“Turned To God In Prayer.”

.....in his memoir, “He Leadeth Me,” Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J. experienced the “sinking feeling of helplessness and powerlessness” after his arrest in Russia in 1941. He felt completely cut off from everything and everyone who might conceivably help him. Considered a Vatican spy, he was transferred to Lubianka prison where men were reportedly broken “in body and spirit.” As he had done in every crisis in the past when there was no one to turn to, Walter “turned to God in prayer.” While an interior voice helped him focus his faith, it was faith in prayer that sustained Walter, the same faith that made him conscious of his readiness and natural competency to handle whatever came along. Naturally stubborn and strong-willed, Walter spent a great part of his life “developing willpower and training the will.” Because he realized early that self-control was not enough in struggling against depression, fear, and insecurity, spiritual growth was contingent on the depth of his personal relationship with God.

Link (here) to Jesuit News the was written by Fr. John Levko, S.J.

The Society Of Jesus’s Position On Same-Sex Marriage

Martyr's Court

..the Vatican has continued its fight against same-sex marriage, calling it

“an ideology founded on political correctness which is invading every culture of the world.” 

Father Phil Florio, S.J., Fordham University's director of campus ministry and resident priest of Martyr’s Court Jogues Hall, affirmed that the Society of Jesus’s position on same-sex marriage is identical to the Vatican’s.

Link (here) to The Ram

Fairfield University And The Cavelier Governor

Fairfield University is hosting an event called the “State of the State” tonight that is scheduled to feature pro-abortion rights/ pro-gay “marriage” Governor Dannel Malloy. According to the Jesuit university’s website, Malloy will deliver the keynote address at the Charles F. Dolan School of Business, which is hosting the event that will focus on the business climate in Connecticut. Earlier this year, the White House thanked Malloy, a Boston College graduate, for speaking out publicly in favor of the HHS contraceptive mandate. “I think it’s the right rule,” Malloy told Joe Scarborough on his MSNBC show. Planned Parenthood.org lists Governor Malloy under the banner of “Mayors and Governors Stand With Planned Parenthood.” Last year, Malloy even issued a press release celebrating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion.  “I’ve been a lifelong advocate and strong supporter of a woman’s right to choose,” he said. On gay “marriage,” Malloy spoke cavelierly, “Historically, two people get married. We’re not changing history. We might be changing the sex of individuals or the concept that they’re both of the same sex, but we’re not changing anything. A registration is a registration is a registration.”

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society

Magis Rio

Brazil is on a roll lately.  They have the upcoming Summer Olympics, the World Cup and even World Youth Day. But before World Youth Day, we’d like to invite you to a series of immersion experiences the Jesuits will be putting together for students.  Still not sure what the heck we are talking about? 

Link (here) to The Jesuit Post

Gonzaga And Birth Control

Gonzaga University President Thayne McCulloh has announced to faculty and staff that in response to the HHS mandate it will begin covering contraceptives starting next month. While many Catholic colleges and dioceses are battling the HHS mandate on religious liberty grounds in court, Gonzaga, a Jesuit University, announced to faculty and staff that even while they vow to clearly communicate the Church’s position on contraception, they are “compelled by the federal government to fulfill our legal obligation under the mandate.” According to the memo, the university will begin covering contraceptives on December 1st, 2012:

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Jesuit On His Notre Dame Education

Ara Parseghian

I am not a right wing extremist priest; nor am I an activist. 

I am an 82 year old alumnus, Jesuit priest, who dearly loves the school.  I was at the University of Notre Dame at the time of Frank Leahy and Ara Parseghian.  

So, I am for excellence in football, academic and  yes, Catholic Identity.  Let us both pray that they can win the National Championship.

I am yours in Our Lady,

Father Joseph LeBlanc, SJ

Link (here) to Patheos

Chronicles Of Marquette University

The Cardinal Newman Society reported that the Gender Sexuality Alliance at Marquette (GSA) celebrated  

“LGBTQA diversity” on campus with an event called “Chronicles of the Closet” which was described on the university’s website as “an open-mic night for sharing coming-out stories.” 

