Grieving the Jesuits

Corruption of the best is the worst.      Latin proverb.

"They (Jesuits) meet without affection. They depart without regret."      Jesuit alumnus Voltaire, not entirely grateful, but observant of the loneliness, individuality of the Jesuit.

This essay is best read, for balance and context, after the earlier one on "Jesuits I Have Loved."

For almost 500 years, they were for the Post-Trent Catholic Church the elite, the rock of Gibraltar, the Marine Corps, the most loyal, reliable, virile, lucid, erudite, heroic, grounded, aggressive force in the Church. Then, 1965, the conclusion of the Council and eruption of the Cultural Revolution, as if by some black magic, they (not every one, but in the critical mass of their leadership and elite institutions) surrender to a progressivism hostile to core Catholic principles.  

Early in his papacy, 1981, John Paul suspended the leadership of the society and placed a papal delegate temporarily in charge. This was an enormous rebuke of the leadership of Pedro Arrupe who had been in charge since 1965. Clearly, the legacies of Arrupe and John Paul are opposed to each other.

But specific human ideas and personalities were key to the drama. This essay will identify such ideas and persons. The Jesuits are widely respected for their encouragement of open, honest argumentation. In that spirit of respectful candor, this scrutiny is offered. First, two important clarifications.

This is not a judgement against the persons identified: against their character or holiness. It is a critique of their ideas. These men have reputations, not only for intellectual genius, strong leadership and wide influence, but also for good character, love of the Church and prayerful lives. They made immense contributions to the Church. Arrupe is now  a "servant of God" and being considered by the Vatican on the path to canonization. Even were he (or others here) canonized, that would not shield all his views and decisions from scrutiny. Recent saints...including John Paul, Mother Theresa and Father Josemaria Escriva...are not above criticism. 

Secondly, it is my experience that the majority of Jesuits do not clearly advance the views presented here. Rather, it is a small, elite, leadership group, primarily in colleges and universities, who do so. I would guess that in the society (as in the broader priesthood and church) there are perhaps 10% on each side of the culture war who publicly, clearly present the competing visions. The vast majority abstain from the conflict in a posture intended to be peaceful, accepting, neutral, moderate, pastoral. They do so for at least three reasons. First, a (largely) wholesome sense of privacy about things sexual, including abortion, makes them reticent to address these issues publicly. This is strong among the Irish who carry residues of not-so-wholesome Jansenism. Second, there is an aversion to offend, even by presenting a clear Catholic teaching. Third, many are themselves uncertain and undecided. Few priests or Jesuits are prepared and inclined to give a clear statement on birth control, gay blessings or the masculine priesthood. Progressive ideas are broadly and deeply pervasive, inhibiting the clear elucidation of Catholic positions, even if not clearly affirmed by most Jesuits. What follows are twelve important spiritual/intellectual developments and a particular individual associated with them.

Retreat from Chastity and Virility: James Martin. 

By virtue of his charm and intelligence, James Martin is easily the most visible and respected, if  controversial, English-speaking Jesuit of our time. He is the only living Jesuit on this list, but his influence warrants his place. Shrewdly, he does not explicitly contradict Catholic teaching on the spousal/fertile purpose of sexuality. But he undermines it, powerfully if implicitly, by his crusade for the affirmation of "gay" identity and homosexual activity. His message: deliberately sterile sexual activity, homosexuality (and by extension contraception, masturbation, etc.) is itself morally neutral and sometimes affectional and wholesome. He strenuously affirms and encourages, thereby, acts that have always been considered mortally sinful by the Church.

Perhaps more significant than this moral inversion is the affirmation of "gay" identity. Homosexuality as an attraction and action has been with us throughout human history. This confection of a "gay identity" was, until 1965 and the Cultural Revolution, restricted to very small, transgressive, bohemian groups. It's explosion as a mass movement and culture was only possible in a culture that had become wealthy, materialistic, indulgent and had replaced sterile-romantic for spousal-fertile sex, the therapeutic for the virtuous, the narcissistic for the generous/generative. "Gay" is not a reality, not a form. It is a cultural construction, a fallacy, an artificial construction. I love my homosexual friends and family for who they are, but not as "gay." I try not to concern myself with their sexual proclivities or activities! Similarly, I loved my schizophrenic friend Marie (of happy memory) for who she is, not as "Queen of the Universe." (I did not challenge her on this, but would sometimes suggest she was in symptoms with which she would partially agree.)

This campaign of "gay affirmation" disparages the Catholic reverence for sexual purity (or chastity or sobriety) as a form of ignorance, homophobia, hatred, and emotional cruelty.

Separate, but related is the retreat from virility. This preceded the gay revolution in the form of a faux feminism that denied a substantial differentiation between men and women. This anthropological revolution discarded the perennial binary ("...man and woman He created them...) in favor of the neutered, androgynous Self. Our culture no longer offered virility as an ideal form...of generosity, generativity, heroism, honor...of humility, chastity, fortitude, sobriety, serenity, prudence and justice.

Especially regrettable, in my view, is that the magnificent network of Jesuit high schools for boys embraced this ideology and distanced itself from any explicit ideal of masculinity. Happily, these schools (in my experience) retain wholesome traditions and virile energies in sports, academics, and other things so that they continue to provide a fine education and formation. This would be much stronger if they deliberately encouraged the masculine virtues. This has long been Fleckinstein's theme song: the crisis in society is one of virility which is no longer explicitly recognized, much lest encouraged. In regard to manly heroism and holiness, the Jesuit legacy is incomparable. It is a tragedy that it has been discarded in favor of a shallow progressivism.

Individualism: Karl Rahner.

The core, sacred idol at the heart of Cultural Liberalism is the exaltation of the isolated, sovereign Self. Individualism. The self-determining, competent (but not incompetent) Ego as agent and subject of choice. On the political right this is a libertarianism, economics of the marketplace, limited government, and maximal economic choice; on the cultural left this is sexual license. 

What made the Jesuits particularly vulnerable to this revolution was that it is itself the most individualist, least communal of the religious traditions. Monks and friars center their life in communal prayer; the liturgy of the hours. The Jesuits replace this with the spiritual exercises of Ignatius. This discipline is solitary: the retreatant seeks the private, particular guidance of the Holy Spirit, assisted by a spiritual director who is largely non-directive, facilitating the communication between God and the retreatant. It is highly  individualistic. 

A prime example is the theology of Karl Rahner, who has had more influence upon Jesuits than any other theologian of the last 60 years. He works within the Cartesian/Kantian philosophical universe: that of the solitary, thinking, deciding, desiring Subject. He explores the interior life, the spiritual yearnings of the human spirit. He is dealing with the isolated subject. He does not start from the Trinity as revealed. He does not start from the community in worship. He discovers the "anonymous Christian" which is the ordinary non-Christian who nevertheless yearns for and seeks God and so is implicitly a believer. 

There is about his worldview a loneliness. It is typical of his generation: he came of age as a young priest in the Germany of Hitler. He studied under Martin Heideggar and was influenced by his views. Significantly, his first doctoral dissertation was rejected because it leaned too much into existentialism and not enough into classic Thomism. Another interesting fact: in 1962 he was forbidden by the Vatican from teaching theology because of his problematic views. But later that same year, he was appointed by Pope John as a peritus at the Council. From there and afterwards, he had immense influence upon the Church. He published over 4,000 works. His grasp of the tradition and contemporary thought is probably second only to his competitor-friend-Jesuit Balthasar.

The following generation, such as his Spanish protege Jon Sobrino, rejected his individualism in favor of a liberation theology that emulates Marx in its obsession with class oppression and conflict. Both extremes, individualism and collectivism, suggest a prior privation of community life and worship.

Pivot From Supernatural to Political: Pedro Arrupe.

