Jesuit Ghost

The gothic Manresa Castle (www.manresacastle.com) in Port Townsend was built in 1892 as a mayoral manor, then became a Jesuit monastery between 1927 and 1968. Two ghosts, in particular, have been associated with the Victorian-style inn. 

A severely depressed priest hung himself from the ceiling of the tower room. Guests have reported hearing footsteps or the sound of a strained rope, and one claimed to have seen a man in a black hooded robe standing over his bed. 

A young woman leaped from a window to her death, after learning that her lover had been lost at sea. Guests in her room insist they have perceived a woman dressed in early-20th-century wear, staring out toward the waterfront. “These are the two main ghosts that everybody knows about,” said Ashley Con, a night-shift desk clerk. “We had a psychic from Virginia who came here on vacation, so she was ignoring the ghosts, but they wouldn’t let her. She said they told her other spirits pass through the Manresa Castle all the time, almost like it’s a hotel for ghosts.”

Link (here) to read the full blog post at John Gottberg's Blog

French Born Jesuit Lead Procession Of 800 Threw Montreal

Bishop Ignace Bourget

Bishop Ignace Bourget was an ultramontane, deeply committed to papal supremacy and the subservience of the state to that supremacy. He was the staunch adversary of the so-called Gallicans who accepted the authority of the state and believed that the Catholic Church in each country should have freedom to modify its practices in the light of national custom.

It was fitting, then, that Fr. Antoine-Nicolas Braun, S.J. preached the sermon that day before Bourget. Braun was a French-born Jesuit who, in 1870, had been forced out of his duties in Quebec City for his anti-gallican views. 

In Montreal he found a congenial mentor in Bishop Bourget, though he wound up preaching the anniversary sermon by accident. The ultramontane Bishop Louis-Francois Lafleche proved unavailable at the last moment. "Father Braun ... laid down the doctrine that ... if the civil decrees were permitted any authority at all," we reported, "it was owing to the leniency and kindness of the spiritual authorities. The spiritual power made the laws, and simply employed the state to carry them into effect." He was in effect advocating a theocracy. For many Montrealers, even some priests, this sounded as weird then as it surely does today. After the mass, the procession formed again and made its way to city hall where some 800 people sat down to "a sumptuous banquet."
Link (here) to read the full story at the Montreal Gazette

Jesuit On The Holy Father

He's Austrian [sic, recte German], and likes looking back to the past. He likes the smells and bells. I do, too. I suspect there's more to it than that, but I don't know.

Link (here) to the full interview of Fr. Mark Massa, S.J. in the George Soros funded Huffington Post

Jesuit On His Fellow Catholics

Instead they vote for war, pay taxes for war and prayerfully send their young off to kill. Many pro-life Catholics in Los Alamos, Nev. -- near my home base -- make their living by designing and maintaining nuclear weapons. They wield a nuclear sword over us all.

Link (here) to the full post by Fr. John Dear, S.J.

August 15th, 1946

Read the news account of Cardinal Avery Dulles as he enter the Jesuit noviciate at St. Andrews on the Hudson. Notice the anti-Catholic sentiment by Protestant leaders at the time.
Link (here) to the original St. Petersburg Times article

"Recovered And Resumed His Work"

The Rev. John McGarry, the provincial, told The Associated Press that Father Jerold Lindner, S.J. had recovered and resumed his work at the retirement home, where he helps care for 75 infirm priests. He is not allowed to leave the home unsupervised, he said. “As you can imagine, it’s very emotionally distressing to go through something like this,” Father McGarry said. “He hasn’t spoken a lot about it. He’s living a quiet life of prayer and service within our community.” 

Link (here) to read the full and disgusting account Fr. Lindner's atrocities.

"I Could Kill Him With My Bare Hands."

William Lynch made a trip in May to the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos to see the Rev. Jerold Lindner, S.J. again."Do you remember me?" he asked the 65-year-old Jesuit priest. "You abused me and my brother." Then, police reports continue, the 44-year-old Lynch began punching Lindner, pummeling the older man so badly that he was hospitalized, his body covered in bruises. The beating may have been prophetic. In a 2002 interview with the Mercury News, he said his rage at Lindner for molesting the Lynch brothers when they were young children was so great, "I could kill him with my bare hands."

Link (here) to the full news account with picture in the Mercury News

The Apex Of All Jesuit Seminaries

At the apex of all Jesuit seminaries stood the Collegio Romano, founded by Ignatius in 1551. By papal bulls of 1552 and 1556 it received the right to grant doctorates in philosophy and theology as well as the privileges enjoyed by the universities of Paris, Louvain, Salamanca, and Alcalà. By 1567 the Collegio Romano had over a thousand students, and Pope Gregory XIII erected a large building to house the students and faculty. Over the years the college gradually became known as the Gregorian University in honor of that pope.

Link (here)

December 14th, 1942

News account of the death of Superior General Ledochowski, S.J. notice the anti-Semitic and anti-Jesuit characterization in the first sentence (here)  in The Lewiston Daily Sun

Jesuit Mathematician On The Astronomer Galileo

Father Cristoforo Griemberger, mathematician at the Collegio Romano, this Jesuit uttered the following precise words: 

'If Galileo had only known how to retain the favour of the fathers of this college he would have stood in renown before the world, he would have been spared all his misfortunes, and could have written what he pleased about everything—even about the motion of the earth.'

. 

