The Jesuits Are Vanishing

When John Langan came to Georgetown University in 1975 as a young Jesuit priest, he was one of 112 brothers from the Catholic order on campus. Jesuit Robert Drinan, a Massachusetts Democrat, was in Congress, and Jesuit John McLaughlin was in the West Wing advising Republican President Richard Nixon. Today there are barely half as many Jesuits at Georgetown, the order’s flagship university. Gonzaga, a Jesuit high school, is down to 17, compared with 43 in 1970. There’s talk that St. Aloysius, a Jesuit parish in the District known for its social justice efforts, could close when the current Jesuit leaves. And there are no full-time Jesuit staff members at all at the Washington Jesuit Academy, where the board chairman is Jewish. The Jesuits are vanishing from the Washington area, where they established the first Catholic Church in the colonies.

Link (here) to the full article at the Washington Post by Michelle Boornstein