The world of the international cooperation of our country is in mourning, and more specifically the Oxfam Intermón Foundation and the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). A fatal accident has made the person who was key in the transformation of Intermón into one of the main NGOs in our country disappear. in the year 79 took the reins of Mission and Development, which was the office of the Jesuits of Catalonia to financially help their own social projects, mainly in Latin America, but also in Africa and India. A handful of workers managed the transfer of money and its accountability. But, after a couple of years, Lluís Magriñà had the intuition to turn this office into a true development foundation from what was then called the Third World: Intermón was born, in the heat of a new social conscience that was convinced of the need to share the economic progress of the last decades with other countries. That was possible because Spain already saw itself as First World. In the same way, this awareness of global co-responsibility is also growing today in emerging countries. Oxfam-Mexico was founded a few years ago, for example.
With that name, sparking a global relationship, offices, delegations and stores were growing of Intermón throughout Spain. He had already gone beyond the limits of the Church to help any project that had a direct and effective impact on development projects. If Magriñà could create Intermón it is because he was convinced of the possibility that an institution born in a Church setting could go beyond its limits and help the whole of society. Following this inspiration, Intermón later joined the great Oxfam federation in 1997.
Lluís Magriña He was a director for 15 years. Recently, he returned to an organization already transformed into Oxfam-Intermón: he joined its board of trustees. Despite the radical change in the world of cooperation in recent years (and the changes that are to come), Lluís continued to be deeply inspiring for the organization.
That inspiration was drawn not only from an enviable management capacity and vision, but of an ability to always look beyond. He was a man of broad horizons. For this reason, his gaze had been directed especially towards sub-Saharan Africa, where he lived for a few years, particularly in Chad.
The International Society of Jesus had felt the call to respond to the drama of the refugees in the world at the end of the 70s, and Lluís wanted to know this reality in Africa. His experience in the field later led him to Rome in the 2000s, to head the Jesuit Refugee Service: the leading Catholic organization dedicated to refugees, present in a large part of the current refugee camps in the world.
Back to Spain, He was entrusted with another managerial task: that of being Provincial of the Jesuits of Catalonia, and later the address of the Cova de Manresa, where he was promoter of the internationalization of this center of spirituality and the transformation of his sanctuary.
Related news
What moved this man, a Jesuit and a priest, to do all that he did? A Passion for the Gospel of Jesus understood as an inseparable union between the mission of the Church and the development of the human being. That is to say, for him there was no authentic transmission of the gospel if it was not verified in concern for the material conditions of people, whatever country they were. Jesus preached God as a father at the same time (and in the same act!) That he healed the sick, lepers, blind, lame & mldr; In this way, the concern for the luck (material, dignity, recognition…) of millions of poor people in our world it was not for Lluís Magriñà a mere “secular& rdquor; or “secular& rdquor ;, but a true religious task in terms of its meaning. Leaving other fellow priests to focus on pastoral duties, he wanted to make visible that there is no Church without social service universal.
Faced with the pressure of some to confine the Church in its sacristies, and before the identity temptation of others to reduce it to the visibility of his cassocks and his crosses, it is convenient to vindicate the figure of our beloved Lluís Magriñà. He rests in peace.