Superior General from 1965-83, the period of profound change, Arrupe is arguably more responsible for the transformation than any other individual.  He did not cause but certainly allowed the change. Interestingly, he credited his vocation to time spent at Lourdes where he clearly saw miraculous healings, scientifically inexplainable, in contradiction  of the atheistic materialism that characterized his medical training.  Perhaps as significant was his presence at Hiroshima in 1945 where he attended to the victims of the atomic bomb making use of his medical training. 

He is widely loved and revered as a saintly priest. He is already designated a "servant of God" and his cause for canonization is in the Vatican. He was clearly a holy, kind, intelligent, compassionate man. Yet this very tenderness may have contributed to a certain imbalance he encouraged in the society.

He had to be traumatized at Hiroshima. Such intimate engagement with profound human suffering can take a limited number of directions. There can be loss of faith, cynicism, discouragement and despair. There can be rage and fury.  There can be a deepening in the supernatural gifts of faith, hope and love. There can also be a decision, a determination to exert all human agency, especially the political, to eliminate such suffering. These last two are not contradictory of each other. The Catholic life includes both: a sense of impotency, a surrender to God, along with intention to fight evil.

A good friend, who has been active in assisting immigrants, confided to me yesterday that he was falling into depression in recent weeks in watching the suffering of people he has been assisting. His wife helped him to realize there is little he can do other than surrender it all to God. He is 77 years old; he will continue to do what he can; he has some peace now in this surrender.

In his leadership, Arrupe strongly urged the Jesuits to identify with the poor and suffering. This is, of course, at the core of the Gospel. But there is a danger here of over-identification, if it is not overwhelmed by the more positive immersion in God's love within a community of faith, praise and support. If there is inadequate attention to the supernatural, the transcendent, the holy, one can succumb to a political ideology involving anger, righteousness, and a confidence in human agency. 

Consider what I will call "Simone Weil Complex." Weil was the brilliant young Jewish philosopher who died of malnutrition in World War II. She had a deep, mystical union with the suffering Christ, in those afflicted here on earth. But she suffered an imbalance. She believed in Christ but never was baptized so deprived herself of the sacraments. She basically starved herself to death, in communion with the afflicted, in an anorexia mirabilis. She engaged too much with the suffering, not enough with the comforting food from heaven. Tridentine Catholic piety had a similar imbalance at times with an unbalanced focus on the suffering Christ (stations of cross, etc.) and the wrath of the Father. 

The suggestion here is that the elite of the society developed an imbalance in focus upon political oppression, on the Marxist dialectic and class war, and a soft secularization that downplayed the supernatural. And so we find today across the Jesuit academic world, especially college but also in high schools, a leftist political ideology with a religious force within it.

Progress/Science/Technology: Teilhard de Chardin.

"Progressivism" as a philosophical tendency obviously places trust in the continual, linear progress of humanity through science, technology and education. The past is in large part an obstacle of ignorance, prejudice, tribal hatred and oppressive authority... to be overcome. This pits it against Catholicism which (like all ancient religions) looks to the past, to a definitive revelation, an authoritative history and tradition. No Catholic articulated this positivism about progress and science as strongly as paleontologist-theologian Teilhard de Chardin. For Teilhard Darwinian evolution is now in a new stage of movement towards the Eschaton. This tends to a positivity about change and a suspicion of the past. This is, of course, the vaunted "Spirit of Vatican II" which detached from the actual documents of that Council in favor of a vague openness to change which in fact succumbed to the Cultural Revolution.

Liberation Theology: Jon Sobrino and Juan Segundo.

Liberation and feminist theology, along with all their cousins, find in the Marxist paradigm of oppressor/oppressed the hermeneutical key to life. EVERYTHING is: Power! That such dynamics exist is, of course, obvious. But that they constitute the most fundamental human and religious reality is kind of obsessive thinking. But this conviction pervades Jesuit schooling as it apes the elite liberal academia.

Historicity, Weakened Ontology and Tradition: Bernard Lonergan.

Midcentury Catholic theology broke with the past in its more pronounced sense of history: that things change throughout history, including religious and Church practice and belief. The more static, stable universe of the ancient and medieval mind was replaced by a sense of historicity. This positive change risked going too far in the opposite direction: abandoning all sense of permanence, stability and continuity in favor of endless change. It became fashionable, for example, to renounce the static Hellenic tradition in favor of the dynamism of the Hebraic. Pope Benedict and others, by contrast, are clear on the providential role of Greek philosophy in Catholic teaching. It is not Lonergan himself that surrendered to this as much as his disciples. That entire generation of midcentury Jesuits (Rahner, Murray, Dulles, Danielou, DeLubac) were firmly grounded in Thomas and tradition as they engaged modern thought. Their disciples were not so blessed. And so the distortions in the thought of Lonergan and others, concerning historicity and other things, became exaggerated into outright contradictions of Catholic belief. Such thought lost its roots in an ontology of Being and a realistic epistemology.

Non-Evangelical, Non-Miraculous, Low Christology, Weakened Sacramentology: Roger Haight. 

Haight, who died recently, was a later generation of Jesuit than most on this select list. He was directed by the Vatican not to teach Catholic theology and so worked in his last years at Union Theological, NYC, a place more congenial to his thought. His defining book was Jesus, Symbol of God. The title itself reveals his thought: Jesus is a manifestation of God, rather than God's very self. So he advocates a theocentrism against a Christocentrism to be more respectful of non-Christian religions. His trinitarian theology moves towards unitarianism as he see the Holy Spirit and Christ as both manifestations of the one God. He is The Non-Evangelical! In this he reflects the trend among fellow Jesuit theologians. He has a strong spiritual sense, but has clearly not personally encountered the divine-human person of Jesus Christ as his own Lord and Savior. He is reminiscent of Paul Tillich, the quintessential Protestant liberal who taught at Union a generation earlier, in contrast to the pronounced Christology of the Council. His theology of "symbol" compares poorly, from a Catholic perspective, with the classic Christ: the Sacrament of Encounter with God written at the beginning of the Council by Edward Schillebeeckx, who at the time was firmly within the Catholic theological world but wandered beyond it later. Haight's is a hygienic secular vision in that it accepts the scientific, reduced, disenchanted universe and denies entirely the miraculous which has always saturated Catholic life, prayer and thought. 

Very practically, this carries over into the sacramental life. A symbolic Christ leads to a symbolic sacrament: shallow, superficial, artificial. And so, we find the troubling tendency in Jesuit colleges and high schools to diminish the sacramental life. Typically, in a Jesuit chapel, the Eucharistic chapel may be in the corner or hidden or allowing only two kneelers. This indicates the demotion of the Eucharistic presence. One is unlikely to find in Jesuit circles holy hours, benediction, procession or devotion to the Sacrament. Liturgies are more informal, meal-like, avoiding the reverence of temple worship, silence, and sacrifice. Practice of sacramental confession is not a priority in the Ignatian curriculum. Graduates from Jesuit schools are probably less prone to attend Sunday mass regularly. In short, the sacramental life is diminished.

A Convoluted Clericalism: Robert Drinan.

Jesuits, in my experience, tend to be non-clerical. At their best, they are priestly but not clerical. This can be a good thing. They prefer to be called by their first names, not addressed as "Father..." They avoid clerical attire for the most part. In formation, they are many years a Jesuit, studying and teaching and even professing final vows prior to ordination. The sacrament of orders seems to play a smaller part in their lives than it does, for example, in that of the ordinary diocesan priest.

This can be appealing and pastorally advantageous in many ways, especially in regard to the educated, the secular, and those offended by the clerical. Correctly it accentuates the baptismal reality that primarily our priests are our brothers-in-Christ. However, there are dangers associated with this.

