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Campion News, Trinity Term 2017 page 1 Campion News April 2017 W e are privileged to provide the above print of an in-progressstudy of the Thames at Oxford by our Visiting Georgetown University Scholar, John D. Morrell, who is Associate Profes- sor of Painting and Drawing and former chair of the Department of Art and Art History. The painting measures 12 in. by 16 in., and is a mix of ink, wa- tercolor and acrylic on rag paper. Professor Morrell writes, In my paintings I in- vestigate peoplesrelationship to nature in our cul- ture today. In my images of urban spaces there is almost always an element of nature, an aspect of my work, which is built on a long history of arts depic- tion of nature and man. The American landscape tradition has differed from that of Europe and other cultures. In my current visit to Oxford I am study- ing these differences with on-site drawings of Ox- ford and the great tradition of English watercolor in the Ashmolean Museums outstanding collection. Frequently, I draw and paint on site, based on direct observation. The distinction of on site work is the meditative and observational process of time. To be still in one place, observing for several hours, noticing different aspects of a place over time shapes my vision; investing it with personal infor- mation that a recording on film or disk cannot com- municate. I become absorbed in a place, and my selectivity, my choices of what to record on my canvas or paper, become my art... Painting the land- scape directly may seem to create the conditions for a more realistic depiction. My experience, rather, is an inevitably subjective response to the landscape. It is not, in my opinion, fidelity to an unknowable objective rendition. I believe a distinct aesthetic of my work is derived from the subjective response to sensation in the particular moment and place.* Campion News The Newsleer of Campion Hall, Oxford University Number 10, Trinity Term 2017 An Oxford Scene by a Georgetown Artist

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Campion News, Trinity Term 2017 page 1

Campion News April 2017

W e are privileged to provide the above print of an “in-progress” study of the Thames at

Oxford by our Visiting Georgetown University Scholar, John D. Morrell, who is Associate Profes-sor of Painting and Drawing and former chair of the Department of Art and Art History. The painting measures 12 in. by 16 in., and is a mix of ink, wa-tercolor and acrylic on rag paper. Professor Morrell writes, “In my paintings I in-vestigate peoples’ relationship to nature in our cul-ture today. In my images of urban spaces there is almost always an element of nature, an aspect of my work, which is built on a long history of art’s depic-tion of nature and man. The American landscape tradition has differed from that of Europe and other cultures. In my current visit to Oxford I am study-ing these differences with on-site drawings of Ox-ford and the great tradition of English watercolor in

the Ashmolean Museum’s outstanding collection. “Frequently, I draw and paint on site, based on direct observation. The distinction of on site work is the meditative and observational process of time. To be still in one place, observing for several hours, noticing different aspects of a place over time shapes my vision; investing it with personal infor-mation that a recording on film or disk cannot com-municate. I become absorbed in a place, and my selectivity, my choices of what to record on my canvas or paper, become my art... Painting the land-scape directly may seem to create the conditions for a more realistic depiction. My experience, rather, is an inevitably subjective response to the landscape. It is not, in my opinion, fidelity to an unknowable objective rendition. I believe a distinct aesthetic of my work is derived from the subjective response to sensation in the particular moment and place.”*

Campion News

The Newsletter of Campion Hall, Oxford University Number 10, Trinity Term 2017

An Oxford Scene by a Georgetown Artist

Campion News, Trinity Term 2017 page 2

Campion News April 2017

Our warm congratulations to Rev Michael Knox SJ DPhil (Oxon) on his recent graduation. (See newsletter nine). *

Our warmest congratulations to Rev Sumeth Perera SJ, from Sri Lanka, on the completion of

his highly impressive doctorate in cancer biology at the Depart-ment of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG) in the Go-berdhan laboratory. “Cancer treatments are becoming increas-ingly sophisticated,” he explains, “but there are still major gaps in our understanding of how these treatments work and why they don’t always block cancer growth. One of those gaps is how cancer secreted nano-vesicles (exosomes) function, and the new phenomenon I have discov-

ered here, called ‘exosome switching’, may ultimately influ-ence the ways that we treat can-cer patients and recognise wheth-er treatments are working.” Dr Perera intends to further his re-search as a postdoctoral scien-tist.* We extend our very best wishes to Dr Nela Cicmil, Junior Re-search Assistant at the Hall, who is being married and will soon leave Oxford. She has been a postdoctoral research scientist in

Signal Integration for Perception in the University’s Medical Sci-ences Division. Nela has also been an active and valued mem-ber of the Hall’s community. She and her husband will be moving to London, where she plans to continue university re-search and teaching, as well as undertake school teaching in a deprived area.*

During the recent vacation we were happy to welcome one of our Campion Hall Visiting Fel-low, Sister Maryanne Loughry of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Australia. She is a Sister of Mercy, a Research Associate of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) in Oxford’s International Development Department, and a Research Professor at Boston College. She earlier served for some years as the Hall’s ‘Pedro

