The "Irish tiger" has lifted even those at the bottom rungs of its roaring economy. Chad is rated as the fifth-poorest nation in the world, afflicted by global markets and monetary policies (not to mention the internal demons of corruption and violence).

Yet when viewed outside the usual prism of economic winners and losers, the two countries may seem less far apart, in their encounters with globalization. Both are showing how the global economy, even while holding out promise, could rupture a people's sense of tradition and identity. In Ireland, the challenge comes from affluence and a global media culture. In Chad, it comes in the shape of a World Bank-supported oil pipeline that will run through ancestral lands.

Ireland and Chad were among several countries highlighted in an October 16-20 (2000) gathering of Jesuits from 15 social research and action centers on five continents. They came together for a consultation of the Global Economy and Cultures Project, sponsored by the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. The four-year project pulls together a few dozen Jesuit centers worldwide. Participating groups are compiling narratives about the effects of economic globalization on local cultures.

One insight being tested in the study project is the extent to which the same global policies or development strategies may have "different outcomes in different countries, depending on the social, political, and economic cultures," said Jesuit Father Gasper Lo Biondo, a Woodstock senior fellow who is coordinating the project.

Oil and gas are a case in point. During a discussion of the narrative by Jesuits in Chad, it became clear that oil in central Africa poses a different kind of challenge than development of natural gas in, say, Poland. Jesuit Father Stanislaus Obirek of the Center for Culture and Dialogue in Krakow pointed out that the only concern in Poland is that the government should receive adequate revenue from gas exploration.

"For me, I find it hard to see what the issue is," said Father Obirek, referring to an international dispute over a 700-mile oil pipeline being built through forests and wetlands in Chad and Cameroon.

As explained by the Chadians, the issue is ultimately culture and secondarily compensation. The Chad government will surely reap millions of dollars every year in oil revenue from the consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. However, many worry that the money will be soaked up by corruption.

The narrative lifts up the voices of villagers in southern Chad who are struggling to understand how an underground pipeline will transfigure life and ways, along with a sense of the sacred, cultivated over thousands of years.

"For these people, land is their life," said Jesuit Father Debi Yomtou, who presented the narrative with his fellow Chadian, Berilengar Antoine, a Jesuit studying at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts (who will be ordained shortly in Chad). The villagers have always considered themselves guardians of land entrusted to them by their ancestors. But now they are told that all of it belongs to the state.

Oil companies will compensate villagers for any fruit trees destroyed by pipeline construction. The villagers worry, though, about losing access to fishing, hunting, and farming as well as sacred sites. Distressing to many is the very thought of fixing a dollar value onto mango trees often planted to mark the burial of an ancestor, on ground that is sacred to them.

Even so, many of them look to oil as a possible solution to their economic hardship (triggered in part by the sagging price of cotton in world markets). Mainly, the villagers "want to be listened to" by various actors in this development drama, said Antoine.

While Ireland is often seen as an unmitigated success story of globalization, Jesuit Father Tom Giblin of the Centre for Faith and Justice in Dublin pointed to clouds on the cultural horizon. He spoke of Ireland's winners who, with their second homes in the countryside and multiplying consumer items, give the impression of no longer needing God. More tangibly, he noted the spreading impact of global media culture, especially the "sexualization" of Irish adolescence.

In the context of radically shifting mores, Father Giblin made the most startling comment during the five-day gathering at Georgetown University. "The Church is dying in Ireland and that is irreversible," he declared, adding later that new life could conceivably emerge, perhaps through small faith groups.

Other Jesuits representing social centers at the consultation were Fathers Xavier Albo (Bolivia), Edward Arroyo (United States), Michael Doss (India), Vincent Foutchanste (Cameroon), Francis Jayapathy (India), Bernard Lestienne (Brazil), Jose Magadia (Philippines), Josep Maria (Spain), Peter McIsaac (Jamaica), Pierre-Andre Ranaivoarson (Madagascar), and Jesus Vergara (Mexico). Munhumeso Manenji, a layman who presented a narrative about an elderly farm laborer in Zimbabwe, was tragically killed in an automobile accident shortly after returning to Harrare.

The centers plan to refine their narratives in regional meetings over the next year. After that, Woodstock will engage ethicists in a process of assessing the narrative data. The ultimate product will be a detailed set of recommendations for policy makers and others, issued at a final meeting in late 2002.

William Bole is an associate fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.