Catholicism is inherently a clerical religion: centered upon the Eucharist and the sacramental economy, it depends upon a sacred, "set aside," clerical caste that is normatively male, celibate, educated, carefully vetted for psychological integrity, virtuous character, love of the Church and holiness of life. This clerical class creates, inevitably, a clerical culture. At its best it is: holy, loving, wholesome, intelligent, pastoral. At its worst it can become arrogant, distant, insensitive, and awkward with women. However, anti-or-non-clericalism leads to a weakening of the sacramental life (noted above.)

Another danger, in progressive circles, is an inverted or convoluted clericalism. The liberal pivot is away from the sacraments and worship and to a social justice activism. Here, the cleric becomes the justice activist leader. The Church transfigures from its supernatural, transcendent character to become an agent of social change on behalf of the poor and oppressed. 

And so we consider Father-Congressman Robert Drinan. As Jesuit priest and US Congressman from Massachusettes through the 1970s he erred gravely in several ways. The incompatibility of being a priest-politician was eventually clarified by John Paul who directed all such priests to leave politics of the priesthood. The incompatibility between the two should be obvious. A priest primarily presides at the Eucharist which unites Catholics of all politics around the altar of sacrifice. A priest who is a partisan clearly is dysfunctional and dissonant. And so, for example, Drinan was the first to move to impeach Nixon. Obviously, this would interfere with his ministry to Catholics who support that president. 

To make matters worse, he was an ardent supporter of legal abortion. He even argued in favor of the Obama veto of the born-alive abortion bill. He was a zealot opposed to key Catholic values.

To make things worse: he habitually wore his clericals to Congress. In this he contradicted the non-clericalism more common among his Jesuit brothers. In doing so, he used his priesthood to add clerical power to his positions. This is a more perverse clericalism: bad enough that he is partisan as a priest; bad enough that he works feverishly for abortion even of the born alive; but even worse he wears his clerics to bring Catholic power to his positions. He is, and remains, a highly esteemed icon of Jesuit political progressivism.

Mimicry of Secular, Ivy Schools: Ted Hesburg.

Hesburg was not, of course, a Jesuit. But he deserves a place on this listing as the dominant force in midcentury Catholic higher education and a huge influence upon Jesuit colleges. He convened, 1967, the historic Land O'Lakes conference in which presidents of prestigious Catholic schools, many Jesuit, announced their independence from Church authority. They proclaimed independence from any external actor beyond the academy itself. It is ironic that at this very time Notre Dame was hosting pro-contraception conferences, funded by Ford and Rockefeller foundations. These were fueled by fear of the "population explosion" but more maliciously by the WASP anxiety around the fertility of Catholics and Blacks. This was a harbinger of the increasing allegiance of Catholic higher education to causes of the political and cultural left.

Hesburg was a powerful, influential, midcentury Catholic figure: charming, intelligent, deeply devout. His failing was his urgent compulsion to win approval of American elites of the time: White, Anglo, Protestants turning secular. He wanted Notre Dame and similar schools to emulate the Ivy leagues and share in that prestige. None followed his example in the following years as closely as Jesuit universities. Underlying this mimesis was a certain Catholic intellectual inferiority complex.

In the years before 1967, there was much awareness that in the years after the war, the Catholic community had vastly increased in size, wealth, institutions, economic/political/cultural power and influence. The exception was in the academy: Catholics lacked reputation in higher education. The Church had maintained, of course, its own parallel system of education. It was widely felt that intellectually it was inferior. And so, there emerged in the 1960s a powerful compulsion to emulate the Ivy schools and other prestigious centers. 

And so, we find Jesuit schools proclaiming dependence from the Church but emulating the secular elites. This effected hiring especially, but administration and campus life in many ways. Most mainstream schools renounced the Catholic in favor of the progressive.

A similar dynamic effected Jesuit high schools. These have remained committed to academic excellence, to care of the person, and the legacy of the Church. But for many shareholders, especially parents and students, a primary goal is to move on to Ivy or Ivy-comparable schools in order to ensure a secure, affluent career. In this the schools serve the class interests of the upwardly aspirational middle class. This is not bad in itself. But it is at least morally questionable as a pillar of a meritocratic, severely divided class society. Jesuits have always been the elite of the Church. They compete with other elites. They serve those who aspire to rise above the working class to the managerial, affluent class. They compensate by teaching social justice, by emphasizing the suffering of oppressed groups, and by worthwhile experiences such as immersion trips. And yet, the paradox remains: the system of schools is in service of the upwardly aspirational and mobile within a broader universe that privileges the educated. It is a pillar supporting the upper tier of an increasingly unequal society. This is a tension, a contradiction at the heart of Jesuit secondary education.

Flawed Liberalism: John Courtney Murray

Murray (even more than my beloved Avery Dulles) is our most influential American Jesuit thinker. He peaked in the honeymoon of Catholicism and America, dying in 1967, just as the Cultural Revolution was exploding. He epitomizes the harmony, indeed the love affair, of the Church with the USA at the time of the Council. He explored pluralism, religious freedom, and the best aspects of the American project. He had heavy influence on Dignitatis Humanae, the Council document that significantly developed the Church's understanding of religious freedom. He is the theological icon of the era (1945-65) along with figures like Fulton Sheen, Thomas Merton, John F. Kennedy, Flannery O'Connor and others. 

His view on abortion is of interest. He clearly declared the responsibility of the state to protect all human life, including the unborn. At the same time, he cautioned that prudence guides policy so that the implementation of good values is pragmatic and not simple. This left, of course, an opening for his followers to tolerate the legalization of abortion that followed his death by several years. He is an old school liberal, prior to the sexual/abortion revolution.

Yet, we are indebted to David L. Schindler, of happy memory, and his son David C. for a penetrating philosophical critique of the liberalism underlaying Murray's views. Murray views the American experiment as an "order of peace," a process or procedure of neutrality that allows for compromise between competing parties and a wide freedom to pursue disparate aims. Underlying this is an Enlightenment, deist, even Calvinist view of the autonomous individual, free to choose, unhindered by American liberty in the pursuit of the good. This contrasts with a Catholic, deeply incarnational view, that sees that all of reality is created for communion with God in the good. And so, politics, culture, economics, academics, science and all human life is oriented always and already towards God, in grace, or against God in sin. 

And so, the apparently Catholic liberalism of Murray camouflages our old enemy: individualism, the core of the Cultural Revolution and the weakness of the Society of Jesus.

Abortion Strategy of 1964 Hyannisport Conference: Richard McCormick and Robert Drinnan

Jesuits Drinan and  McCormick were invited with other prominent liberal Catholic theologians (Fuchs, Curran, Milhaven) by the Kennedy family to their Hyannisport compound to develop a Catholic politics on abortion. The group agreed that Courtney-Murray's view that circumstances could allow Catholics to prudentially support legal abortion to recommend a pro-abortion policy. They apparently convinced the Kennedy's of this approach. This was a historic, decisive moment. At that time, the DNC was not prochoice and the RNC was not prolife. At that time a neutral observer would surely conclude that the more probable party to support abortion would be the WASP RNC rather than the Catholic DNC. But this meeting was decisive for the future. A dark question hangs over American Catholicism of the 1970s: why did Catholic democrats so docilely surrender the party to the abortion agenda? A part of the answer: this conference and the theologians there involved.

Populist or Elite? Pope Francis.

Confused, contradictory, incoherent and polarizing, the papacy of Francis exemplified the problems listed above:

Anti-clericalist in his relentless contempt for what he sees as rigidity, legalism, formalism, and dogmatism in the priesthood,  he wielded power in an autocratic manner and articulated as papal truth his own views on prudential, policy matters.