Arrupe Tutor in Forced Migra-tion’, and now she was sharing in running the RSC’s international

conference held in Keble College on “Beyond Crisis: Rethinking Refugee Studies.” Professor Loughrie chaired a breakout ses-sion on ‘Children and Vulnera-bility’, and she addressed another session on “What does vulnera-bility look like in a crisis?” We warmly welcome Fr Ian Tomlinson SJ who has recently been appointed to the Campion Hall Jesuit community to provide support to the University’s Jesuit-directed Catholic chaplaincy. Previously Director of Novices for the British Jesuit Province, and then official Assistant (Socius) to two Provincial Supe-riors, Ian has worked recently in Ignatian spirituality and at the Manchester Universities’ Catho-lic chaplaincy.*

In the news

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Discussing Argentina

On 7 February an appreciative audience at the Hall, especially from the Centre of Latin American Stud-ies, heard an expert discussion on Argentinian poli-tics and its ‘dirty war’. It was introduced by the Argentinian Jesuit sociologist, Professor Gustavo Morrell, and shared by the distinguished commen-tator on the Latin American scene and biographer of Pope Francis, Dr Austen Ivereigh. Their shared reminiscences and comments presented an absorb-ing picture of the disquieting political and ecclesias-tical situation in Argentina.* Guest Night The Hall’s Secretary, Sarah Gray, now also Exec-utive Assistant to the Master, putting the finishing

touch to the dining room in preparation for the Feb-ruary Guest Night. The Master’s guests included His Excellency the Polish Ambassador and his wife, and Lord Brennan, KCSG, QC. * Burgess Foundation Lecture On 3 March a lecture in the Hall supported by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation was de-livered by Martin Stannard, Professor of Modern English Literature at Leicester University, and Co-

Executive Editor of OUP's 42-volume scholarly edition of The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh. The lecture was entitled ‘No Abiding City: Evelyn Waugh and America’; and it provided a diverting and enlightening account of Waugh’s several lecturing tours to the USA. The set-ting for the lecture was also appropriate, Waugh having been a regular visi-tor and a benefactor to Campion Hall in the days of its celebrated master, Martin D’Arcy. *

University Challenge? Over two days in mid-January, three members of the Hall community travelled to Munich, Germany, to participate in a conference of systematic theolo-gians from the University of Oxford and the Lud-wig-Maximilians Universität (LMU). Participants were postgraduates and junior researchers from both universities, and the gathering was presided over by Professor Dr Jörg Lauster (Institute for Sys-tematic Theology at LMU) and Professor Werner Jeanrod (Master of St Benet’s Hall, Oxford). The Campion contingent included Rev Gerard Ryan SJ, working on a DPhil on the role of religion in recog-nition theory; Mr Travis LaCouter, working on a DPhil on the metaphysics of Hans Urs von Bal-thasar; and Mr Nandan Mani Ratnam, a visitor to the Hall from Christ Church, finishing his DPhil on Immanuel Kant’s conception of human dignity. All three presented papers at the conference and faced lively Q&A sessions with the group.*

In the News (contd)

Contents

1 Oxford Scene by Georgetown Artist

2 In the News

3 Contents

4 The Hall’s Middle Common Room

5 A Junior Research Fellow Reports

6 Treasures of Campion Hall, 10:

The Peter Knott Watercolours

7 A Visiting Scholar Looks Back

8 Environmental Fieldwork

9 Supporting Campion Hall

10 Past Masters: Thomas Corbishley SJ

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O ne of the major differences between Cam-pion Hall and the larger Colleges of Oxford

University is that these days Campion does not have any undergraduate students. Initially the Hall was founded to enable young members of the Jesuit Order to gain Oxford degrees, but not in priestly theology or philosophy, which they studied in their own training college near the village of Heythrop in North Oxfordshire. The studies they pursued in Oxford were in various other academic subjects, especially Classics, History and English, which would qualify them to teach in the numerous schools which the Jesuits then ran in their British Province and their mission territories of Southern Rhodesia, South Africa and British Guyana.

A graduate institution In the 1970s, as the number of British Jesuits began to decrease and they were withdrawing from many of their schools, Campion’s academic policy changed, and it began to concentrate on being a Jes-uit house for postgraduate studies, now including theology and philosophy. It also drew now on Jesuit graduate students from abroad to study for doctor-ates in their field and return to lecturing and post-doctoral research elsewhere, a future role for the Hall which the celebrated Master, Martin D’Arcy, had envisioned as far back as the 1930s. The Hall also admitted a few male graduate students who were not Jesuits. As a consequence, Campion does not possess a Junior Common Room nor separate tables or the like, and all its students belong to the Hall’s Middle Common Room (MCR). This plays a large part in organising the life and the academic and social ac-tivities of the Hall as a whole, including its mem-bers being allocated house jobs ranging from main-taining the wine cellar and the sacristy through reg-ular updating of the website to keeping an eye on the condition of the Hall’s bicycles.

