Jesuits
Posted by: tony on 01/10/2008 08:02 PM
Updated by: tony on 01/10/2008 08:04 PM
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Expires: 02/10/2008 12:00 AM
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Jesuit jokes seem to be pretty popular among members of St. Blog's. These jokes, as all good jokes, capitalize on a stereotypical truism. Unfortunately, the truism of these jokes is that the Jesuits are faithless.
One such "joke" goes like this:
A man walks up to a Franciscan priest and a Jesuit priest. The man asks: "Fathers, how many novenas do I have to say to receive a Mercedez Benz?"
The Franciscan priest asks: "What's a Mercedez Benz?".
The Jesuit priest asks: "What's a novena?"
I put "joke" in quotes, because to me, it isn't funny. It's sad.
Karen Hall feels the same way. She has a real love of the Society of Jesus that up until recentely, I did not share. I say up until recently because last year we visited the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, NY. I walked in the footsteps of the original "Men in Black" who risked life and limb, suffered deprivation, hardship and even torture to bring Christ to the local Indian tribes.
Karen writes:
am praying mightily for you today, as are many other lay people around the world. In a way, I feel I am praying not only for you, but to you. And many, many others feel the same way.
There is nothing very complex about our plea to you. We love the Church. We know that St. Ignatius loved the Church. Regardless of the actual numbers (I know there are faithful Jesuits; I know there are "moderate" Jesuits) your image is not that of men who love the Church. Yesterday at Mass, I told a fellow parishioner that I was writing a pilot set in a Jesuit house of formation and he rolled his eyes and gave me a lecture. This is not some pet peeve of mine.
Things did not get this way because you like to wear plaid shirts instead of clerics and we're a bunch of wacko fanatic legalists. They got this way because you (and your retiring leader and the one before him) have remained silent while very public Jesuits have made very public displays of speaking out against the Church's teachings. Jesuit professors have systematically stripped our children of their faith while our complaints have fallen on deaf ears. You are causing us great pain and you don't seem to care. You care mightily about the poor and about issues of "justice." Why don't you care about us?
From Karen's lips to God's ears. My exposure to Jesuits may have been somewhat one sided. I only see those who are in the news, and those are usually not in the news for doing something good. When the ordinary ministers of the media cover Catholicism, they are usually quoting some Jesuit "theologian" who has things completely wrong.
This is the reason that I would never send my child to a Jesuit school. It's one thing hearing heresy from some secular humanist professor, it is quite another hearing it from a priest who is from a society which has the reputation for being the most educated of all of the orders.
I hate feeling that way. I have the utmost respect for men of God from any order, but I still have to protect my family from those I consider "wolves in sheep's clothing".
However, all things are possible with God. I add my prayers to Karen's that the Society of Jesus find a renewal and a re-dedication to the Magesterial teaching of the Catholic Church.
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