Ignoring and implicitly dismissing much of the magisterium of his two predecessors, he presented his own papacy as a novelty, a progressive step beyond the past in the exercise of mercy and a newly contrived "synodality."

"Synodality" itself is a disparagement of holy orders as it replaces the apostolic authority of the bishops with a vague dialogic process that engages even those hostile to Catholic values. Many of us who love our legacy want nothing to do with it; those who want to change the Church welcome it.

Clearly evangelical in his own love for Jesus Christ, he tended to speak of  other religions as roughly equivalent paths to God, in a sloppy ecumenical relativism contrasting with  the Christocentrism of the Council, John Paul and Benedict.

He advocated a pastoral approach, uprooted from dogma and therefore truth, and so emotional, impulsive, anti-intellectual and uninformed by deep, Catholic traditions of philosophy.

He embraced the gay crusade of James Martin, including the blessing of gay unions, as he used slang to disparage homosexuals in casual contexts.

He continued the pivot, of Arrupe, to the political, with heavy focus on political policy like the environment, capital punishment, walls and immigration. These are prudential issues on which he as pope has neither professional competence nor heavenly guidance.

Perhaps most puzzling of all: he presents as a populist, champion of the poor and oppressed. Yet, he has disparaged the piety of the uneducated. He has cast himself as antagonist of rightwing, populist movements around the globe. He has aligned himself with political causes favored by progressive Western elites. He is, at best, a confused, elitist populist.

Genuine Renewal in the Church Since 1965

The action of the Holy Spirit in the Church over the last sixty years has been largely:

1. Evangelical: a recovered intimacy with the Divine person of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior as well as a communion with Evangelical/Pentecostal Christianity.

2. Communal: the emergence of small, intimate, intense communities of charity around the sacraments and the Word: charismatic renewal, neocatechumenal way. communion and liberation, Latin mass, home schooling(coalitions of Catholic mothers), prolife and maternity centers, new religious communities, and intensively Catholic colleges.

3. Chaste and Fertile: theology of the body, natural family planning, the "spousal mysticism" of Balthasar/John Paul/Benedict. A renewed sense of the sacredness of marriage, family, sacrament. An understanding of Christ's spousal love of his bridegroom Church and the priesthood and religious life as reflective of this groom/bride drama of love.

4. Populist: simple, non-sophisticated devotion to the Divine Mercy (St. Faustina), our Blessed Mother, Eucharistic adoration, remembrance of the saints.

Sadly, you will find almost no Jesuit involvement in these currents of renewal. If you find some they are exceptions, outliers. 

As a corporate personality, the Society of Jesus

-Non-Evangelical. It aligns with liberal Protestantism. It experiments with Zen and accentuates the values of the world religions. Thus it  diminishes the potency of sin, the need for salvation, the coming of Christ, and the specific efficacy of the cross.

-Individualistic:  not engaged in these new forms of community and so accommodating of cultural liberalism.

-Sexually liberational: affirmative of sterile sex and the LGBTQ agenda, indifferent if not hostile to theology of the body, natural family planning and the prolife movement.

-Elitist:  mimetic of the liberal ideology that prevails in the upper echelons of society, disparaging of many forms of popular piety, and enabling of bourgeois, meritocratic aspirations.

Future of the Society of Jesuit

My own greatest wish for the society is that it use its magnificent network of secondary schools to develop an authentically Catholic cult of virility as: chaste, humble, courageous, sober, serene, prudent and just. The crisis in masculinity becomes more apparent every day. At the same time, we see emerging a primal hunger in young men for God, virtue, masculinity, guidance, formation and inspiration. The Jesuit schools are an unequalled asset to accomplish this. Sadly, I do not see this happening.

Regarding Jesuit universities, they have already gone too far down the dark hole of cultural liberalism. The institutions are already so solidly committed to an anti-Catholic agenda that the best thing would be for the Church and the Society of Jesus to detach from them. They then can present themselves for what they are: not genuinely Catholic, but a form of cultural liberalism, flavored with Catholicism.

The future of the society is not hopeful. For the most part, it is structurally, inherently individualistic, secular, sexually liberational, elitist, progressive. In 1965 there were 8,400 Jesuits in the USA. In 2025 there were 19 ordinations in USA and Canada combined. It is growing in Africa. The society is not dead; it is on life support. 

The Arrupe leadership has been called the "second founding" of the Society. More accurately: it was the founding of a new religious order, discontinuous with the past. The old Jesuits were militant, doctrinally rigorous, pope-obeying, aggressive, evangelistic, heaven-and-hell-concerned, virile, sacramental. The new Jesuits (that is, at the elite, institutional level) are: accommodating of modernity, theologically in dissent, secular, disenchanted, sexually liberational, gay affirming, abortion accepting, Arian-leaning, leftist and anti-populist politically. An old Latin proverb: "The corruption of the best is the worst."

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote about the Church as a garden with much variety. Among religious orders and movements there are annuals and perennials. The former flourish for a time, perform their misson, and vanish. The later remain as permanent life forms within the Church. We would have to consider monks, hermits, friars as perennials. I would have considered the Jesuits to be the same. But increasingly, it seems that that society was much a staple of the church of Trent, for almost 500 years. Sixty years ago it took, institutionally and in critical mass, an erroneous, disastrous turn. 

We are grateful for all it has been for half a millennium. We can only pray for its future.

 

In Praise of the Vowed Brother, Icon of Humility and Poverty

Today, feast of St. Brother Andre Bessette, we do well to consider the vocation of the brother.

In its simplicity, there is a profound, four-fold poverty about this vocation and charism. Within such poverty, there hides an extravagance of grace and generosity.

First, most obvious, there is the surrender of wife, children, family and biological legacy.

Secondly, there is no holy orders, priestly endowment or clerical status. So neither of the vocational sacraments are enjoyed. The priest/bishop configures his masculinity to represent Christ, bridegroom of the Church. We call him "father" as we recognize in him a spiritual paternity. And so, the priest fully realizes his masculine purpose at a higher-than-natural plane. The brother is deprived of this privilege and power.

Thirdly, unlike the woman religious, the brother does not enjoy a virginal, bridal surrender to Christ, the bridegroom of the soul. Ontologically and spiritually, every human soul is feminine, receptive and surrendered to Christ. The consecrated woman fluidly sublimates her psyche and feminine energies into a "bridal" spiritual communion with Christ. The male does not enjoy this distinctive relationship of spiritual intimacy. While spiritually the brother, like every man, is "feminine," psychologically, socially, and culturally the brother relates to Christ as brother, not bride. This is more distant, less intimate, less fulfilling.

Lastly, the brother ordinarily finds a path of humble, hidden service, bereft of worldly status, power and privilege. Few brothers obtain academic doctorates or advanced degrees. Few attain positions of power and influence. Frequently, they teach the young, serve the poor, perform manual labor in low-status service. A radical, Christ-like poverty!

I have enjoyed friendship with brothers throughout my life. In 5th-8th grade I was taught by the Christian brothers. In Maryknoll College seminary I came to know some brothers who served as handymen, infirmarian and such. For about 30 years Christian Brother Ray Murphy has been a dear friend and mentor. Through my nephew I befriended brothesr in the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. And through my daughter, a Memores Domini within the Communion and Liberation movement, I am friends with men members. These are "lay" in the manner of secular institutes, living professionally in the world, but are vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience within communities of prayer and so are in form essentially vowed brothers.

Perhaps because they are unburdened by status, power and privilege, there is a refreshing lightness about these men. They do not take themselves seriously.  No self-importance or pretentiousness. Loose, free, genuine, spontaneous. Delightful!