Link (here) to the book entitled, Galileo: His Life and Work

The Jesuit Mission Of Fr. Francois Joseph le Mercier, S.J.

Huron Indians

Francois Joseph le Mercier was born at Paris, Oct. 4, 1604, and, at the age of eighteen, entered the Jesuit novitiate. In 1635, he came to Canada, and labored in the Huron mission until its destruction; he was at Ossossane in 1641-42, and at Ste. Marie-on the-Wye in 1644. In June, 1656, he went, with other Jesuits, on the mission to the Onondagas, returning to Quebec the following year. He remained on the St. Lawrence during the rest of his labors in Canada, being superior of the missions in that province from August, 1653, until 1658, and again from 1665 to 1670. In November, 1659, he was assigned to a mission at Cote de Beaupre, where he labored nearly a year, being declared vicar of Quebec in October,1660. Fr. Carlos Sommervogel, S.J.says that Le Mercier returned to France in 1673, and was then sent to Martinique as superior of that mission, where he remained until his death, June 12, 1690.

Link (here) to Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents

Boston College Professor On Georgetown Graduate Sean Bielat

Congressman Barney Frank and challenger Sean Bielat

"If Barney Frank loses, it would be as significant as Scott Brown's win. You would really begin to see the depths of this anti-government sentiment," said Marc Landy, professor of political science at Boston College. 

Massachusetts has already been the scene of one of the year's biggest upsets, when Republican Scott Brown won a special election for the U.S. Senate seat held for almost five decades by a Democratic Party pillar, the late Edward Kennedy. 

A recent opinion poll showed Frank with 49 percent of likely voters, Sean Bielat at 37 percent and 12 percent undecided. Frank kept his seat in the House of Representatives with 68 percent of the vote in 2008 and ran unopposed in 2006.

Link (here) to read the full article.

Latest poll numbers, debates and news (here)

The Jesuits On The Moon

Map by Jesuits Giambattista Riccioli and Francesco Grimaldi

When Galileo first turned his telescope to the Moon 400 years ago and saw its mountains and craters, he too wondered whether the dark spots were oceans. In Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), published in 1610, he wrote that the Moon's "brighter part would represent the land surface while its darker part...the water surface". Thirty-seven years later, after painstaking observations, Johannes Hevelius published the first lunar map and painted large swathes of the surface blue. Four years later, Jesuit astronomers published a map of the Moon  (Giambattista Riccioli and Francesco Grimaldi) that cemented the nomenclature still in use, calling the depressions maria or seas. 


Link (here) to the full article at the Times of India

Link (here) to more information on the Jesuit map

An Irish Family Scandel

The problems in the priesthood were brought home to me on a personal level. My uncle was a Jesuit and chairman of the organic chemistry department at a medium-size university. He was in the order for 38 years. That's a long time to be in anything, let alone the priesthood. He left the order to, you guessed it, get married. This was nearly 30 years ago, so you can imagine the scandal in my mostly Irish Catholic family and in his community.

Link (here) to read the full op ed piece in the Baltimore Sun.

Jesuit On The Horror Of Communism

The Fall of the Russian Empire
by Fr. Edmund Walsh, S.J.
Code: 1929291310
Price $29.40 Order Here

As director of the papal relief effort in Russia in the 1920s, Fr. Walsh spent several years traveling the Red empire, not only seeing the horror of Communism firsthand, but also interviewing countless witnesses and investigating numerous sources about the events that had brought about Communism’s triumph. In 1928 he published this historical narrative based on his experiences.
Appendix of internal Soviet documents, personal papers of key figures.
Extensive bibliography and index.
Rare photos and illustrations.
Big 400-page Hardcover

Senator Joseph McCarthy And Fr. Edmund A. Walsh, S.J.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy

............. a meeting took place at the Colony restaurant, a four-star establishment in downtown Washington. Attending were four men: Georgetown University politics professor Charles Kraus, attorney William A. Roberts, Fr. Edmund A. Walsh, a Jesuit and the head of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.Of the four men, of course, the most notorious is Senator McCarthy. Since his downfall in 1954 McCarthy has gone from politician to alcoholic fiend, an all-purpose chimera for anyone warning against everything from illegal searches to mildly aggressive questioning. But the perhaps the more important man to history on the night of January 7 was Edmund Walsh, the Georgetown Jesuit. UNLIKE MCCARTHY, WALSH IS forgotten to history. This no doubt has much to do with the fact that Edmund Walsh was arguably the first American anti-communist (not to mention the fact that Walsh's preached preemptive strikes against aggressors decades before the word neoconservative existed). Walsh's life doesn't provide the delicious frisson of preening pseudo-virtue experienced by liberals denouncing the excesses of McCarthyism. Yet 2006 will mark the 50th anniversary of Walsh's death, and respect should be paid.

Link (here) to read the rest of the fantastic story about Fr. Walsh at The American Spectator

Jesuit Deacon On The Depths Of Divine Love

Christ loved us while we were still sinners, the admission of sin is no longer crushing.  It is healing.  For if we believe that Christ’s love is stronger than our sins, then to explore the depth of our sinfulness is to explore the even greater depth of divine love.  And, to explore the depths of divine love is to better appreciate the darkness of sin—since our sins have been committed against so loving a Father.  And so the experience of sin and the experience of divine love grow together.  They are directly proportional, as the tax collector saw; not inversely proportion, as the Pharisee feared.

Link (here) to the full homily of Arron Pidel, S.J.

