The Ateneo Leadership Center (ALC), in coordination with the Office of the President, will tackle Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation entitled Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) through the monthly series of conversations called the Pakighinabi.  At four o’clock in the afternoon today, 19th December, at F-705A, Fr. Archimedes “Kim” Lachica, SJ, Campus Minister for Faculty and Staff and a member of ALC, will lead the discussion on this Jesuit pope’s most extensive piece of writing since his elevation to the papacy.  Expected to join the conversation are the members of the ALC, the Office of the President, the Ignatian Spirituality and Formation Office (ISFO), faculty of the Theology and Philosophy departments, staff and personnel of the Arrupe Office of Social Formation, members of the Formation Cluster in the Grade School and High School units, and other invited guests. University President Fr. Joel E. Tabora, SJ is expected to grace this occasion. Fr. Joel has always been a regular attendee of Pakighinabi – a specific venue where important and relevant issues concerning the church and society, as articulated in the university’s vision-mission statement, are brought to the fore for academic/intellectual discourse among experts, people-in-the-know and those who would like to be abreast of the current reading of the different signs of the times.

         Earlier in the week, 17th December at F-213, Fr. Kim has given a briefer on Evangelii Gaudium during the Advent Recollection of the members of the university’s Formation Cluster headed by the ISFO. 

  Today’s Pakighinabi promises to provide another interesting atmosphere for discourse as the members of the university community spend a good two hours of conversation and discussion over cups of coffee and some sweets.  (By M. Isabel S. Actub, Arrupe Communications & Advocacy, for the Ateneo Leadership Center)