Comillas hosts the first edition of the Jesuit Forum, a space for vocation, citizenship, community and faith

During the inauguration of the conference, the Vice Rector for Institutional Relations, Organisation and General Registrar of Comillas, Dolores Carrillo, welcomed the students, stressing that "this is also your home, just like the other universities of the Society of Jesus in Spain". In her speech, she thanked the participants for having chosen to dedicate these days to thinking about how to be global citizens with a Jesuit perspective: "I invite you to be people for others, aware that our decisions here can have an impact on the other side of the world".

Jesuit priest Sergio Gadea, one of the Forum coordinators, reminded the young people that they have been chosen by their educational communities for their transformative potential: "You have been chosen because you are believed in," he said. "We seek to educate leaders: people capable of governing their own lives, but also determined to change the world along the lines of the Gospel.

Throughout the week, the participants have explored the sense of community and leadership from the Ignatian spirituality, putting in dialogue their personal vocation with social commitment. Through various workshops and reflection sessions, they were invited to deepen their search for the common good, becoming aware that citizenship is exercised through service, listening and caring for others, but also through active community participation.

The experience has been completed with activities that have given horizon and meaning to their concerns: from creative dynamics to visits to social realities linked to the Society in Madrid. For all these reasons, the Jesuit Forum has marked the beginning of a path that many of these students will continue to follow within the Ignatian university environment.

As a final touch, the young students drew up a joint manifesto that brings together the fruits of what they have experienced during these days, and in which they reaffirm themselves not as the future, but as "God's present". From their faith and their desire for transformation, they call to look at the world from the suffering and the peripheries, committing themselves to act with conscience and compassion, demanding a more just, inclusive and participatory society through active hope and the dream of building a better world.