Many are quite talented and intelligent, but in a modest, anonymous fashion. For example, teaching brothers may have a number of masters' degrees which serve well in instructing young men. My friend Brother Ray was encouraged by his mentor, the great historian John Lukacs, to pursue doctoral studies. He declined to keep his focus on education of adolescents.

Their foundational, defining call and charism is to be: a brother. Consider the foundational familial identities/relationships: filial, fraternal/sororal, spousal, paternal/maternal. The fraternal or brotherly is the lightest, the least intense/dramatic/intimate, the most sober and detached. The filial, spousal and paternal/maternal are saturated with emotion, passion, need, intensity, drama. Even sororal, or sisterly, relationship is far more intimate, intense, emotional. The psychic boundaries of the female psyche are open, fluid, generous, compassionate, and pervious. Naturally, they engage with others (sisters, brothers, friends) with intensity, passion, urgency. By contrast, the fraternal is a detached, sober, more superficial relationship: often focused on shared interests like sports, business, or projects and missions. And so, for example, a single woman who is an aunt will effortlessly become a second mother to nephews and nieces. This does not flow so instinctively for the uncle.

And so, there is relatively a certain solitariness about the life of the vowed brother. He enjoys neither the bridal surrender to Christ nor the spontaneous intimacy which women naturally share. He is not self-consciously father in the biological or sacramental realms. 

And yet, what I sense from brothers is not isolation, despair, loneliness; rather, a distinctive lightness, joy, freedom and authenticity. He embodies in stark form the solitary nature of all masculinity: that of John the Baptist and all the hermits. Intrinsic to masculinity...even that of the husband, father, priest... is a "standing alone" with God in the desert. Spiritually and psychologically the man stands alone...drawing support, comfort, sobriety and prudence from God the Father, with Jesus The Son, in the Holy Spirit. From this solitude the male is endowed with the steadiness, strength, sobriety and magnanimity which flow out to comfort and fortify others.

The vowed brother is the icon of just this solitude. From it flows the light, chaste, sober, free, clear, virile love of brotherhood.  

Thank God for our religious brothers!

Jesuits I Have Loved

For my life of almost 80 years Jesuits have been a persistent, profound, positive presence.

I grew up with America magazine which my maternal grandfather was reading 100 years ago. My father, a union leader, worked with the Jesuits in their labor St. Peter's Labor Institute in Jersey City. I admired the intellectual prowess, courage and holiness of 400 years: Edmund Campion and the English martyrs,  Jogues/Brebeuf and companions in Canada, Robert Bellarmine doctor of the Church, Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci in Asia, Miguel Pro in Mexico and countless others.  These were the marine corps of the Church: most loyal, intelligent, courageous, erudite, daring, assertive. Ending high school, I wanted to become a Jesuit or a Maryknoller; my attraction to service of the poor internationally prevailed. But going forward from there, many Jesuits had great influence upon me. I start with those I have known personally and then the most influential through their life and writings.

1. Joe Whelan. Charming, erudite, holy theologian of the mystical who shaped my theology/spirituality. (I studied theology at Woodstock, NYC, with Jesuits Whelan/Dulles/Burkhardt in early 70s,)

2. Avery Cardinal Dulles. Teacher of fundamental theology with incomparable depth, breath, orthodoxy and scholarship.

3. John Wrynn.  History professor at St. Peter's College, JC, dear friend and spiritual director for 25 years.

4. Neal Doherty. Department head at Xavier H.S., friend, spiritual directo. 

5. Walter Burghardt.  Peritus at Vatican II, this influential, talented theologian taught me patristics and encouraged me to publish a paper I did for him on Ignatius of Antioch.

5. Hans Urs Von Balthasar.  Arguably the most erudite, brilliant, influential Catholic theologian of the 20th century. Along with Wojtyla, Ratzinger and DeLubac started the Communio School of theology. He famously left the Jesuits to found a new community with Adrienne von Speyr.

6. Henri DeLubac and Jean Danielou. Brilliant, learned periti at the Council, they blend holiness of life, loyalty to tradition, brillianceT and wholesome progressive insight in a splendid synthesis.

7. Ed Oates. Insightful protege of Balthasar, his Patterns of Redemption is an invaluable, user-friendly introduction to that genius. 

8. Joseph Fessio. Founder of Ignatius Press, student of Ratzinger, he has had immense influence on the English-speaking Catholic world.

9. John Hardon.  His catechism, prior to the publication of the official Catholic Catechism, was immensely helpful in the confusion of the 70s and was recommended to me personally by St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

10. Walter Ciszek. The witness of this Servant of God (being considered for canonization) who spent 15 years in the Soviet Gulag is incomparable.

11. Rick Thomas. Another maverick, outlier Jesuit, he is also being considered in Rome for canonization. He was charismatic, pro-life, friend of the poor at the Mexican border.

12. Kenneth Baker.  Editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review,  he yielded wide influence. He (if memory serves) published my article on Ignatius of Antioch.

Other Jesuits who have had a wide, positive influence on the Church of our time (but not so directly on me) include: James Schall of Georgetown, William Lynch, Walter Ong, historian of philosophy Frederick Copleston, Joseph Koterski of Fordham, Mitch Pacwa of EWTN, Robert Spitzer of Gonzaga, Ed Dowling friend of Bill W and AA, John Corridan the famous "waterfront priest" who inspired On the Waterfront, civil rights activist John LaFarge and philosopher Erich Przywara.

Not all of these names would be familiar in the halls of Georgetown, Fordham or America. For the most part they represent a more traditional, countercultural but passionate engagement with modernity. They are in many respects a correction to the mainstream projective trajectory of the order since the Council. Those issues will be addressed in a follow-up essay.

More locally and personally my family and I have delighted in friendships with Jesuits here at St. Peter's Prep and College (now University). One could hardly imagine a group of men so charming, gracious, erudite, intelligent, and faith-filled in a humble, self-effacing manner.

Above all, I am grateful for the education given to my children, and especially my two sons, and now one grandson, at Jesuit schools. My son-in-law has spent now decades of service in this area. The education provided, notwithstanding some catechetical imbalances (to be discussed later), has been rich academically, psychologically, athletically and spiritually. 

Our friendship with the Society of Jesus has been a gift and a delight.

 Berrigan

Teilhard, Rahner, Longergan drinan martin francis arrupe courtney murray

My Big Sisters in Christ

 "Strong feminine influence."    My handwriting analysis.

I never had a big sister. This is a privation.

As oldest of 9, I have 6 little sisters, 5 daughters, 13 granddaughters, 18 nieces. I have taught religion to 1,000s of young women. In 25 years at UPS I supervised women but never had a female boss. As director of a residence for women I have served 100s of women and worked with perhaps 50 or more.

I am ALWAYS the big brother, never the little brother.

I was blessed with a tremendous mother, two grandmothers, 6 aunts, a dear great-aunt, 5 girl cousins. The 3 who were older than me were great; the closest I got to a big sister. 

To make matters worse: in grade 5 we boys went with the Christian Brothers. This was followed by all-boys high school and college seminary. From age 10-22 I had no girl classmate, friend or teacher. I never talked with a girl or woman who was not family.

At age 22, I left seminary, still drawn to the priesthood, primarily to learn how to relate to women in a wholesome, mature manner. I was afflicted with inordinate shyness, insecurity, obsessive desire, and shame. Fortunately, my first date went swimmingly: Best time in my life. I fell in love. My fears evaporated. I passionately, persistently courted. And have lived happily ever after. 