Modern developments Within the past couple of years the Campion MCR has developed significantly, and it now represents a wide spectrum of disciplines, from the sciences through the social sciences to the humanities, as well as an impressive variety of nationalities. As a result of the increase in membership and the variety of disciplines being read, the MCR began last year to expand its activities in the Hall, and also within the wider university. In Michaelmas term they held a special formal dinner for the members of the Campion Hall MCR.

Twenty members attended the dinner and the social evening, sharing in preparing the meal and making

use of the refurbished lecture room as the venue for the dinner, and of the newly appointed Persons Room for the subsequent social gathering. Later, in Hilary term the Campion Middle Com-mon Room had Campion make history in being the first University Permanent Private Hall (PPH) to host the termly meeting of the Presidents of the University’s Middle Common rooms (PresCom) and to entertain them to dinner. More than thirty presidents of the University’s MCRs were present, as well as the leadership team of Oxford Student Union (OSU); and the whole Campion community was delighted to join the visitors for the formal din-ner and the subsequent social gathering in the Hall’s Common Room (see below). The enjoyable occasion provided a valued opportunity to make the Hall and its work and aims better known to the uni-versity community.

Closer links The Master of Campion Hall has warmly agreed to host the PresCom presence at Campion on an annu-al basis; and, in addition, the Hall’s MCR, under its current chair, Rev. Gerard Ryan SJ, a doctoral student in Theology, has instituted a termly MCR exchange with other colleges. Such exchanges will be a permanent feature of the Hall’s termly calen-dar, allowing its MCR members greater opportuni-ties to visit as well as to host other Colleges of the University.*

The Hall’s Middle Common Room

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D r Rebecca Anne Capel is a Campion Hall Junior Research Fellow in the University’s

Department of Pharmacology, where she is en-gaged in a joint research project funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society. She writes of her recent research and conference activities: Earlier this year it was my great pleasure to give one of Campion Hall’s Work in Progress presenta-tions, in which I presented our idea that lysosomes, a structure within cells that has traditionally been considered as a waste processing unit, actually take part in acute signalling within the heart. Every time a heart cell beats, electrical activation of the cell (which is generated spontaneously by a specialised area of the heart) causes a big increase in the amount of calcium within the cell. This cal-cium, far from being the natural component of bones and teeth, is dissolved in the fluid around and within cells and is essential for both causing contraction and controlling many processes hap-pening within the cell.

Calcium hard at work We now know that cells are capable of storing large concentrations of calcium within lysosomes. Work during my DPhil studies confirmed that this calcium can be released in response to specific sig-nals, particularly related to stressful situations, and help to increase the strength of the heart’s contrac-tion. The latest developments in our research, which I presented at my Work in Progress, were recently published in Scientific Reports titled “High resolution structural evidence suggests that Sarcoplasmic Reticulum forms microdomains with Acidic Stores (lysosomes) in the heart”. This publ-ication, using a range of microscopy techniques, shows that lysosomes, and therefore the sites from which calcium can be released, are not randomly positioned within heart cells but are placed just 3.3 nano-metres (a human hair is around 75,000 nano-metres thick) from the most important known con-tributor to cellular calcium signalling.

We also found that lysosomes are just 6.2 nm from mitochondria, where cells make most of their ener-gy in the form of ATP. This means calcium com-ing out of the lysosome is immediately positioned to affect essential ‘traditional’ signalling areas. In the future it will be vital to see if these spatial rela-tionships are changed in diseases like atrial fibrilla-tion, as this may help us to understand the reasons why calcium signals are perturbed in these patients and provide a potential therapeutic target.

“Controversial but exciting” In February I took our work, together with some data showing the functional effects of abolishing lysosomal calcium signalling within heart tissue, to the Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanisms, held in Ventura, Cali-fornia. Gordon conferences are specialised con-ferences to which you must make ap-plication and be se-lected in order to at-tend, and this was therefore a fantastic opportunity for me to show our work to the top scientists in the arrhythmia field. I was able to speak to some of my per-sonal heroes, and I was given advice on experiments I might like to perform in the future. For me the highlight of the Conference was hav-ing our work la-belled “controversial but exciting”, and my being awarded, to my de-light, the prize for the best post-doctoral poster presentation (above).

Having a heart Members and friends of Campion Hall who would like to find out more about our work were invited last month to visit the exhibition “Science Museum Lates” in the South Kensington Science Museum in London , in which the Burton Group, for which I work, was taking part. During the event the Sci-ence Museum was open after hours for adults only, and a number of talks and exhibits were on offer, together with a bar and silent disco. We also took a machine to show people the electri-cal activity in their own hearts and link this to the work we do recording electrical events in cells and tissue. We also took different models of hearts and some fixed tissue from the butchers, so that inter-ested punters could literally poke around and get to know this awesome organ. We hoped in this way to give people an idea of how electricity drives their heart and how researchers can use these events to study disease.*

A Junior Research Fellow Reports

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Treasures of Campion Hall, 10: The Peter Knott Watercolours

