The turn of a year always invites more than a change of calendar. It asks for a rereading. In the Ignatian tradition, time is never neutral: it carries memory, reveals fractures, and opens fragile but real horizons of hope. As we enter 2026, this issue of the JHIA Newsletter deliberately situates itself at that intersection—between what has been lived, what continues to wound, and what still calls for responsible hope.
Looking back at 2025, one cannot escape a sense of global and continental fragmentation. Armed conflicts persisted and multiplied; ecological urgency intensified; technological acceleration, especially through artificial intelligence, reshaped work, knowledge, and ethical debates faster than our collective discernment could easily keep pace. In Africa, these global dynamics were often experienced in amplified form: renewed violence in some regions, persistent displacement, shrinking humanitarian space, and deep uncertainty about political and economic futures. The tragedies unfolding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, the Sahel and many other parts of Africa stood out as particularly painful reminders that peace remains elusive for many in Africa, and that hope often survives more as interior resistance than as visible progress.
And yet, 2025 was not only a year of darkness. It was also a year marked by memory work, by questions that refused to be silenced, and by the quiet insistence of hope. As Ella Ga Muderhwa’s reflection, Re-reading 2025: Memory, Fractures and Fragile Hope, so beautifully suggests, the year invited not a superficial assessment but a discernment. What remains when the celebrations pass? What responsibility does memory impose on us? Her meditation, rooted in lived experience and attentive to global and African realities, reminds us that years are not understood only by their peaks, but by the traces they leave and the fidelity they demand.
This attentiveness to memory is at the heart of JHIA’s mission. To reread the present responsibly requires rooting oneself in history—not as a nostalgic retreat, but as a critical resource for understanding the challenges of today and tomorrow. In 2025, the Institute itself lived through moments of pause and transition: leadership changes, institutional discernment, and collective reflection on the African contextualization of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. These moments reminded us that institutions, like persons, grow through passages, endings, and new beginnings. They also reaffirmed that historical work is never detached from lived realities; it is a service to truth, identity, and hope.
The articles in this issue echo and deepen this conviction. Christian Kombe, SJ, takes us to the sources of faith and onto the paths of peace through his account of Pope Leo XIV’s first apostolic journey to Türkiye and Lebanon. Marked by memory, dialogue, and reconciliation, this journey highlighted how history—Nicaea, the early councils, the shared creed of Christians—remains a living resource for unity today. The Pope’s gestures toward ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and a wounded Middle East resonate deeply with Africa’s own struggles and aspirations. His expressed desire to one day visit Africa, particularly Algeria and the land of Saint Augustine, is not merely a diplomatic possibility; it is a symbolic recognition of Africa as one of Christianity’s intellectual and spiritual cradles. For historians and theologians alike, this gesture reaffirms the importance of reclaiming Africa’s place in the global Christian narrative.
Camille Mukoso, SJ, in Hoping in Africa: A Daring Act Against the Current, confronts head-on the temptation to confuse hope with optimism. His reflection insists that Christian hope in Africa must pass through the night—through memory of wounds, through justice claims, through the voices of those whose history has been confiscated. This is not a hope that anesthetizes suffering, but one that walks with it and resists cynicism. Particularly striking is his insistence that youth, often caught between aspiration and exclusion, are not merely victims of broken systems but also bearers of inventive and demanding hope. His contribution challenges the Church, scholars, and institutions to become credible spaces of hope, where memory and action, prayer and justice, are held together.
As we look ahead to 2026, the task before JHIA becomes clearer—and more demanding. In a world tempted by amnesia, simplification, or ideological manipulation of the past, the work of historical research, archiving, and storytelling is itself an act of hope. To preserve traces, to make space for fragmented narratives, to insist on complexity and dignity—these are not neutral academic exercises. They are ethical and spiritual commitments.
The coming year invites us to deepen collaborations, to accompany scholars, to strengthen research that speaks to Africa’s lived realities, and to continue reflecting on how Ignatian spirituality can be meaningfully inculturated and mobilized in African contexts. It also calls us to remain attentive: to global shifts, to ecclesial developments, and to the silent questions carried by students, researchers, and communities we serve.
Rather than beginning 2026 with grand slogans, perhaps it is enough—and more faithful—to renew a simpler resolve: to remain attentive to history, responsible in interpretation, and humble before reality. In doing so, JHIA continues its quiet but essential work: helping Africa, and the Church, remember truthfully, discern wisely, and hope without illusion.
Norbert Litoing, SJ
Interim Director – JHIA