The Cardinal Newman Society also reported last year that Marquette University Law School appointed pro-abortion rights former U.S. senator Russ Feingold as a visiting law professor.

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Jesuits And Tobacco

A Jesuit was asked whether it was licit to smoke a cigar while praying, and his answer was an unequivocal “no.”  However, the subtle Jesuit quickly added that, while it was not licit to smoke a cigar while praying, it was perfectly licit to pray while smoking a cigar.  —St.Holger’s Cigar Club

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries the Jesuits developed large tobacco plantations in Central and South America and held financial interests in retaining revenues from them. Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians had similar arrangements in Central America.

During this time, the Jesuits, fond of their snuff, were accused by their Protestant and secular opponents, without any evidence that I have found, of carrying poisoned snuff about their persons and offering it to those they attempted to assassinate. “Jesuit snuff,” this imaginary stuff came to be called. The fear surrounding it appears to have been most intense after tens of thousands of barrels holding fifty tons of Spanish snuff were captured from Spanish ships in Vigo Bay in 1702 by English admiral Thomas Hopsonn and found their way into the British market.

At the same time, Jesuit missionaries introduced the snuff they loved to China’s capitol during the Manchu dynasty, about 1715. For some time, Chinese converts to Catholicism were called “snuff-takers” by their countrymen and handled the manufacture and selling of snuff in Beijing. Many Tibetan Buddhist monks are still quite fond of snuff.

The Jesuits were not alone among the mendicant orders in their love of snuff. Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, also wrote A Sentimental Journey throughFrance and Italy in 1768, in which he described an incident—edifying and humbling to him—of exchanging snuff boxes with a poor friar. But during the 19^th century, the fashion of using nasal snuff faded away, and cigar, pipe, and then cigarette smoking replaced it. Literary sources show that taking snuff was more and more left to the old and the poor, and to certain conservative clergy who persisted with their snuff rather than switch to smoking.

Diminishment: British Jesuits Shrink 80% In A Generation

Sacred Heart in Wimbledon

After almost 130 years, the Jesuits are to withdraw from running one of their landmark parishes as the order undertakes a review of all its apostolic work in Britain. 

The British Province of the Society of Jesus has announced that it will hand over Sacred Heart in Wimbledon, south west London, one of Britain's largest parishes with thousands attending Mass each week, to the Archdiocese of Southwark. In a letter to parishioners, Fr Dermot Preston S.J., the provincial, delivered the "very sad news" and said the decision had been taken because of the declining number of Jesuits. 

There are currently four serving the parish. Fr Preston pointed out in his letter that there were now fewer than 200 British Jesuits compared with almost 1,000 in the early 1960s. He added that the Jesuits "will need to hand over a number of our present commitments to other ministers" in the future and that Sacred Heart is our "strongest and most mature parish".

Link (here) to The Tablet

Turk Jesuit

Let me give you a special example because it concerns a Turk. This young man did not find answers to his questions in the Islamic tradition. He went to an imam who ordered him to read the Koran and advised him not to ask too many questions that could lead him astray. 

One day he entered a church during Mass and heard 'Take and eat it, this is my Body'. God who becomes flesh, who becomes a companion on the way of man and who gives him his Body cannot be accepted in the Islamic tradition but at the same time this is something fascinating. Then the young Turk visited a priest and began discussing fundamental questions about life. 

The priest's answers were so convincing that he 'entered the way' leading to conversion to Christianity. When he was baptised he decided to devote his whole life to Christ. Today Antuan Ilgit is in the Jesuit novitiate in Italy and he dreams of returning to Turkey and working with the youth in his own country.

Link (here) to Sunday

Jesuit Cardinal Says, "Tired"

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, S.J. described the Church in Europe and America as “tired,” and asked “Where among us are the heroes from whom we can draw inspiration?” The burning “coals” of the Church, Martini continued, were hidden under piles of ashes; indeed, there is “so much ash on top of the coals that I am often assailed by a sense of powerlessness. How can the coals be freed from the ashes so as to reinvigorate the flame of love?” 