O ne art treasure which holds a particular place in Jesuit affections at Campion Hall is

our collection of the dozen watercolours painted by the English Jesuit, Fr Peter Knott (1926-2017), who was personally well known to senior fellow-Jesuits at the Hall. Peter was in the army before entering the Jesuit Order, and served in NW Europe, India, Pakistan, Malaya, and Palestine. On leaving the army he became a Catholic in 1962 and entered the Jesuit Order two years later. He was fast-tracked in his Jesuit training until his first appointment, which was as Chaplain at Heathrow Air-port, caring for the perma-nent ground and flight staff as well as for the travellers passing through. He was later highly successful as Superior and Parish Priest of the fashionable Jesuit Church at Farm Street in London’s Mayfair, after which he continued his activities at Corpus Christi parish at Boscombe, near Bournemouth. For sever-al years he also served as Chaplain to the Catholic pupils at Eton College, as well as their families. Peter’s final active appointment was as Chaplain at Barlborough Hall, the preparatory school for Mount St Mary’s College, the Jesuit boarding school near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. There he also continued his frequent writing of articles and pamphlets on ‘ordinary’ spirituality and prayer; and he later made a successful transition to social media with his popular contributions on prayer and Scrip-ture to the Jesuit website, Thinking Faith (www.thinkingfaith.org).

A steady refrain Alongside all this active pastoral engagement Peter was unremittingly engaged in exercising and devel-oping his impressive gift for painting. Over his life-time this resulted in dozens of watercolours depict-ing landscapes, seascapes and riverscapes, as well as paintings of notable buildings and local land-marks in many of the places he visited at home and abroad, including (below) Windsor Castle and But-terfield Pond, Pillsbury NH. From time to time he would collect and mount public exhibitions of his work, and the income from sales was then put to excellent use by Jesuit Missions, the Wimbledon agency responsible for supporting and promoting the British Jesuit apostolates in southern Africa and S. America. Absorbed worship Painting, however, was not just a relaxing pastime or a solitary recreation for Peter Knott; it seems to have been an act of worship, a meditative taking part in creation, and almost a reprise of it on his part. In an essay on Thinking Faith (6 June 2009) which he entitled “The Artistry of God”, he was surely expressing his own experience as a painter as he reflected that “Our sense of the divine can be powerfully mediated through our relations with the world of nature. In this context landscape painting has a particular value. There is something mystical in landscape painting in as much as it expresses the spiritual relationship of humankind and nature…. In the movement over recent years towards repre-sentational painting we may be edging further to-wards a more balanced 'nature mysticism’, suggest-ing that landscape painting can give us a better in-sight into the spiritual reality of the world we live in.” *

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O ne of the attractive features of life at Campion Hall is the varied stream of aca-demic visitors who join us from time to

time; and this applies especially to faculty members from the Jesuit Georgetown University, Washing-ton, D.C. Last semester we had the great pleasure of having with us Professor Peter Byrne, the Baum-gartner Professor of Real Property Law, who was joined in the latter part of his stay by his wife, the Revd Karen Byrne (See right). Invited to reflect on his time with us, Professor Byrne writes: “During the Fall Semester of 2016 I had the privi-lege of spending my fall research at Campion Hall, as the Georgetown University academic visitor. I am the first law professor to enjoy this opportunity.

Heritage conservation My research goal was to better understand how English planning law takes into account heritage conservation, but I also arrived trailing several com-mitments to develop papers on the consequences of climate change for property law and for historic preservation, as well as a study of the constitutional property law legacy of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an alumnus of Georgetown College. My work benefitted from the resources of the Bodleian Law and other libraries, as well as from the quiet and beauty of the Campion Hall library. Oxford property and environmental law faculty made me welcome and engaged in useful conversa-tion. I also taught a class to environmental law stu-dents. During my stay at Campion Hall, I made trips to give talks on these subjects in The Hague, New Orleans, and Annapolis. Oxford’s Property Law and Theory Discussion Group have invited me back in the spring to talk about my work on Justice Scalia.

The delights of Oxford My imagination has been gripped by Oxford itself, both the university and the town. As a student of urban development and preservation law I am fasci-nated by the growth of Oxford through the centuries and by the continuing struggle to protect its archi-tectural riches and historic green spaces, while ac-commodating new development to meet housing, economic needs, and changes in higher education itself. I devoured books, articles, and pamphlets on these topics, took long walks with maps and guide-books, and benefitted greatly from the programs of the Oxford Preservation Trust. Oxford’s successes and challenges will persist in my work as an inspi-ration and critical comparison to US issues. Ox-ford’s musical riches also have been a constant source of delight.

