When my fellow conservative Catholics condemn, in blanket fashion, the progressivism of "the Jesuits," I wince uncomfortably as I see a different, complex, contradictory reality. With my family, I have known a good number of Jesuits, some very well, in NYC and Jersey City: Woodstock Theology School, Xavier H.S., St. Peter's Prep and University. On a first name basis (which they prefer, mostly, to being called "Father") I have known, studied with and worked with dozens. They are quite predictably men of prayer, moderate politically and theologically, intelligent, erudite, sophisticated, charming and delightful. I haven't known many strong progressives; them I know from the media (Drinan, J. Martin, etc.) and my reading. Some (my mentors Joe Whelan and Avery Dulles, my spiritual directors Neil Doherty and John Wrynn) combine holiness of life with excellence in scholarship.
Normally, however, I do not disagree with the broad, unfair judgement because there is truth to it: as in our broader culture, the elite, prestigious institutions of the order are in the grip of an extreme progressivism. Even as that perspective is not descriptive of the Jesuits I have known, on the ground, in my neighborhood.
After Vatican II, the broader split into a progressive and a conservative Catholicism was even more intense within the Jesuits who are more intellectual, more academic, and more passionate in their theology. This essay seeks to describe the two distinct paths as exemplified in the most influential figures in the mid-20th-century Church.
Conservative vs Progressive
Many disparage the use of these words: "We are not a politics of the right and the left!" or even "I am not liberal or conservative, I follow Jesus, no political platform." The pretense of transcending the theological binary is not tenable. The Church of the last 60 years is under relentless pressure to "progress," to accommodate modernity, to renounce tradition. It is far more than the specific issues of women priests, contraception, gay marriage, communion for the remarried after divorce, and so forth. These are expressive of two entirely different religions: the "conservative" is protective of a sacred way of life and belief and resistant to a modernity that threatens that. The "progressive" looks to change things for the better, renouncing a legacy of prejudice, ignorance, and injustice, and looking to science and a range of liberation movements to overcome a dark past. We face here, on the specifics and on the underlying philosophy and belief system, a hard binary: it is not possible to be somehow above or indifferent to or a compromise between the two views.
Here we will sketch two paths: the progressive perspective in Pedro Arrupe, Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan and Teilhard de Chardin; and the conservative in Henri De Lubac, Jean Danielou, Von Balthasar and Avery Dulles.
Progressives
Arrupe, Rahner, Lonergan, and Chardin are extraordinary in their academic excellence, moral integrity, loyalty to the Church and life of prayer. What follows will be a critical look at their thought and its consequences, not in an way a personal judgment. They are admirable men in their love and service of the Church.
Arrupe was arguably the most influential, not theoretically or theologically, but because he presided over the order for the crucial two decades after the Council and due to his profound spirituality. He experienced personally the bombing of Hiroshima where he directly ministered to the suffering. The question arises: How does one react to such a spiritual trauma? Two extremes present themselves. One is to lose faith, become despairing, indifferent, nihilistic or grasped by revolutionary rage. The opposite would be to become more religious in the traditional sense: aware of the supernatural, the holiness of God, the evil of Satan and sin, the spiritual battle, the need for the sacraments and correct teaching. This last was the path of many of our soldiers who returned from the war to become priests or raise large, devout families. It was the path of John Paul and Benedict. Arrupe, by contrast, seemed to blend a deep sense of Christ and his Church with a passionate devotion to social justice for the poor. He was himself probably a saint in his combination of holiness and ideological passion. But what worked somehow for him proved to be less than wholesome for the order and the Church. He is known for the motto, in Jesuit education, of being a "man for others." This is solid gospel material except that in practice it tended not to adequately prioritize "a man for God." It tended to a humanism with a weakened sense of the supernatural. What ensued across the order and the Church was a soft secularism which echoed Marx's contempt for Christian awareness of the afterlife and located the spiritual exhaustively in the ideological fight for justice for the poor. It was not that he overemphasized the works of mercy, but that he politicized the love for the poor and thus exaggerated the place of politics. The notorious pro-choice Jesuit Drinan served conspicuously in congress during this time. Arrupe was, in part at least, a spiritual father of the liberation theology which swept Latin America in his time and was sternly reprimanded by John Paul and Ratzinger. To conclude, we find in this extraordinary man an exaggeration of the political which has been toxic for Catholic progressives.
Rahner and Lonergan can be considered together as "transcendental Thomists" in their attempt to reformulate the legacy of St. Thomas in light of the Kantian "turn to the Subject." They stepped away from a simple epistemological realism and metaphysics of being to engage the modern obsession with the solitary, thinking, deciding, experiencing Self. In this they exemplified the Jesuit tendency to individualism. Their own comprehension of and loyalty to the tradition was broad and deep. But their disciples failed to emulate them and surrendered to the cult of the individual.