A singular blessing: in my late 20s, early in our family life, 1972-77, I befriended and worked very closely with three "big sisters": all Convent Station Sisters of Charity, all about 15 years older than me, quite different in personality, all women of extraordinary intelligence, character, energy and holiness. I pray to them every day. Patricia Brennan, leader of our charismatic prayer group, was the closest I have ever seen to St. Paul. Virginia Kean lived close to the poor in Jersey City and mentored me in serving the residents of the housing projects. Maria Martha Joyce was my partner in teaching high school religion, my good buddy, and tons of fun. With each I shared a mutuality in purpose, calm affection, respect, and delight. They fortified me in my three defining aspirations: catechesis of the young, service of the poor, and the Church's life of worship. They were not father figures; not mother figures; but friends, partners and big sisters. Later in life I was fortunate to repeat this pattern with others, especially Dominicans and Felicians. 

Consider the "big sisters" I have known, if only in a single conversation or lecture:  St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Ruth Carter Stapleton (charismatic healer, sister of Jimmy Carter), Anne Ulanov (Anglican psychologist-theologian at Union Theological), Dr. Dianne Traflet (Seton Hall U.), Sister Joan Noreen (OLME), Felician Sister Marilyn Minter (charismatic missionary to Haiti), writer Heather King, and Mary Healy (theologian).

More remotely, through their writings and life witness, I am influenced by: Catherine Doherty, Adrienne von Speyr, Caryl Houselander, Saint Faustina, Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, Blessed Maria Teresa Demjanovitch, Hannah Arendt, Elizabeth Leseux, Flannery O'Connor, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, Simone Weil, St. Theresa of Lisieux, St. Maria Gioetti, and Mother Margaret Cusak.

Masculinity is a reality of relationship, to women and men, in filiality, fraternity/friendship, spousality and paternity. Of immense importance is that of fraternity/friendship, brother/sister. This is fundamentally neither filial nor paternal/maternal although some dynamisms are present. It is entirely non-spousal, free of romantic-erotic-possessive dynamics. It is equality; it is mutuality in sober affection, reverence, and shared purpose. 

While I never had a biological big sister, I have been more than compensated by these big sisters in Christ. They affirmed and strengthened me in Christlike virility and enhanced my ability to love all women in a manly, wholesome, holy manner.  Thanks be to God! 

 

Milestones on the Spiritual Itinerary of a Contrarian, Boomer Catholic

One thing I ask of the Lord; this alone I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life.

"Contrarian" because my generation in critical mass left the Catholicism we received; my life went in a different direction, drawn by a gracious, invisible hand ever deeper into our faith.

1. Childhood/Youth.  

Catholicism was the air I breathed: everything and everyone I knew. Parish, school, priests, sisters, brothers, serving mass (6 AM daily, some weddings, lots of funerals), sacraments, family rosary.

Standard, generic Irish-American Catholicism: no frills, nothing exciting or dramatic. Pious in a quiet, low key manner. Comfortable with God the Father, our Blessed Mother, and the saints. Not Evangelical; I did not personally know Jesus as my Lord and Savior; that would come later. Not Pentecostal; I did not receive clear, concrete guidance by the Holy Spirit; that would come later.

Serious about the sacraments. The thought of missing Sunday mass would never even occur to me. Serious about morality. Especially chastity. Especially about love for the poor and suffering.

The single defining experience was learning, at age 7 or so, about the starving children in China. I was horrified. I walked back and forth through my house. Mesmerized by the tragedy of it. From then an underlying aspiration was always to befriend the poor and suffering.

I grew up with The New York Times, America and Maryknoll Magazine, seeing global suffering and its alleviation as the primary drama, even more than the Cold War. My decision at the end of high school to apply to be a Maryknoll missionary priest was obvious.

Even the world beyond the boundaries of the Church seemed somehow an extension of that defining reality: the labor movement, Democratic Party, caddying, sports, Davey Crockett, John Wayne, and the US as protagonist against Communism.

I never left this Catholic world. Even my 25 year business career with secular, capitalist UPS was saturated with Catholicism: Franciscan-like brown uniforms and trucks, rigorous work ethic, strict code of honesty, fraternal camaraderie, quasi military authority/obedience structure, positive social reputation, austerity, and focus on "service." 

Catholic prep school continued this pattern: steady, calm, boring, schoolyard basketball, caddying, and tons of reading which opened a second life, far more interesting. Religion was routine, serene, quiet.   

2. Maryknoll College Seminary 1965-9

Late adolescence was spent serenely in the quasi-monastic routines of the seminary, which were at that point,  like the rest of the post-Council Church, were falling apart: prayer, study, work assignments, recreation.  Strong friendships. Men only. Wholesome.

Spirituality was again generic Irish-American Catholicism: quiet, uneventful, steady, uninspiring. Our Maryknoll priest professors, many of whom later left the priesthood, were decent, intelligent men of fine character but distant from us seminarians and so not directly influential.

I was befriended, mentored and deeply influenced by a dynamic, gifted, intelligent, ex-Marine, ex-pugilist, lay librarian Pat Williams.

Junior year my philosophy study included the 19th century "masters of suspicion" (Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin) and the medieval Thomistic tradition (Maritain and Gilson). The contrast was stark: irrationalism, chaos, violence, reductionism versus a splendid realism  of faith and reason. The choice made itself. This served to inoculate me against the Cultural Revolution at that very moment exploding across the culture. 

From this serene haven we engaged the intellectual ferment of the Church and society. Exciting! Stimulating! Revolutions! Always new books, thinkers, theories, theologies! A permanent state of low-grade, intellectual ecstasy! 

I was personally influenced by Monsignor Ivan Illich, eccentric, maverick, brilliant iconoclast who wandered near Catholic heresy but from a deep, unusual Catholic mysticism. He presented a radical critique of Church and society rooted in a profound Catholicism. This appealed to me and paradoxically, despite his heterodoxy, served to strengthen my allegiance to our faith.

3. Holy Theologian Jesuits Whelan and Dulles

While courting my wife-to-be, (1970-2) I studied theology with some of the best Protestant theologians at Union Theological NYC but more importantly with outstanding Jesuit priest-theologians. Most significantly Joseph Whelan SJ, himself a mystic, helped me to see that love of Christ is love for his Church; that good theology flows only from prayer and holiness; and introduced me to Balthasar. Avery Cardinal Dulles, the incomparable American Catholic theologian, gave a Catholic vision incomparable in its depth, breath, balance, loyalty, erudition.

4. Cursillo

Here, 1973, age 26, I encountered Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, as human and divine. I became an Evangelical Catholic.

4. Charismatic Renewal

Just a few months later, as a couple we opened ourselves to the Pentecostal Anointing, called "baptism in the Holy Spirit," previously given in confirmation but now exploding experientially. 

This, building upon Cursillo, was the defining life-changing encounter of my life. Previous to this, my Catholic faith lacked intimacy with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I felt blessed by and grateful to God but much of my spirituality was a burden of compassion and guilt about the poor and suffering accompanied by a low-grade guilt about my inadequate response to an obvious obligation to help the less fortunate. This event inverted the dynamic: I was no longer burdened by a debt of guilt. I became receptive of the Holy Spirit: blessings, guidance, inspirations, empowerment. I drank voraciously of the teaching flowing from the leadership including Ralph Martin and Steve Clark.

These encounters opened our marriage to receive children. To start our family with such a spiritual basis was an immense blessing.

In these same years (1972-80), I remained without career orientation and we lived modestly but happily. I taught religion in a Catholic high school while serving a parish in the housing projects, communicating with Spanish-speaking families and catechizing children. I was blissfully engaged with my three life passions: passing our faith to youth, friendship with the poor, the life of prayer and worship.

5. Dual Papacy of John Paul/Benedict and Communio Theology

The papacy, teaching and person of John Paul influenced me immensely. Everything: theology of the body, the Divine Mercy, philosophy of labor, the new Catechism. I had already encountered Balthasar but now I dived passionately into the theological journal Communio, edited in the USA by David L Schindler and drawing from JP, Balthasar, and Ratzinger-Benedict. Through the 80-90s, raising our family and working for UPS, my spiritual life was immensely enriched by this school of theology.