Jesuit On Mel Gibson

Tthe Jesuit scholar William Fulco says that Mel denies neither the Pope nor Vatican II.
Link (here) to read the full blog post.

Jesuit Brother Concludes Hunger Strike In Communist Venezuela

Brother José María Korta, S.J. told journalists outside Congress in Caracas, where he was holding his fast, that in "the dialogue that we have held with government leaders, the main reason for our hunger strike has received a response." In the company of two young activists who joined him in the hunger strike over the last three days, the elderly missionary said he felt fine and that he could have "continued the strike, and may still take it up again." Korta called off his protest after Vice President Elías Jaua promised to meet with him to listen to his concerns and seek solutions to his demands, along with leftwing President Hugo Chávez, who returned from an 11-day international tour Sunday.

Link (here) to read the full story.

An Interview With Fr. Walter H. Halloran, S.J.

An interview with the priest involved in the case behind The Exorcist We tracked down Father Walter H. Halloran, a Jesuit who assisted in the famous excorcism that served as the model for the blockbuster movie, The Exorcist. Now living in San Diego, where he is assistant pastor at St. Martin of Tours Church, Father Halloran still vividly remembers the case, which took place in 1949 and involved a young boy named Rob (not a girl) from the Washington- Baltimore area, with the final exorcism conducted in St. Louis, where the boy had relatives. Father Halloran assisted the main exorcist, Father William S. Bowdern of St. Francis Xavier Church in St. Louis. Father Halloran says the boy was 11. Others say 13. But everyone agrees on one thing: it was hair-raising. Here's our short talk:

SD: Father, how many times were you present in the exorcism sessions?

Fr. Halloran: I suppose every night for three weeks.

SD: Did you have any insight into the origin of the problem?

Fr. H: In a way he was a victim to the frame of mind of the aunt (who was into spiritualism).

SD: What happened at the end? We're told the Archangel Michael manifested.

Fr. H: I was taken off five days before the conclusion, but from what I understand there was a very loud sound, a boom -- sort of like a sonic boom -- and then the boy opened his eyes and said St. Michael came and that it was over. At the same time this took place there were about six or seven priests over in the college church saying their office and there was a huge boom over there and the whole church was completely lit up. Father Bowdern, who was doing the exorcism, and the boy were at the rectory. There was a very, very bright light that lit up the whole church.

SD: What was the most striking physical phenomena that you witnessed yourself during the exorcisms?

Fr. H: I think the markings on the boy's body. I didn't think there was any way they could have been self-induced, the marks, the scratches, the words, the numbers and that sort of thing that appeared in blood red]. When the evil spirit took over the child, there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. There were a couple of times when something very dangerous might have happened and he had no recollection whatsoever of anything that took place when he was in one of these sieges. And that affected me, the power that someone or something has over someone.

SD: Did you see anything fly across the room or furniture move?

Fr. H: Yeah. The first night I was there I was kneeling at the bed on which the boy was lying and the bed started going up and down and then I just about got hit with a holy water bottle that was sitting on the dresser and came flying across the room and just missed me by an inch or two.

SD: How high was the bed going?

Fr. H: Oh, I'd say eight inches.

SD: Was there any particular prayer that the evil spirit seemed to react to the most?

Fr. H: Yes. It was more elements or words or phrases in each prayer. Whenever the Blessed Mother's name would be invoked or mentioned, the child would get very, very agitated and when Our Lord's name - Christ, Our Lord, or Jesus --when that was said, and the same thing with Michael the Archangel. And then he'd become very, very agitated with holy water. With some of the prayers you sprinkle the person with holy water and he'd become wild, physically wild, flying around and that sort of thing.

SD: Flailing around with his hands, that sort of thing?

Fr. H: Yeah.

SD: Did you see the 'Exorcist' movie?

Fr. H: I saw it right after it came out. I went with Father Bowdern and I thought it was a typical Hollywood, glitzy thing, real bizarre, trying to bring people to be fearful or to scream. I was disappointed with it. I thought it was a mess. And Father Bowdern did too. He gave sort of a running negative commentary throughout the whole movie. I thought the two of us were going to be thrown out of the theatre.

SD: So there was no neck craning around?

Fr. H: No. It was just ridiculous, and the gross one where the little girl is ing with a crucifix. It just didn't happen, that's all, and the huge amount of green vomit: Nonsense.

SD: There was some spitting, though, wasn't there?

Fr. H: Yeah, there was spitting, and when I think back on it, it amazes me, his accuracy. He'd spit right in your eye from about eight feet away.

SD: I understand at one point you saved the boy's life. He was ready to go over a cliff, wasn't he?

Fr. H: Yeah. I took him out to the retreat house in St. Louis, a very pretty place, to get out of the hospital and get some fresh air, and he didn't know anything about the Stations of the Cross and so I asked if he wanted to learn and he's says, oh sure. He was an affable little kid. Not many 11-year-old would say they were interested in finding out about the Stations of the Cross, but he was. And I explained what each one signified and we got to the 12th station and I said, this commemorates Christ dying on the cross and with that he took off and ran toward the edge of a bluff that dropped down about 150, 200 feet down to the tracks and I hollered at him and nothing happened so I ran and for once in my life I made a decent tackle.

SD: Did you have any manifestation afterward, or was that the end of it? Did you come under demonic attack afterwards?

Fr. H: No, I never did.

SD: Did you fast during that whole thing?

Fr. H: On and off I did.

SD: Bread and water?