Life at the Hall Campion Hall has extended unstinting and relaxed

hospitality. The staff have been thoughtful and accommodating. The Georgetown Flat A is comfort-able and graced with views of the charming garden. Our conversations with fellows, stu-dents, and visitors have been stimu-lating and pleas-urable, and topics

have included refugees, threatened languages, can-on law, Scotland, business ethics, the US political mess, martyrs, gardens, the Indian judiciary, scones, Brexit, the Baroque, and pubs. Nearly all touched upon challenges facing scholarship and teaching in contemporary times. These conversations, and the fellowship within which they were enveloped, opened for me in new ways how rigorous scholar-ship and Christian faith invigorate each other. It may take me some time to unpack and reflect upon all the ideas my time seeded. My wife, Karen Byrne, joined me at Campion Hall for the last five weeks. Karen is a minister in the United Church of Christ, a US Protestant de-nomination. While here, she volunteered pastoral and liturgical help at St. Columba’s United Re-formed Church, on Alfred Street, which is currently without a minister. She also has found time for study and reflection, aided by a Bodleian card se-cured by Campion’s resourceful special library as-sistant, Wilma Minty. Jesuits have played an im-portant role in Karen’s spiritual journey. She has felt welcome and comfortable at Campion. Flat A’s extra bedroom has also been occupied at times by our visiting adult children.

A Special Relationship The Campion–Georgetown connection will remain important to us. Karen and I met with Master James Hanvey to discuss how to deepen the collaboration to the benefit of each. We look forward to more dis-cussion of this during the spring with James and with former visiting academics from Georgetown to the Hall. In the meantime, we extend our sincere thanks and best regards to all the fellows, students, and staff of Campion Hall”.*

A Visiting Scholar Looks Back

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E milio Travieso SJ from Florida, a Campion doctoral student in International Development,

recently completed a period of fieldwork in Mexico studying how food systems can be improved. He re-ports as follows. Despite producing more than enough food, the cur-rently dominant food system, based on an industrial model of production and a market model of distri-bution, has failed to feed the world’s growing popu-

lations. At the same time, it has created new so-cial, environmen-tal and health-related prob-lems. We need a new system, or perhaps new systems. Many groups are trying to im-plement food systems which are more equita-ble, sustainable and healthy, and I am doing re-search in collab-oration with one such group in Chiapas, Mexi-

co. The Misión de Bachajón is an ecclesial organi-zation where Jesuits have accompanied the Mayan Tseltal people since 1958. Their ultimate goal is full sovereignty for the Tseltal people, including lin-guistic, religious, cultural and political autonomy. What I’m studying is how they've designed an eco-nomic model that makes this project viable through the specific lens of food, the nexus that ties all of the above together.

Markets cannot be left alone When we think of the economy we tend to think only of markets. However, if we look at the econo-my as everything that sustains and mediates the re-production of life, we get a much wider picture. Economic anthropologists have noticed that we tend to organize our economic lives in two distinct spheres: the market and the community. The market is where we are ‘rational choosers,’ looking out for our own self-interest in short-term interactions. The community, however, is the context of long-term

relationships where we share what we’ve bought in the market. The community looks after a common ‘base’, which is made up of the material and sym-bolic things that allow for the reproduction of the community in the very long term. The problem with unrestricted capitalism is that it tends to commodify everything, even the commu-nity and its base. Rather than stewarding natural resources, for example, the capitalist model would exploit them unsustainably. If left to its own devic-es, the market undermines the conditions for its own possibility. On the other hand, communist experi-ments have shown us that it’s not feasible to set up an economy with no room at all for markets. This where the Misión de Bachajón’s innovative model comes in. They’ve combined a strategy of protecting certain spheres of their ‘base’ from the market with a complementary strategy of engaging the market for needed income, but in a way that ‘domesticates’ the market, placing it at the service of the people.

An alternative strategy People own land collectively, and each family is allotted enough land to grow their own food. They use agroecological methods, and they protect their natural resources. The community entrusts nearly every adult (usually as a married couple) with a par-ticular role of unpaid service to the common good, ranging from catechists and deacons to health pro-moters and conflict mediators. In this way, the Tsel-tal people withdraw the most essential aspects of their economy – their ‘base’ of land, food, ecosys-tems, and community service – from the market-place. At the same time, they sell coffee and honey

through the Misión’s group of cooperative social»

Transformative Social Innovation in Southern Mexico: Redesigning Food Systems

Chiapas

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Campion News April 2017

businesses, Yomol A’tel. Their business model goes well beyond ‘fair trade’ (which is about offer-ing a slightly better price for raw materials, thanks to consumers’ good will), aiming to transform the structural relationships of trade instead. They have gained control over the whole value chain by estab-lishing their own roasting plant and their own brand of gourmet cafés in wealthy urban areas. This strategy not only gives them access to a much higher income, it also allows them to stabilize prices by circumventing the financial speculation of the commodities market, and to create skilled jobs in rural Chiapas. Since it’s all built on a model of social and solidarity economy, Yomol A’tel’s eco-nomic upgrading translates into social upgrading in other ways as well. Both power and profits are shared, and young people (and especially women) have opportunities for building new capabilities.