I became a Cultural Warrior: sworn enemy of Cultural Liberalism, of a Democratic Party which had betrayed Catholicism in favor of sexual chaos and genocide of the unborn, and the progressive infection within the Church.

Over the years,  our faith also benefited from friendship with Marriage Encounter, Sisters of Charity, Dominican Sisters, Felician Sisters, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Communion and Liberation. Graduate study at Seton Hall University brought me into contact with the significant dialogue there between Catholicism and Judaism.

As a couple we never committed to a strong intensive community, but benefited in raising our children in the faith from the above friendships, a good/normal parish, good/normal Catholic schools, and especially engagement, especially during adolescent summers, with more intensive groups including NET retreats, World Youth Days, Youth 2000s, Magdallen College summer catechetical programs, charismatic conferences and service/immersion trips. 

6. Neocatechumenal Way and 12-Steps

Approaching the new Millennium, these two movements helped me greatly. Both are keenly aware of human powerlessness and weakness. While I did not commit to either in a final way, I for a time did "walk with" each and benefit immensely. I was part of two different Neocat communities. I participated at times in Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon, Emotions Anonymous, Family Anonymous, and similar groups including Suicide Survivors Support Group, men's sharing groups and Dr. Lowe's Recovery Groups for nervous people. Taken together, these immensely helped me deal with personal patterns of compulsivity.

7. Camino of Santiago and Magnificat Home

Walking, with delight, the Camino of Santiago in Spain in 2007, just delivered from colon cancer with good surgery, my children moving steadily into adulthood, and happily back teaching religion in a Catholic school, I repeatedly asked God if he had anything for me to do. My mind always returned to "boarding home people" whom I had befriended. Upon early retirement from UPS in 2001 I had sought to pursue work with them but came to dead ends so had simply prayed: "God, I want to serve these people. But it is too much for me. You have to bring together a team. And I will be on that team." So, day after day this dialogue ended with: "I am on the team. But you have to bring it together." Over half way through the pilgrimage, the electric bulb in my mind went off. I saw clearly what was so obvious: in my own family/friends we had already a network of assets and energies adequate to start a modest house. My mother asked the cost to start such a project. I answered (accurately as it turned out): $100,000. She told me she would give me a check for $50,000. We were off and running. We are now over 16 years into this delightful work. We have received blessing after blessing including our dear residents, volunteers, staff, and a marvelous support network.

8. OLME: Our Lay's Missionaries of the Eucharist

Following my daughter Clare and wife, I made promises in OLME to center my life on the Eucharist, the daily prayer of the Church, charity and simplicity of life. So as a couple we often, but not always, pray morning and evening prayer together, and practice daily routines like mass and rosary. It has been an indescribable blessing upon us as a couple.

9. Psychology

As an amateur student of psychology, I am fascinated by how the (supernatural) grace of Christ works through human protocols: the intersection of counseling, spirituality and theology. Early on, I was impacted by priest-psychologist Charles Curran's focus upon the power of listening, in therapy and education, as empathetic, open, affirmative. His approach was solidly Catholic in contrast to Carl Rogers and his disciples like Eugene Kennedy. Charismatic renewal is rich in this field: healing of memories of Ruth Carter Stapleton, deliverance ministry of Neal Lozano, scriptural teaching of Mary Healy. The scrutinies of the Neocatechumenal Way and the entirety of the 12 step program are powerful in healing. The academic work of Paul Vitz, pastoral approach of Benedict Groeschel, and the spirituality of von Kaam are particularly fruitful. Additionally, the "reparative psychology" (Joseph Nicolosi and Elizabeth Moberly), much maligned as an effort to change "sexual orientation," is promising as "repair" for a range of sexual disorders.

10. Second Childhood

Age 78, I choose to think of this stage, not as senility or retirement, but as growth into second childhood. Cognitive/physical decline brings with it graces for childlike trust, gratitude, receptivity,  holiness of life. Our shared joy as a married couple is first our life of faith. Second is watching our grandchildren grow up so beautifully, and in our Catholic faith.

For now our health and stamina allow us to continue engagement with Magnificat Home as well as happy participation in teaching CCD (7th grade), jail and hospital ministries. 

Our next milestones: decline and death. With this is the promise of childlike trust, holiness and increase in grace. The best thing is that increase in personal holiness brings with it blessings for those we love and even those we do not know.

God's tender mercies have been so abundant that I can intelligently only anticipate more Mercy to come. I pray for an increase in Hope. I look forward to seeing in the afterlife so many who have passed. I delight in the future I observe in our family. I am happy to be a small, but not insignificant person in this Church.

Pope Leo: Icon of Virility

Theologically Pope Leo promises to follow his mentor Francis. He will minimize the Culture War; press strongly on geopolitical issues; lean heavily into "synodality" (a word that makes me sick to my stomach!) This is, to put it nicely, a "thin," mediocre, accommodationist Catholicism. But I like and admire him strongly! This despite my view that the primary task of the pope is to teach us, theologically.

I like him because he is manly. I think this is, unconsciously, why the Cardinals chose him.

In the buildup to the Conclave, he led several consultative sessions. I understand that he conducted these sessions in such a sober, calm, decisive, intelligent and self-effacing manner that the Cardinals were charmed. His style, manner deportment is admirably masculine.

He does not talk too much. His few words are well-chosen, to the point, sober, judicial, objective.

He is not full of himself. There is no cult of personality about him. He is about business. He is NOT narcissistic. 

He is not emotional. He does not dislike this group or that group. He does not vent feelings. He is calm, objective like a judge. He is himself a canon lawyer, a man of the law, an institutionalist in the best sense. In that sense he is a striking contrast with Francis who never tired of railing against legalism.

He is a holy priest; a man of prayer; one close to the heart of Jesus, mystically and pastorally in his love for the sheep. This could also be said of Francis.

Neither are first rate theologians, not even comparable to Pius XII, John XXIII, or Paul VI much less John Paul and Benedict.

Leo radiates an interior serenity, a stability, a joy, a reassuring calmness. This comes from an interior humility and a closeness to God.

In this he is an exquisite father figure. Even though he is in important issues my own theological adversary, I trust him. I am reassured by him. I am confident he will listen to both sides of an issue. I know he will do what he thinks is best.

He is genuinely a man of peace, urgent to reconcile those at war, including within the theological community. 

As an American he is a pragmatist, a man of action, a doer of deeds. He is an experienced administrator who will steady a Vatican prone to volatility, corruption and greed.

I have known so many priests like him, especially in Maryknoll but also diocesan priests. Not intellectuals, but intelligent and well-informed. Balanced. Pastoral. Practical. Prayerful. Steady.

Our world desperately needs men like Leo at every level: every parish, family, nation, organization. 

The crisis in virility (Fleckinstein never tires of chanting) is the defining catastrophe of our age.

This has been made worse by our two recent Presidents: Biden and Trump. In contrasting ways, they are scandalous, effete, narcissistic, idolatrous, depraved, contemptuous. 

The response to Charlie Kirk indicates a craving for the restoration of masculinity.

By virtue of who he is, how he carries himself, Leo is such a restoration.

May God richly bless him with even more Christlike Virility! 

A Catholic Take on the Jew, Judaism, Israel and Anti-Semitism

 Philo-Semitic, passionately; 

Pro-Judaism, with reservations; 

Pro-Israel, with conditions and criticisms; 

Scapegoating, God-hating, Satanic Envy of Anti-Semitism

Philo-Semitic, Passionately

God passionately, intimately, everlastingly loves the Jews. We who love God follow suit. They are God's first and final love. We gentiles are add-ons. With all their infidelities He continues to love them. And so do we. God gave them...and us...the initial covenant, the scriptures, the patriarchs, Moses, prophets, kings, temple, John the Baptist, Joseph, Mary, Jesus, the apostles, Paul and the initial Church. Spiritually, all Christians are Semites. 