Fr. H: No, things like just taking a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and skipping a meal and at that time we were still practicing abstinenence during Lent.

SD: Did Father Bowdern fast?

Fr. H: He did quite a bit, and sometimes he would go off because he was getting worn out the exorcism lasted six weeks].

SD: How old were you?

Fr. H: About 28.

SD: Anything else that sticks out in your mind when you think back about Rob?

Fr. H: Well, when they baptized him -- it was a conditional baptism, because he had been baptized a Lutheran as a baby -- when they went through the ceremony again, on the way down to the church from his uncle's home, he kept grabbing the steering wheel of the car. He had the car up on the boulevard and some close calls of hitting or being hit by other cars. Then when they were giving him first Holy Communion, and I was present for this, he really fought that, he was flailing around and he'd open his mouth and then as soon as Father Bowdern came close with a Host, he'd swing at him. And I was supposed to be holding him all this time. But he'd relax and I'd relax a little bit and then he'd get an arm free and the voice would keep yelling, "No! He will not receive" or -- and his eyes were closed! -- he'd take a swing at Father Bowdern in the groin and say, "How's that for a nutcracker?" And then it must have been 15 or 20 minutes of this carrying on and he relaxed and received Holy Communion.

SD: Did you fear for your life.

Fr. H: No, not really. But I wondered why me, what purpose I was there for. There was one time he asked us to stop and took his pajama top off and he was covered with these marks, scratches, and he said they hurt. It was Holy Thursday and I was telling him about Holy Thursday and he started writhing around in pain and he said, look, I can't stand this. He seemed more affected; when I said things like "the Blessed Sacrament" or mentioned the ordination of priests and things like that.

SD: What a confirmation of the power of our faith, and the powers that struggle with each other on this earth.

Fr. H: Yes. That's what affected me most, and I guess that's why I was so disappointed with the movies.

SD: Do you think it was Satan or a demon?

Fr. H: During the rite when it was asked its name the only answer I can remember that was given was "legion," which reminds us of the swineherd running into the lake.
The boy eventually married and settled back on the East Coast after attending Loyola High School in Baltimore. Father Bowdern died more than thirty years after the exorcism, in 1983. Meanwhile the movie, re-released last fall, became one of the most famous of all time. Father Halloran is featured in the video In the Grip of Evil, an excellent docu-drama and one that, like anything dealing with evil, should be preceded with prayer, Bible reading, and holy water.

Link (here)

.

Father Halloran gained a measure of renown as a paratrooping chaplain during the Vietnam War. At 48, he was then the oldest airborne chaplain at the time. He was awarded two Bronze Stars.

In August 1949

Go (here) to read the full account of the exorcism by an unnamed Jesuit of a 14 year old Lutheran boy.

Jesuit On "Counter-Truth"

We oftentimes suspect where truth might lead us, so we cleverly refuse to go there without ever honestly spelling out to ourselves what we are doing. We choose to deceive ourselves. We build an apparently plausible "counter-truth" to justify how we choose to live. We quietly put aside in our hearts any comparison between what we do and what we ought to do. The good, the true, and the beautiful, however, are interrelated in ways that can hide their inner-connections from those who do not want to see what is there.

Link (here) to read full piece by Fr. James Schall, S.J. at Ignatius Insight.

Fairfields Muslim Chaplian

In ( Heba Youssef ) my few weeks here, I have been able to work with students and faculty, many who had questions about Islam. Despite some of the negative media portrayals surrounding Islam recently, I’ve noticed that people are still genuinely interested in learning about Islam from the proper resources. I have had a great experience here at Fairfield so far. I feel comfortable on campus and have been able to pray in the campus center without any problems at all. Everyone has just been so welcoming, I feel so very blessed. Alhamdulillah (Praise God). To learn more about the Muslim Student Association at Fairfield University, please visit Msafairfield.blogspot.com. Youssef is available every Wednesday in the lower level of Campus Ministry. She will later move to Bellarmine Hall, next to the Interfaith Prayer Room.
Link (here) to read the full article.

Link (here) to the controversial Muslim Student Union member at another institution with David Horowitz

Gifts Recieved

"It seems to me, in light of the divine Goodness, though others may think differently, that ingratitude is one of the things most worthy of detestation before our Creator and Lord, and before all creatures capable of his divine and everlasting glory, out of all the evils and sins which can be imagined. For it is a failure to recognize the good things, the graces, the gifts received. As such, it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins. On the contrary, recognition and gratitude for the good things and gifts received is greatly loved and esteemed both in heaven and on earth."

-St. Ignatius in a letter to Simon Rodrigues, March of 1542. 

 

Link (here) to read the full post at, Give Me Your Son, by blogger seminarian Patrick Dunn

BC Rubber

Enterprising undergraduates at Boston College, having learned from their elders that compassion is measured in latex, are distributing condoms to their fellow students. One of the leaders in this initiative, writing in the campus newspaper, The Heights, expresses dismay that some people see the condom giveaway as an affront to the character of the Catholic school.

Link (here) to read Diogenes full and frank commentary

The Party Of Food Stamps

"As a U.S. senator, Sen. Vitter knows that undocumented immigrants are not eligible for any federal benefit program -- welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, Social Security," said Sue Weishar of the Jesuit Society Research Institute at Loyola University.

.

Link (here) to Business Week

Formerly On The Track To The Jesuit Priesthood

Rep. Joseph Cao says that his greatest challenge in Congress came during the healthcare reform debate. As a moderate Republican, he was courted vigorously from both sides: conservatives and progressives from all across the country flooded his office with calls to encourage him to vote this way or that way.