Chardin was a cult figure coming out of the 60s but his influence today does not equal that of Rahner and Lonergan. His evolutionary synthesis of faith and science hit a chord in the modern fascination with progress and evolution. His spiritual writing (especially The Divine Milieu) are inspirational. But his major project (Phenomena of Man) suffers from vagueness and a weak sense of the grace/nature mystery. He shares with Lonergan, not to mention Marx and Darwin, a fascination with history as carrying within itself a salvific dynamic distinct from classic Catholicism.
What has emerged from the work of these and other progressives is a Catholicism of:
1. Individualism: obsession with the autonomous, sovereign Self.
2. Softening of the sexual ethos: relaxed attitude towards sexual sin, inattention to chastity, fidelity, family, marriage and state of life. (Cultural liberalism.)
3. Religious embrace of political liberalism as a "messianism of the oppressed."
4. Rupture with tradition in favor of the enlightenment of science and the dialectics of liberation.
"By their fruits you will know them." These men were theological giants and great men of faith. But the theological legacy they left us has not borne good fruit.
Conservatives
De Lubac, Danielou and Balthasar (a Jesuit from 1928-50 who left to found a secular institute) were prominent leaders of the "Resourcement" school of theology. If Vatican II is understood to be at once a "return to the sources" and an "engagement with the contemporary world" then these three prioritized the "return" while the progressives tended to engage the world on its own terms.
Dulles was something different. He shares with these three a fidelity to the sources, but was eclectic, free-thinking, and ecumenical. I recall his Fundamental Theology class in 1969 and his appreciation for Rahner. His theological erudition was encyclopedic. In the decades after the Council, he had the respect of the Catholic theological guild as it moved strongly left even as he stood, often as a solitary voice, in defense of the Catholic Tradition.
There have been other influential conservative Jesuits over these years: Fessio and Ignatius Press, Baker of the Pastoral and Homiletic Review, John Hardon and his Catechism. These all retain:
1. The centrality of Christ within a strong doctrine of the Trinity.
2. Reception of Vatican II as divinely inspired and interpreted in continuity with tradition.
3. Epistemological realism and a metaphysics of being.
4. Dialogue with contemporary culture, but: from a strong, certain, solid stance on the deposit of faith; an openness to organic development (in the tradition of Newman and Vincent of Lerins}; and a clear, fierce resistance to modernity in its hostilities to Catholicism.
5. Clear. strong theology of marriage, family, sexuality, chastity and state of life.
6. Passionate embrace of classical Catholicism in its fundamentals: Eucharistic devotion, loyalty to the magisterium, love of Mary and the saints, respect for evil-sin-Satan, reverence for Holy Orders and the religious life.
Conclusion
As with the broader Church and priesthood, among the Jesuits there are perhaps 10-20 % of strong progressives and perhaps slightly less of clear conservatives. The majority of 70% or so are moderate, conflicted, or indifferent. These are pulled sometimes towards innovation and others to conservation. However, the critical mass within the Jesuit order is the progressive party; they have control of America magazine, Georgetown, B.C., Fordham, the Gregorian and other elite institutions. They have a strong presence in the media and broader culture.
It is worth reconsidering why this staunchly Catholic, loyal organization of four centuries was drawn so powerfully, in the 1960s, into an embrace of modernity and renunciation of Tradition.
1. Individualism is the interior form of liberalism or progressivism and it is also a defining characteristic of the Jesuits. They lack the strong communal life of the monastic and mendicant orders. Their entire way of life flows from the Spiritual Exercises which is an entirely solitary endeavor. Within the context of the Tridentine, baroque Church, this individualism flourished with a distinctive masculine, heroic, Catholic character. In the new context of modernity, it was without defense.
2. Highly academic, the best-and-brightest of the order were drawn by the Vatican Council's openness to the world to the prestigious ivy league schools, just when they were turning from God and religion. There they inhaled heavy doses of liberalism.
3. The key Ignatian principle of "finding God in all things" assumes a closeness to God and a keen discernment of spirits. If that holiness of life is shallow there is a vulnerability to be enchanted with that of the world that is not of God.
4. Like the broader society and Church, the Jesuits enjoyed, in the post war years, a degree of prosperity, prestige, and comfort. They were no longer fighting the counter-reformation or doing missionary work. The life of a college professor can be indulgent. The order tended to become a society of erudite bachelors, content and secure. They lost the tough, martial elan that had distinguished them. They became soft and vulnerable to the seductions of bourgeois mediocrity.
What will come of the Jesuits? At the higher levels they are given over to progressivism. Their elite institutions are mimics of secular models, with a flavoring of Catholic piety, a heavier dose of social justice activism, and an intoxicating moral indignation. Joseph Ratzinger spoke of the Church as a rich garden: bright annuals with short lifetimes and perennials which endure through the years. While they seem more vulnerable than the Benedictines, Franciscans and Dominicans, I still see them as a perennial. Their legacy is so rich. Even in these recent, troubling decades they have been served by admirable men, including the short list of progressives and conservatives above.
We thank God for the rich history and the marvelous men. We cherish hope for the future of the order.
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