Working with the ecosystem Since Yomol A’tel’s products are grown organical-ly in shade forests, in combination with traditional multi-cropping, the business model not only pro-tects, but even enhances biodiversity, soil fertility and other ecosystem elements. In other words, the design has a built-in positive feedback loop, where the community engages in the market from a posi-tion of strength, and this dynamic reinforces the community’s base, which makes its long-term productivity more sustainable. It also provides a benefit for all of us, not least because by conserving the biodiversity of maize (which is the basis of the Mesoamerican diet and one of the top three grains consumed globally), our collective food supply is more resilient.

Increase and multiply Through the Comparte network of the Latin Ameri-can Jesuit Conference, the Misión de Bachajón is helping other initiatives throughout the region to replicate this model. My own role as a researcher is to understand the logic and implications of the Misión de Bachajón’s design, not only from a criti-cal perspective but also with a hermeneutic of hope: I am interested first in the potential of the model, and then in the challenges facing it.

Postscript: The Greening of Campion Appropriately, the Master of Campion Hall has commissioned Emilio to work with a group of Hall members, the Greener Campion Team, to draw up a list of ecological recommendations which can be applied in the Hall in the light of Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Sì. The sev-enteen proposals they have tabled encompass the themes of energy, food, recycling, lifestyle and shared responsibility.*

Supporting Campion Hall Campion Hall, as an intellectual apostolate of the Jesuits in Britain, shares the Order’s status as a reg-istered charity (Trustees for Roman Catholic Pur-poses Registered, no. 230165 ). The Hall warmly welcomes all financial donations, from individuals as well as institutions, to promote its work. Finan-cial support can take the form of a one-off donation by cheque, or of a regular donation by banker’s or-der, or by bequest in an individual will. Benefac-tors can, but need not, specify a purpose for their donation.

Gift Aid Declaration (for UK benefactors). The value of a gift by a UK taxpayer can be in-creased by 25% under the Gift Aid scheme by com-pleting the following:

I want to Gift Aid my donation of £…………….. to Campion Hall and all future donations with effect from 1st March 2017. I am a UK taxpayer and un-derstand that if I pay less income tax and/or Capi-tal Gains tax in a tax year than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all of my donations in that tax year it is my responsibility to pay any difference. Signed……………………………………………………………… Date…………………………………………………..…………….

U.S. benefactors. “Americans for Oxford, Inc. (AFO)”, is the University of Oxford’s primary char-itable organization in North America, and it accepts gifts in support of Oxford and its Colleges and Per-manent Private Halls, including Campion Hall. AFO has been determined by the United States In-ternal Revenue Service to be a tax-exempt public

charity. For information on donating to Campion Hall through AFO see the information and form available at www.oxfordna.org/donate.

Campion News is produced termly in

Campion Hall, Brewer St, Oxford OX1 1QS,

and is printed and distributed by

the Holywell Press, Oxford.

It is accessible online at www.campion.ox.ac.uk

Editor Jack Mahoney SJ

at <[email protected]>.

Campion News, Trinity Term 2017 page 10

Campion News April 2017

T he dining room at Campion Hall is adorned with the portraits of several of its early Mas-

ters, of which one of the most visually striking is that shown here of Fr Thomas (‘Tom’) Corbishley SJ, painted by Joyce Platt. He was appointed after the Second World War in suc-cession to his celebrated prede-cessor, Fr Martin C. D’Arcy, and served as the seventh Master from 1945-58. A typically affa-ble Lancastrian, Tom proved himself to have both a fine mind and a gift for friendship.

Early career He was born in 1903 and educat-ed at the Jesuit Preston Catholic College, deciding to join the Or-der at the age of sixteen. He pur-sued the usual course of Jesuit formation in spirituality, philoso-phy and theology, including, in his case, taking a degree in Classics at Campion Hall, where he distinguished himself by achieving a First Class in Mods as well as later in Greats. In 1938 he received his first appointment, as Superior of the Jesuit students who had taken their first vows as Jesuits and were following this with a year of study of the humanities. At the same time Corbishley was beginning to make his name outside Jesuit circles in various ways: preaching and lecturing, giving conferences, writing articles, providing spiritual guidance and conducting what are now known as Ignatian ‘preached’ retreats, for which he became particular-ly notable. One Jesuit who had known him well wrote (as the Editor can personally confirm) that ‘his retreats were memorable…. The spirituality he expressed was Christocentric and essentially incar-national, and it was vivified by a fluent handling of the New Testament material…. He was quiet, with-out histrionics, conversational, deeply persuasive.’