Formerly on the track to the Jesuit priesthood and a devoutly religious man, Cao prayed constantly for guidance. The process leading to his votes included a grueling schedule of fourteen constituent town hall events.  

“That’s the nature of this job. It’s a pressure cooker. It was to be anticipated,” he shrugs. In the end, Cao was the only Republican to support the original House version of the healthcare reform bill, although he later rejected the final Senate version of the bill. Interestingly, his decision to vote against the president’s final healthcare reform bill came in the Oval Office with President Obama himself, whom he considers a friend. “He said that he didn’t want me to vote against my conscience, that we have to live with ourselves. And that if we were to vote against our conscience, there would be nothing left to defend,” Cao recalls.

Link (here) to read the full piece at  Frum Forum

"Deceive The Eye"

..........space artificially expands thanks to an 18th-century trompe l'oeil mural using a European treatment of perspective introduced by Jesuit missionaries.
Link (here) to the Wall Street Journal

American Jesuit's Process Of Canonization Continues

Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.

Born on Nov. 4, 1904, Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J. entered the seminary and became the first American Byzantine Rite Jesuit priest in order to do missionary work in the former Soviet Union. Shortly after entering the Soviet Union from Poland under an assumed name in 1940, he was captured and accused of being a spy. 

After spending five years in the infamous Lubianka Gulag in Moscow, he was sent to Siberia for a time in hard labor. Throughout the ordeal, however, he continued to celebrate Mass and hear confessions of the faithful at considerable personal risk. Overall, he spent 23 years in the Soviet Union. 

When he was finally released in 1963 in a prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Soviet Union, he returned to his native parish, St. Casimir's in Shenandoah, to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving. Ciszek spent the last 21 years of his life working with the American family, clergy and religious communities through counseling and retreat work. 

He wrote two books, "With God in Russia" and "He Leadeth Me," with co-author Rev. Daniel Flaherty, S.J. He died on Dec. 8, 1984, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and is buried at the Jesuit Novitiate in Wernersville. 

It was announced after the Mass that the prayer league, based adjacent to St. Casimir Church at 231 N. Jardin St., was donating $5,000 to help the Diocese of Allentown defray the expenses associated with the promotion of the cause of canonization.

Link (here) to the full in depth article at The Republican Herald.

Fr. Gerald Walling, S.J. On Becoming A Jesuit

Fr. Gerald Walling, S.J. in the"Blues Brothers" movie

I entered the Jesuits because God extended my life and gave me two big pushes. I had served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve from January 1948 to January 1950 when my enlistment expired. My father urged me to reenlist but an inner voice told me not to. 

Five months later the Korean War broke out and my infantry battalion was sent to North Korea in the Allied push to the Yalu River. In October the battalion encountered the Chinese pouring across the Yalu. The fighting, at 25 below, was desperate. I wouldn't have survived. 

That same October back in Chicago I met a young woman whose charm, intelligence and spirituality overwhelmed me; I had never met anyone like her. But on a date in February, 1951, she stunned me by saying she was going to become a nun.

How could she take all that talent and vivacity, and pour it into a life of service of others? God showed me it was love. I began to think, if she'll give her life, why can't I? Since God had saved my life, why shouldn't I? 

The next month when Dr. Tom Kennedy, director of Psychological Services at Loyola University, asked me what I was going to do after graduating from Loyola that June, I said I was thinking about becoming a priest. What kind, he asked. "I guess diocesan." "How you ever thought about the Jesuits?" "Sure, but I don't think I have what it takes." "Yes, you do; I'll get you an appointment to see [Jesuit] Fr. Henderson next Tuesday."

Link (here) to read the full article.

More on Fr. Gerald Walling, S.J. (here) and (here)
Father Walling is professionally trained actor, click on the links provided to learn more about his acting career.

Jesuit In India And Mortal Sin

A Jesuit priest has sought anticipatory bail after police in Tamil Nadu registered a r@pe case against him. On Oct. 12, a former nun accused Father Rathinam Rajarathinam, principal of Jesuit-managed St. Joseph’s College in Trichy of r@ping her. She filed a complaint in the All Women Police Station that specializes in crimes against women. According to her case, the priest raped her in 2006 and in 2008 and continuously threatened her not to tell anyone. Father Rajarathinam, who belongs to the Jesuit Madurai province, has since resigned from his post.

Link (here) to read the details of the cases in the lengthy article.

Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. "I Like The Pope!"

Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

Lucia Annunziata, formerly President of RAI itself, interviewed US Jesuit Fr Thomas J. Reese. She introduced him as a priest who had resigned as Editor-in-chief of America Magazine when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope. Benedict XVI canonized six new saints: two Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole, a Canadian and an Australian to whom he entrusted the Synod for the Middle East. Annunziata, who had recently interviewed rebel theologian Hans Kung, introduced her guest as "hugely important”, “high calibre” and “immensely prestigious". She clearly expected Fr Reese to tip the bucket on the Pope. But her plan backfired. Not only did Fr Reese not attack the Pope, but he matter-of-factly validated every one of his doctrinal positions. His criticisms were limited to reflecting that the Holy Father should surround himself with people who are more expert with the media. Flustered, Annunziata broached one issue after another in an increasingly pleading tone: "Surely on this matter you must differ with the Pope?” and “You must be willing to at least admit that not everyone approves of the Pope these days?" Reese smilingly parried every lunge. Finally she played her trump card: "What about the little girl in Brazil who was raped by her stepfather? Do you support even the decision to excommunicate the family who took her to an abortion clinic?" But Reese laughed pleasantly and pointed out: "I'm not an enemy of the Pope. I think he's right on all of the issues you mentioned." And then the mortal blow: "I like the Pope!" 

