From 1997-2004 I was Assistant General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. The core of that job was to brief and represent the bishops of the twenty-two dioceses of England and Wales on matters of international justice: regional issues, such as relations between Israel and the Palestinian territories, or the Church’s advocacy to government about the Western allies’ path to war against Iraq; and thematic issues such as international development, trade justice, and the environment. That job was also fascinating, with elements of analysis, diplomacy and fieldwork. It was naturally focused on situations of crisis, so could sometimes be tense and poignant.

This field of international affairs emerged out of the blue - as often happens to Jesuits, despite province planning. My previous priestly life as a Jesuit had been centred on the relationship between faith, social justice and politics, but mainly within a British horizon.
Jesuits understand our mission as a service of - inseparably - the Gospel and the human person, faith and social justice. We are present in some eighty countries, a global scope which offers a unique opportunity, and entails a serious responsibility. Our mission is ‘to the frontiers’, whether those be geographical or conceptual. For example, work at the EU is a constant and complicated negotiation of the frontiers between a witness of faith and a very secular political scene. My business card denotes my organisation as Jesuit, without identifying me as a priest or a Jesuit - though that soon becomes known.

Our General Superior, Fr Adolfo Nicolás, has recently written a letter to the whole Society of Jesus in which he speaks of the ‘universal vocation of the Society’. This vocation has two dimensions, both of which I find myself embodying. I am a member of the British Province based outside the UK. Jesuits go where the need is greatest - at least, that need which we have some supposed competence to address. Further, we seek to witness in those milieux where the interdependence of peoples is expressed, and the supra-national good can be deliberately sought. The EU fills that bill.