Speaking as an ex-Jesuit …May 28, 2007 - 00:06 ET by KC MulvilleSpeaking as an ex-Jesuit …
To understand the word ‘jesuitical,’ consider the following. The laws of the Catholic church demanded the sacrament of confession should always be received individually. However, there was a dispensation where the recipients were in “imminent danger of death.” The idea was to allow soldiers about to enter a battle to receive the sacrament in a group, so the squad wasn’t twiddling their thumbs waiting for the priest to finish each confession. Naturally, the Jesuits took that rule (“imminent danger of death”) whenever they wanted to have a group confession in peacetime. They justified it by arguing that since the congregation was likely to drive on public highways, they were in imminent danger of death. Jesuits didn’t create the dispensation, they were merely clever enough to use it.
Forgive my prejudice, but isn’t that head and shoulders above the embarrassing, “it depends on what the meaning of is is?” Original blog post (here)
No comments:
Post a Comment