Link (here) to the full article at Spero News.

The First

Max Voltage, 28, is a classically trained violinist since age 5 and has been coordinating performances since about the same age, recruiting neighborhood kids along with her brother to put on shows for parents and friends. When she was in college, Voltage was the president of the qu@er alliance at a Jesuit university and created the first dr@g show at a Catholic university in the United States. “I had never even been to a dr@g show before, but I rallied my theater friends, put together a boy band and made it happen,” recalls Voltage.

Prayer Of Simplicity

Ordinary prayer and acquired contemplation

First of all, a word as to ordinary prayer, which comprises these four degrees:

1. vocal prayer;
2. meditation, also called methodical prayer, or prayer of reflection, in which may be included meditative reading;
3. affective prayer;
4. prayer of simplicity, or of simple gaze.

Only the last two degrees (also called prayers of the heart) will be considered, as they border on the mystical states.

Mental prayer in which the affective acts are numerous, and which consists much more largely of them than of reflections and reasoning, is called affective. Prayer of simplicity is mental prayer in which, first, reasoning is largely replaced by intuition; second, affections and resolutions, though not absent, are only slightly varied and expressed in a few words. To say that the multiplicity of acts has entirely disappeared would be a harmful exaggeration, for they are only notably diminished. In both of these states, but especially in the second, there is one dominant thought or sentiment which recurs constantly and easily (although with little or no development) amid many other thoughts, beneficial or otherwise. This main thought is not continuous but keeps returning frequently and spontaneously. A like fact may be observed in the natural order. The mother who watches over the cradle of her child thinks lovingly of him and does so without reflection and amid interruptions. These prayers differ from meditation only as greater from lesser and are applied to the same subjects. Nevertheless the prayer of simplicity often has a tendency to simplify itself, even respect to its object. It leads one to think chiefly of God and of His presence, but in a confused manner. This particular state, which is nearer than others to the mystical states, is called the prayer of amorous attention to God. Those who bring the charge of idleness against these different states always have an exaggerated idea of them. The prayer of simplicity is not to meditation what inactive is to action, though it might appear to be at times, but what uniformity is to variety and intuition to reasoning.

A soul is known to be called to one of these degrees when it succeeds therein, and does so with ease, and when it derives profit from it. The call of God becomes even clearer if this soul have first, a persistent attraction to this kind of prayer; second, a want of facility and distaste for meditation. Three rules of conduct for those who show these signs are admitted by all authors:

• When, during prayer, one feels neither a relish nor facility for certain acts one should not force oneself to produce them, but be content with affective prayer or the prayer of simplicity (which, by hypothesis, can succeed); to do otherwise would be to thwart Divine action.
• If, on the contrary, during prayer, one feels the facility for certain acts, one should yield to this inclination instead of obstinately striving to remain immovable like the Quietists. Indeed, even the full use of our faculties is not superfluous in helping us to reach God.
• Outside of prayer, properly so called, one should profit on all occasions either to get instruction or to arouse the will and thus make up what prayer itself may lack.

Many texts relative to the prayer of simplicity are found in the works of St. Jane de Chantal, who, together with St. Francis of Sales, founded the Order of the Visitation. She complained of the opposition that many well-disposed minds offered to this kind of prayer. By ancient writers the prayer of simplicity is called acquired, active, or ordinary contemplation. St. Alphonsus Liguori, echoing his predecessors, defines it thus: "At the end of a certain time ordinary meditation produces what is called acquired contemplation, which consists in seeing at a simple glance the truths which could previously be discovered only through prolonged discourse"

Link (here) to the Catholic Encyclopedia

Link (here) to Prayer of Simplicity in the Ignatian classic, Graces of Interior Prayer
Saint Ignatius says, ' Non enim abundantia scientice satiat animam sed sentire et gustare res interne.' (here)  Loosely translates into English, "For it is not the abundance of knowledge but I feel that satisfy the soul, And taste the thing, internally"
 

Was?

Provincial Stephan Kiechle, S.J.

However, in his Suddeutsche Zeitung interview, Fr Kiechle said his order would only be in a position to offer “symbolic payments”, adding that he expected some victims would “inevitably be disappointed” with the compensation. “It remains small and fragmented, as a sign of our helplessness in the face of this suffering”, the Jesuit superior said. “But sometimes, the guilty parties are unreasonable, and sometimes they’ve disappeared, fallen ill or died. In these cases, we as an order must recognise our fault and take responsibility”. 

The priest, who took over as Jesuit leader on 1 September, called at a recent conference for the abolition of compulsory celibacy and for women to be considered for admission to the priesthood.

Link (here) to  Jonathan Luxmoore's blog

Can You Name That Jesuit Institution?

