Magis Digital Home: Accompanying and Empowering Youth in the Digital World

By Parthasarathi, SJ, Coordinator, Chennai Youth Federation

“What’s next?” was an arresting question someone asked Father General at the Magis event in Portugal two years ago. “How do we continue accompanying young people after all this is over?”

That question led to lots of soul searching, arguments back and forth and a very energized discernment in the General Curia. And the result? A brand new Ignatian platform for young adults called Magis Digital Home (MDH).

Here’s how the story unfolded. First, Fr General got the idea of a global digital platform for young adults. “I was not convinced we needed a secretariat here in the Curia”, he said. “I wanted something more dynamic, more agile, more youthful.”

The second step was to get this moving in a concrete way. He asked for help from the President of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia who in turn asked the Chennai Province to get things moving. They teamed up with the Karnataka Province, found a base at Loyola College Chennai and a visionary director in Fr Parthasarathi, SJ.

“This program represents a groundbreaking approach to youth ministry in the digital era”, said Sarathi. “The Society has been behind the curve for too long in the digital area. So, when Fr General asked for help, we really wanted to respond. Our Provinces in South Asia have a big digital reach, good expertise and a young population. We felt we could do it, we could answer the call.”

The project’s scope is ambitious yet focused.

“The project starts initially in South Asia”, said Fr Stanislaus D’Souza, President of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia. “But the idea is to expand outwards going wider after a couple of years to other Conferences of Provincials. Young adults don’t think in terms of Provinces. They have a global vision; we want to be there with them in the places of pain and the places of joy.”

This gradual scaling approach ensures that the program can refine its methodologies while maintaining its effectiveness and authenticity.

The initiative emerges at a crucial time for India, which currently boasts the world’s largest youth population. While this demographic dividend presents immense opportunities for positive change, it also comes with significant challenges. Today’s Indian youth face a complex web of issues including unemployment, various forms of addiction, psychological stress, faith crises, environmental degradation, and the rise of right-wing ideologies. In this context, Magis Digital Home positions itself as a beacon of hope, offering a structured platform for guidance and growth.

At its core, MDH aims to provide constant accompaniment to young people through all possible channels, with a particular focus on helping them discover four fundamental connections: with God, with themselves, with society, and with God’s creation. This holistic approach recognizes that young people are not just passive recipients of guidance but potential agents of social transformation. The program creates a safe and secure digital space where meaningful discussions about world issues can take place, while also promoting awareness of democratic values and international peace.

One of the most significant aspects of MDH is its alignment with the Society of Jesus’s Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs), particularly the fourth Preference regarding ecological awareness and action. Despite being primarily a digital platform, the program actively promotes environmental consciousness and engagement. It offers internship opportunities that connect volunteers with environmental groups worldwide, while incorporating ecological literacy and advocacy into its training programs. These initiatives ensure that digital engagement translates into real-world environmental action.

Of course, operating in the digital space presents both opportunities and challenges. The digital platform allows MDH to reach youth across different Provinces efficiently, access diverse demographic resources, and provide personalized guidance for faith development, self-confidence building, and employment preparation. It creates unprecedented opportunities for connecting with young people where they are most active and comfortable.

Yet, these advantages come with significant challenges. The digital space itself can be a double-edged sword, where fake news proliferates and entertainment often overshadows value-oriented content. Social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp present their own unique challenges in terms of maintaining meaningful engagement. Perhaps most critically, reaching rural and unorganized youth with limited internet access remains a significant hurdle that the program must address.

The value proposition of Magis Digital Home lies in its ability to provide hope in what often seems like a hopeless world. By creating a structured, value-oriented digital space, it offers young people a platform for growth, learning, and community building. The program recognizes that while digital platforms can sometimes contribute to isolation and superficial connections, they can also be harnessed to create meaningful relationships and foster personal and spiritual growth.

Looking ahead, the success of Magis Digital Home will likely depend on its ability to balance digital engagement with real-world impact. The program’s emphasis on internships, ecological action, and social transformation suggests an understanding that true youth ministry in the digital age cannot remain purely virtual. Instead, it must serve as a bridge between online engagement and offline action, between individual growth and community service, between spiritual development and social responsibility.

“We are starting this initiative”, said Fr Sosa, “because the Society of Jesus believes in young adults. We believe in their creativity. We believe in their energy. We believe in their deep spirituality and interiority. We believe in their sense of solidarity. We believe in their hopefulness about the future. We believe in their passion about the common home in the face of the challenges faced by our planet.”

As the world continues to grapple with increasing digitalization and its effects on young people, initiatives like Magis Digital Home represent an innovative approach to youth ministry and engagement. By embracing the digital realm while maintaining focus on holistic development and real-world impact, MDH offers a model for how religious and social organizations can effectively engage with youth in the 21^st century. Through this careful balance of digital and physical engagement, spiritual and practical guidance, individual growth and social responsibility, Magis Digital Home aims to nurture the next generation of socially conscious, spiritually grounded, and environmentally aware leaders.