Master of Campion Hall It appeared, then, that Tom Corbishley’s Jesuit min-istry was taking multi-active and fruitful apostolic shape, when in 1945 he was appointed Master of Campion Hall in Oxford in succession to Martin D’Arcy when the latter was appointed Provincial Superior of the British Jesuits by the Superior Gen-eral in Rome. Corbishley’s relationship with D’Arcy went back to the time a year after Corbishley matriculat-ed at the Hall in 1926, when D’Arcy became the

first Jesuit appointed a philosophy don in Oxford, in the Mastership of Fr Ernest Vignaux (see right). D’Arcy’s return to Oxford was at his personal sug-gestion to the Superior General after an inconclu-sive and unsatisfying year of doctoral studies in

Rome at the Jesuit Gregorian Uni-versity, possibly with a view to his later teaching there. Back in his element in Oxford, D’Arcy soon began to gather his salon of admir-ers and devotees, as well as sym-pathisers and converts to Catholi-cism, with his intellectual glamour and his captivating conversational charm. He also tried to initiate the Jesuit undergraduates into Oxford manners, including, it is reported, one Mr Corbishley who seemed to show anti-ecumenical tendencies. Later, as Master of the Hall, Corbishley’s relationship with his predecessor, who had become Pro-vincial Superior in 1945, seems to

have been ambivalent, at least on D’Arcy’s side, according to Corbishley’s Jesuit obituarist, who opined that, although Corbishley as Master was ‘in no way inferior’ to D’Arcy, yet the latter, as Provin-cial, ‘could be cruel’ to him. It may help to under-stand this if one accepts that, as D’Arcy’s biog-rapher relates, he came to develop serious misgiv-ings about the ways in which he judged both the Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus were be-ginning to deteriorate, especially later in the after-math of the Second Vatican Council – a deep disen-chantment to which his biographer was himself strongly sympathetic.

Campion’s Golden Jubilee An early highlight in Corbishley’s time as Master of Campion involved the celebration of the Hall’s Golden Jubilee in 1946, fifty years after the Jesuits had first taken up residence in Oxford University in St Giles, a few doors away from their parish Church of St Aloysius. The anniversary provided the oppor-tunity for both the Jesuits and the University to as-sess how Clarke’s Hall, later named Campion Hall during Plater’s Mastership (see Campion News, no. 3), had fared in its early years, and to rejoice in its continuing success and increasingly high repute in the University. This latter was powerfully symbol-ised by Campion Hall’s having recently acquired, through D’Arcy’s vision and Lutyens’s architectur-al genius, a permanent and notable ‘local habitation and a name’ in its new site in Brewer Street.»

Past Masters: Thomas Corbishley SJ

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Campion News April 2017

In addition to the Jesuit en famille celebration (see above) which included a contingent of Campion alumni and Jesuit professors from the neighbouring Heythrop College, a public celebration including a garden party, a banquet and a Solemn High Mass, enabled others to join in sharing the Hall’s rejoicing at its academic golden jubilee. Taking part in that were University senior figures and Heads of Houses, His Eminence Cardinal Bernard Griffin of Westmin-ster, other distinguished guests and benefactors, in-cluding Evelyn Waugh, and an old friend, Mon-signor Ronald Knox, who preached at the High Mass which Fr Corbishley as Master celebrated coram Pontifice in St Aloysius’s Church. The Hall’s academic prowess was now well es-tablished, and Corbishley’s early time as Master saw the number of British Jesuit undergraduate students maintained and the total number of students steadily increasing with the new development of Jesuits com-ing to study at Campion from around the world, in-cluding Australia, India and especially the United States of America, all seeking the cachet of an Ox-ford degree gained at a Jesuit college. By 1951 the Jesuit undergraduate student body had reached a to-tal of 21, comprising seven from Britain, eight from the USA, two from Spain, two from Australia, one from Belgium and one from India, with the Master and six Senior Members involved in teaching in the University.

The Hall’s new wing The most visible manifestation of Tom Corbishley’s flourishing time as Master of Campion was the addi-tion of a south wing to Lutyens’s building in Brewer Street. Lutyens himself had made provision for this in his plans, should the need or wish arise; and the decision to expand the Hall using his plans was tak-en in 1955, by the new Provincial, Fr J. D. Boyle. The 1944 Education Act required all future school teachers to possess a professional Teaching Certificate, and the response of the British Jesuits to meet this future requirement for all their schools in England was to decide to set up their own Teacher Training College. After at least one other attempt

proved unfeasible, D’Arcy, as Provincial Superior, became involved in complicated negotiations with the Ministry of Education, with London University’s Institute of Education and with the Cardinal Arch-bishop of Westminster and the Bishops of England and Wales, all with a view to transforming the Jesuit novitiate house in London’s Roehampton into Man-resa College, a constituent College of the Institute of Education of London University, empowered to con-fer the Institute’s Teaching Certificate on Jesuits.