Can you name the Jesuit Colleges and Universities?
To play the game, go (here)

Father Stefan Filipowicz, a Jesuit priest from Chicago, came to celebrate a Polish Mass on Christmas and Easter in Atlanta. Link (here)

God The Father, Fr. Miguel Jose Herranz, S.J. And St. Candida Maria De Jesus

St Cándida María de Jesús

The Congregation of the Daughters of Jesus are awaiting this Sunday with eagerness. On that day, their founder will be canonized in St. Peter's. Blessed Cándida María de Jesús (1845-1912), a Spanish religious, born Juana Josefa Cipitria y Barriola, will be recognized along with five other blesseds.For the sisters the event "is a strong call to a more holy and dedicated life," and an occasion to renew "the dream of living every day according to the values of the Gospel and of being more centered on the person of Jesus Christ, as Mother Cándida was," Sister Anna Maria Cinco Castro, a member of this community and the postulator for the cause of canonization, told ZENIT. Juana Josefa was born May 31, 1845, in northeastern Spain. She always expressed special sensitivity for the poorest, for abandoned children and for prisoners. In 1868, at age 23, she met Jesuit Father Miguel José Herranz, who helped her respond to her call to found a congregation. Thus it was that in 1871, the Congregation of the Daughters of Jesus was born in Salamanca together with five women and inspired in Ignatian spirituality.

Link (here) to read the full Zenit article

Georgetown, The President And MTV

MTV News hit the streets of the nation's capital on Tuesday and spoke to students at Georgetown University about how they've been impacted by the so-called Great Recession. They told us what they would ask the president, just as other young voters will do during "A Conversation With President Obama," Thursday's one-hour town hall event airing live and commercial-free on MTV,."Everyone's attitude about money has changed," said Georgia Shibley, 19, who said she's considering going to graduate school rather than trying to wade into the tight job market. It was a sentiment echoed by a number of her fellow students at the private Jesuit university.

Link (here) to MTV

Link (here) to the staged town hall set up

Jesuit Bishop In Vietnam

In a letter to Vietnamese Catholics following the congress, the bishops announced that Archbishop Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon of Ha Noi, 72, will remain president of the conference. Jesuit Bishop Cosma Hoang Van Dat of Bac Ninh was named secretary general, succeeding Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Ha Noi who stepped down for health problems.

Link (here) CathNews Asia

Glenn Beck Was Jesuit Educated

Glenn Lee Beck was born in Everett, Washington to William and Mary Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.^[7] The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington^[8] where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area.^[9] He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s.^[10] Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon. At age 13, he won a contest that landed him his first broadcast job as a disc jockey for his hometown radio station, KBRC.^[11]

In 1977, William Beck filed for divorce against Mary due to her worsening alcoholism.^[12] Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a (most likely Bellermine Prep) Jesuit school^[13] in Puyallup. 

On May 15, 1979, his mother drowned in Puget Sound, just west of Tacoma, Washington.^[13] A man who had taken her out in a small boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard.^[13] Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts

Link (here) his Wiki biography

Controversial Jesuit Moved Out At The University Of San Francisco

After three years at the post, Fr. Donal Godfrey, a priest well known for challenging Church teaching on hom@sexuality, is no longer serving as executive director of University Ministry at the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco. Godfrey’s departure comes on the heels of the revelation that his long-time associate, Patrick Mulcahey, has been teaching and moderating workshops on the master/sl@ve and s@do-mas@chistic lifestyle. As recently as August 30, according to a cached webpage from the ministry’s site, Fr. Godfrey was still serving as executive director. Sometime between August 30 and September 15, Fr. Godfrey was replaced by Julia Dowd, a layperson. Fr. Godfrey is now listed as one of the ministry’s five associate directors. 

Link (here) to read the full article at Spero News

My Dad Was An AP Jesuit

Brian Dennehy

Brian Dennehy was raised in Red Hook until he was 12, when the family moved to Mineola, L.I.  "My father had gone to the seminary and took advantage of all the education before strategically announcing that he had no vocation and managed to land himself a job with The Associated Press," says Dennehy.

"He became what I like to call an AP Jesuit. 

One of those Irishmen who told me and my brothers, 'Take whatever job you want as long as it has a pension.'"

Link (here) to read the full article.

Two Destructive Jesuit Priests Facing Felony Jail Terms

Jesuit Father Bill Bichsel, 82, Jesuit Father Stephen Kelly, 61, Sacred Heart Sister Anne Montgomery, 83, Baltimorean Susan Crane, 65, and Lynne Greenwald, 61, entered their pleas Oct. 8 with Magistrate Judge Karen L. Strombom of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. They are charged with conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property on a naval installation and depradation of government property. Strombom set a Dec. 7 trial for the defendants, who call themselves the Disarm Now Plowshares. Each member of the group briefly told Strombom as part of their plea that they wanted to see the end of war, a reversal of the U.S. policy of preparing for nuclear war or a change in federal spending priorities toward an emphasis on education and health care. “My plea was for the children of this country and the world who need education and health care and food and housing, not weapons of mass destruction,” Sister Anne told Catholic News Service Oct. 11. 

 Father Kelly explained that his involvement in the protest was required by his Christian faith. “I said I’m pleading on behalf of the victims of the production and, God forbid, the use of nuclear weapons, of all the victims from Hiroshima, Nagasaki to the uranium mineworkers and the victims of the (federal) budget (priorities),” he told CNS. 

Greenwald, who is associated with the Tacoma Catholic Worker, called for “the end of all war, especially for the end of the threat of nuclear war.” Crane twice attempted to enter a motion of dismissal of all charges, but Strombom said such a motion was inappropriate at an arraignment. Crane subsequently filed the motion for dismissal with the clerk of courts following the arraignment. The motion cited several U.S. and international laws that describe the use of nuclear weapons as a war crime.  

