate in Bhopal, it was an empty soggy field, with one huge mango tree and a line of magnificent mohu’a trees across it, like shaggy green elephants. Whatever plans I heard, preserving those trees were part of them. It was as if they were [...]

Tiwari, a friend of the Bow Bazar community of Brothers, spent some time one Saturday morning sharing his spirituality with them. He told this story of Lord Vishnu, who was wondering who, of all his millions of devotees, was the most devout. Vishnu sent his assistant around the world to find the most devout disciple. [...]

When the noisy swirl of day students has emptied the playground of St Joseph’s Bow Bazar, in downtown Kolkata, a quieter little procession of rather ragged kids enters the roomy classrooms. These are the Ashivad students and their clothes, though clean, comes from the crushed pile of belongings that their families keep beside them on [...]