Their legacy of fidelity (albeit imperfect) in suffering and affliction, through three millennia, is incomparable.

Despite sin and through the purgation of suffering, they have preserved their covenant and identity as God's people in study of the Word, prayer, virtue.

That ancient heritage is preserved mysteriously in their spiritual-moral-intellectual-emotional-aesthetic DNA. There is about the Jew...secular/observant, male/female, wealthy/poor...a distinct charism, a grace, an appeal, an interior depth, a graciousness, an insightfulness, a sense of humor, a radiance from heaven.  Of all peoples, nations, ethnicities, they are exceptional, graced, and afflicted by persecution.

This grace is not removed even when they are unfaithful, no longer believe, do not observe the commandments. They are still specially loved. They still carry an indelible interior radiance. We Catholics might compare it to the indelible seal received in baptism, confirmation and orders. It is an endowment of the soul that cannot be erased. It continues to radiate even in strange manners.

As volunteer chaplains in our local hospital, my wife and I stop in each room to offer spiritual support. We are well received. But by far the most responsive and warm are Jews. This includes very secular ones and observant ones...both of which often decline for different reasons. But the surprise: after a courteous refusal, they unfailingly offer a most heartfelt appreciation for what we are doing. It is very touching. It comes from a depth, an intensity, a striking spiritual luminosity. They are a special people!

Pro-Judaism with Reservations

Catholicism was never Anti-Semitic; but for 2000 years was Anti-Judaic. From the initial family feud between the Jesus-believing and the Non-believing Jews as well as the Judaizing controversy (some Christian Jews wanted to require the entire Jewish law including kosher and circumcision on the gentile converts) Christianity carried an Anti-Judaic resentment. Without denying the initial covenant, focus was upon the rejection of Jesus by Jewish leadership. This is evident even in the Gospels. The rejection of Christ became the defining theological feature of Judaism after Christ. This, combined with their strangeness, led easily to scapegoating, hatred and pogroms. But the hatred on the part of the Church (contrast with populist Anti-Semitism which the Church often resisted) was never directed to Jewish blood. Rather, the Church intended the conversion of the Jew from a defective, Jesus-denying Judaism to salvation in Christ.

In the wake of the Holocaust and theological renewal leading to Vatican Council II the Church strongly changed to a Pro-Judaic perspective. There was surely contrition that a prior Anti-Judaism may have contributed, although not deliberately, to the history of persecution and genocide. But more essentially, scripture study revealed powerfully the Jewish roots of our own faith. And we were able to see in the ongoing Judaic community a fidelity to the initial divine covenant. 

This theological shift, clearly announced in Vatican II, was (in my view) the most significant, drastic and necessary change of that Council (which is not considered a dogmatic  so much as a pastoral council.)

While I passionately endorse this shift, I see a new, contrary imbalance in mainstream ecumenical Catholic theology since the Council. With the overdue, newfound appreciation of historic Rabbinic Judaism, there has been a repression of candid criticism from the Catholic perspective. Historic Judaism is descended from the Pharisee movement of the time of Jesus which was passionately devotional and ethical, not as attached to temple worship, but legalistic. It did, in critical mass with exceptions, reject Jesus and his message. That decision is carried down within the spiritual DNA of the Jew, along with the previously noted intimacy with God. And so, there is a split personality in the Jew as encountered today: on one extreme the fastidious observance of a complicated moral code, on the other hand the secular Jew drawn to alternatives like Marx, Freud, Hollywood/pornography, and militant Zionism. Along with this imbalance, we also see a pronounced movement (Buber, Heschel) within the Jewish community into Gospel perspectives, even short of full conversion.

This unbalance is noticeable in the esteemed Seton Hall Judaeo-Christian Studies program from which I have greatly benefited. For example, when the controversial Mel Gibson movie The Passion of Christ was released, that program held a conference on it. The Jewish concerns were forcefully, and properly voiced by all speakers. However, there was no expression of a positive Christian view of the film. Likewise, I have noted over the years that prominent Jewish leaders, who are energetically pro-legal-abortion, are honored in an overt repression of Catholic values.

The argument here is not a return to the past but that respectful dialogue with our Jewish partners will benefit from candor on the Catholic side of the conversation.

Pro-Israel with Conditions and Criticisms

Catholicism does not endorse the view, strong in American Evangelicalism, that the restoration of the state of Israel is playing a part in the return of Christ. The Church therefore has entertained a pragmatic balance, a sympathy for both Palestinians and Israelis. Of particular concern, of course, is the small but significant community of Arab Catholics, who are often mistreated by Jew and Muslim both. There is, of course, a history of violence from both sides. But this is not to assert a moral equivalence. 

My own view of the Gaza conflict is that the state of Israel has really no choice but to destroy Hamas. As that group is dug into civilian populations this unavoidably entails a horrific degree of civilian deaths. That the civilian population overwhelmingly supports the Oct 7 atrocity and Hamas makes it all the more difficult to respect the standard combatant/civilian distinction. 

On the other hand, the withholding of food and medicine is another matter. This is not intrinsic to the destruction of Hamas. This is a moral evil of immense gravity. I do not fault our two presidents for supporting the Israeli offensive but I do find them negligent in failing to force Israel to open the gates for food and medicine, even now as I write.

Roots of Anti-Semitism: Envy

They are God's special people. It is like Joseph and the other sons of Jacob who envied the beloved one. With some dissention, they agreed as a group first to kill him and then sell him into slavery. They were simply jealous. They were insecure, resentful. At the end of the day, of course, they love him passionately. 

The Jews are simply more intelligent, heartfelt, deep, funny, intense. They are the chosen ones. So you have to love them and join them or hate them. 

They are to the nations what Duke is to college basketball, Notre Dame to football, the Yankees to baseball, the Kenyans to marathons. They are always in the lead. You cannot be neutral or indifferent: you have to hate them or love them.

There are many reasons to hate them. Many are great lawyers, doctors, business men and have money. In the NY/NJ area they gather in areas and live their different ways, not real friendly to others, indifferent to other minorities, working the system well for their own schools and other benefits. In the Culture Wars they are inordinately represented in Marxism, psychoanalysis, entertainment, music, and culture/art in general. They are highly influential politically in relation to their numbers, including about support for Israel. 

It is startling (especially for us boomers who came of age in the wake of WWII) to see the emergence of this hatred on both the left and right. On the left it comes with sympathy for the Palestinians and identification of the Jew with the oppressive, powerful, white Man. On the right is merges into MAGA xenophobia, paranoia and isolationist jingoism. 

In both expressions, the underlying root cause is the same: envy flowing from deep insecurity, anxiety, and an overwhelming sense of weakness and oppression. 

As an Irish-American, I cherish my heritage and my country. But I do not think the Irish are the greatest people and I certainly do not see the USA as the greatest nation ever. I am well aware of the flaws of both the Irish and the USA. My love is realistic and critical. I was always embarrassed by the fuss over the Irish on St. Patrick's Day and even more ashamed by "American First" MAGA jingoism. 

Another root cause of hatred of the Jews, in my view, is the Envy of Satan himself. Of all the peoples, he sure despises the Jews the most. It is from the Jews that his final defeat came. It is like his hatred of women! Mary was destined from eternity to be Queen of Angels and Saints. A woman! A Jewish woman! So Lucifer specially despises women and Jews. 

If you want to foil Satan and glorify God, start with veneration of this Jewish woman. And then give your reverence to all women and Jews! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!