If convicted, the five face prison terms of three to five years and fines of $50,000 to $250,000 on each charge. Strombom told the protesters that the court could sentence them to consecutive sentences if they are convicted of multiple charges. 

 The five were indicted Sept. 3 by a federal grand jury 10 months after the protest. They are accused of using bolt cutters to cut holes in three chain-link fences to enter the Naval Base Kitsap’s Bangor complex, 20 miles west of Seattle. 

The base is the West Coast home of the Trident nuclear-armed submarine and Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific, where more than 2,300 nuclear warheads are stored. Once inside, the five left a trail of blood, hammered on a roadway and fences, scattered sunflower seeds and unfurled a banner that read: “Disarm Now Plowshares, Trident: Illegal + Immoral.” 

 The government said the five posed a danger to national security. All five have been arrested, charged and jailed for their involvement in nonviolent protests at weapons facilities in the past.

Link (here) to the Catholic Review Online.

Jesuits Says, "Socialism Consists In The Nationalization Of Property"

In fact, as Jesuit philosopher Fr. Victor Cathrein has rightly pointed out: “We call Socialism a system of political economy, not as if it did not also lead to many political and social changes, 

but because the gist of socialism consists in the nationalization of property and in the public administration and distribution of all goods.” 

 Nevertheless, “The fundamental principles of socialism belong not to economical but to metaphysical science. Foremost among its tenets is the equality of man...”
.

Link (here) to read the full article at Tradition, Family and Property

St. Nicholas Owen, S.J.

On the 22nd of March we remember St Nicholas Owen, the Jesuit who was martyred at the start of the 17th Century. Nicholas Owen is remembered, other than his martyrdom, for his outstanding skills at building priest-holes. One such home to come under his craftsmanship was Harvington Hall, located within the archdiocese of Birmingham.

Link (here) to Fr. Paul Johnson's blog from England

Spirit, Intellect And Purpose

In 2004, Saint Joseph's University came under attack from the Catholic Standard & Times, a Dioceses of Philadelphia-based Roman Catholic publication, for promotion of "Rainbow Week." Six years later, there's a different name-"Unity Week"-but the same unfounded and offensive criticisms. Tradition Family Property (TFP) Student Action recently posted on its website plans to actively protest this year's Unity Week at St. Joe's. The group attacked the "pro-hom@sexual" event, claiming that "this event invites the wolves to confuse and scatter the flock-Catholic college students-and that's unacceptable."

Link (here) to St. Joseph's student newspaper The Hawk.

Every Jesuit Could Benefit With A Lady Like This In His Corner

CARVAJAL, LUISA DE (156S-1614), Spanish missionary in England, was born at Jaraicejo in Estremadura on the 2nd of January 1568. Her father, Don Francisco de Carvajal, was the head of an old and wealthy family which produced many men of note. Her mother, Dona Maria, belonged to the powerful house of Mendoza. Both were people of pious character. The mother died in 1572 from a fever contracted white visiting the poor, and the father took the disease from his wife, and died of it. Luisa and a brother were left to the care of their grand-aunt Maria Chacon, governess of the young children of Philip II. On her death they passed to the care of their maternal uncle, Francisco Hurtado de Mendoza, count of Almazan. The count, who was named viceroy of Navarre by Philip II., was an able public servant in whom religious zeal was carried to the point of inhuman asceticism. His niece attracted his favour by her manifest disposition to the religious life; she sent her own share of dinner to the poor, ate broken meats, wore a chain next her skin, and invited humiliation; and at the age of seventeen she was instructed by the count to make a surrender of her will to two female servants whom he set over her, and by whom she was repeatedly scourged while naked, trampled upon and otherwise ill-treated. 

But when Luisa came of age she refused to enter a religious house, and decided to devote herself to the conversion of England. The execution of the Jesuit emissary priest, Henry Walpole, in 1596 had moved her deeply, and she prepared herself by learning English and by the study of divinity. A lawsuit with her brother caused temporary delay, but she secured her share of the family fortune, which she devoted to founding a college for English Jesuits at Louvain; it was transferred to Watten near Saint Omer in 1612, and lasted till the suppression of the Order. 

In 1605 she was allowed to go to England. She established herself under the protection of the Spanish ambassador, whose house was in the Barbican. From this place of safety she carried on an active and successful propaganda. She made herself conspicuous by her attentions to the Gunpowder Plot prisoners.and

Jesuit On His Holinesses Trip To Great Britian

Pope Benedict XVI at Westminster Cathedral

The amount of teaching and instruction in this visit was enormous. The pope never lost an opportunity to speak to the young about their lives, about prayer and vocation. In Westminster Cathedral, at a blessing of young people at the font of the Cathedral, Benedict said: "Every day we have to choose to love, and this requires help, the help that comes from Christ, from prayer and from the wisdom found in his word, and from the grace which he bestows on us in the sacraments of the Church." Benedict quietly teaches us how to take care of our souls. "Deep within our heart," he told these young folks, "he (Christ) is calling you to spend time with him in prayer. But this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day." Such advice is right out of A'Kempis or John Paul II, St. Bernard and St Benedict, in whose shadow, as the Archbishop of Canterbury remarked, all of England stands in buildings stemming from the Benedictine tradition.

Link (here) to read the entire essay by Fr. James Schall, S.J. entitled, "The Ultimate Meaning of Our Human Existence"at Insight Scoop from Ignatius Press.