A U-turn Opening in 1949, Manresa Training College operat-ed for eight years, until the then Provincial, Fr J. D. Boyle, announced a major Province volte face. The Manresa scheme had been approved, he explained, by the Superior General in Rome for an experimental period in the first instance; and he continued that, in the light of experience “it has been decided to dis-continue Manresa College and to increase the ac-commodation at Campion Hall, so that it will be the normal practice for a scholastic to proceed from phi-losophy to Oxford, where, after he has completed his degree course, he may, if it is found desirable or nec-essary, spend a further year in preparation for the Diploma of the Oxford Institute of Education.” The Master of Campion Hall felt it necessary to offer some public explanation for this change of Province policy, partly because he was also the ‘Province Prefect of Studies’ and responsible as such for organising the studies of all Jesuit students while they were in training. He introduced a new consider-ation in pointing out that, alongside Oxford, a num-ber of Jesuit students over the years had regularly studied in London for degrees of London University. Recently, however, the house which accommodated them in London had been diverted to another pur-pose, and since there were not sufficient rooms for them at Campion Hall, the regrettable result was that several Jesuit students had been unable to take a uni-versity degree. “For this and other reasons”, Corbish-ley concluded, “Fr. Provincial and his Consultors decided that Campion Hall should be enlarged to take approximately twenty more residents”.»

Jesuits at the Jubilee Celebration

J Woodlock E Enright E Vignaux T Corbishley M C D’Arcy J McCann L O’Hea E Hailsham C Martindale

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Corbishley conceded that the Hall’s exceptional academic reputation could decline as its numbers increased, but he countered by pointing out that this had been based from the start on a very high per-centage of remarkable achievements within a small total number; and that, as numbers had increased since then, ‘the proportion has become much more sober’. Moreover, an expansion in Jesuit numbers at Oxford would increase the Hall’s contribution to the University as a whole, as well as enhance the Or-der’s own future work in Britain. These reassurances from the current Master of the Hall had little effect on his predecessor, or on D’Arcy’s unabashed elitism. In a reply to Corbish-ley, he explained that, when Lutyens’s new Campi-on Hall was being planned, “the size of the Hall was measured by the thought that the number of under-graduates from the English Province should always be relatively few and carefully chosen, no matter how large the Province might grow.” This was a policy which “has been maintained vigorously from the foundation of the Hall in 1896”, as was shown by previous Masters “’sending down’ quite a num-ber of scholastics.” Not all our men, D’Arcy went on, are capable of benefiting from the experience of Oxford as a cultural centre, or of attracting the inter-est of distinguished dons. His conclusion, which may have earlier been a reason for his deciding as Provincial to pursue the Manresa College scheme, was to warn against expanding the Hall and expos-ing an increased number of British Jesuit under-graduates indiscriminately to Oxford University life and activities. “Such a life is an unusual one in the Society and depends on selection.”

No vacancies Nevertheless, the building of the south wing went ahead, following Lutyens’s architectural style, to comprise three floors containing twenty-one indi-vidual rooms and a spacious common room (see above). It was completed in 1958, with all the study bedrooms soon occupied, while the Jesuits engaged

in studies there increased to number just under for-ty, and continued to rise. (It does not appear that anyone took the Oxford Diploma in Education.) In September that year Tom Corbishley com-pleted his thirteenth year as Master of Campion Hall, and was appointed Superior of the Jesuit com-munity and the Church and Parish of the Immacu-late Conception in Farm Street, London. He now fitted as comfortably into London as he had done in Oxford. At the Hall he had shown himself warm, approachable and quietly dependable towards his men, who invariably referred to him with equal af-fection, but respect, as ‘Tom’ or ‘the Corb’. In the University his benign manner and his Lancashire humour, with a touch of diffidence, won him many friends, and he followed Dr Johnson’s advice of keeping his friendships in good repair.

A wider ambit Later, in London, his gifts radiated out into an even wider pastoral ambit, providing confirmation that the friendly near-jibe of one Jesuit scholastic, ‘Poor Tom! Jack of all trades, and master of – Campion Hall’ had missed the point. What so impressed was his generous responsiveness to all the calls made upon him and his willingness to spend himself to the point of exhaustion. Ever ready to preach, to lecture, to write, to broadcast, to debate, or to advise and counsel, where his Jesuit humaneness shone, he was happy to devote his talents to serving others in many areas of public, political, ecumenical, inter-faith, religious and private life. Corbishley’s publications also showed that he had ‘a hospitable mind’, as was said of St Paul. This was clear from his numerous articles and his books: for example, his Roman Catholicism; his biography of Ronald Knox the Priest; his Does God Care? (a series of six broadcast talks); The Spiritu-ality of Teilhard de Chardin; The Contemporary Christian; and The Prayer of Jesus. He also pro-duced an edited translation of The Spiritual Exercis-es of the Jesuit founder, Saint Ignatius Loyola. When Tom died in 1976 aged 73 after a short illness, his Requiem celebrated at Farm Street Church was shared by a congregation of hundreds, with more than forty concelebrating priests and bishops on the sanctuary, including an ailing Martin D’Arcy, who himself died later that year at the age of 88. It was also fitting that an Act of Thanksgiv-ing for Father Corbishley’s life and work later took place at Evensong in Westminster Abbey, where Tom had been the first Catholic priest invited to preach since the Reformation. The warm personal tributes paid then to an old and dear friend included a prayer for the Jesuit Order, of which Tom had been such an illustrious yet unassuming member, not least at Campion Hall.*

The South Wing (1959) The south wing 1958