The cardinal went on to propose, quite rightly, that true reform in the Church is always reform inspired by Word and Sacrament. But then, at the end of the interview, came the money-quote: “The Church is 200 years behind. Why in the world does it not rouse itself? Are we afraid? Fear instead of courage?” To which one wants to reply, with all respect, “Two hundred years behind what?” 

 A western culture that has lost its grasp on the deep truths of the human condition? A culture that celebrates the imperial autonomous Self? A culture that detaches sex from love and responsibility? A culture that breeds a politics of immediate gratification and inter-generational irresponsibility, of the sort that has paralyzed public policy in Italy and elsewhere? “Why in the world,” to repeat the late cardinal’s question, would the Church want to catch up with that? As for the question, “Where are the heroes?” Cardinal Martini seemed unaware of, or puzzled by, or perhaps even unhappy with, the heroic witness of the man who created him cardinal after naming him successor to St. Ambrose in Italy’s most prestigious see: John Paul II, whose faith and courage continue to inspire the liveliest parts of the Catholic world in Europe and America. (John Paul, for his part, gave Martini’s commentary on the First Letter of Peter to the cardinals gathered for the pope’s silver jubilee in 2003, as an appendix to a replica of the Bodmer Papyrus copy of the “first encyclical.”) Nor was John Paul alone as an exemplar of Christian heroism during the Martini years in Milan: years in which, to take but two examples, Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko became the martyr-priest of Solidarity and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta completed her singular witness to the “flame of love” the cardinal thought buried under ashes. For all his brilliance, Cardinal Martini, like many on the Catholic left, never seemed to grasp that the secular culture with which Vatican II hoped to open a dialogue was not the secular culture that emerged in Europe in the aftermath of the upheavals of 1968. 

Link (here) to read the full piece by George Weigel

The Problem With Dorothy Day

But there is a problem.  And that problem is a quote attributed to, of all people, Dorothy Day. “Don’t call me a saint,” she is often said to have said. "I don’t want to be dismissed that easily." 

That quote is probably the biggest barrier to her canonization. Not that it would deter the Vatican, since the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints is used to dealing with the humility of prospective saints.  

But the quote sets up a kind of spiritual roadblock for many of her admirers.  Many believe she is a saint, but balk at supporting her canonization.  Given that quote, would Dorothy really want to be canonized?  Oddly, supporting her feels almost like a betrayal.

Link (here) to read the full post by Fr. James Martin, S.J. at America Magazine

Her adherence to Communism and Marxism (here) and (here) ought to pose some issues as well.

The Fordham University "Trainwreck"

We appreciate your statement distancing the University from Ms. Coulter’s hateful rhetoric and defending free speech and academic freedom. We remain deeply troubled, however, by the University’s inconsistency regarding which events it denies funding or otherwise censors on campus. We would like you to explain how the decision was made to allow the College Republicans to use student activity funds to pay for the Coulter event while denying the use of such funds for other purposes deemed not to be in keeping with the University’s mission. For example, we understand that student groups may not use their budgets for the productions of the Vagina Monologues mounted by Fordham undergraduates each year to raise funds to combat violence against women. Along these same lines, Fordham’s anti-abortion club receives funding while pro-choice advocacy is censored. Why are these forms of student expression and association denied support while the Coulter event was not? 

Is pro-choice advocacy or the Vagina Monologues more inconsistent with the University’s mission than Coulter’s hate speech you rightly decry? Are they less entitled to respect in the free exchange of ideas in the Academy? We would also appreciate a clear statement of the policy regarding advertising of events on campus, another form of speech recently censored by the University. 

 In stark contrast to your position that prohibiting Ms. Coulter from speaking would “do violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement,” the University recently prohibited the posting of flyers for Prescribe Fordham 2, an off-campus event sponsored by a number of academic departments at which volunteer doctors provided students with uncensored sexual and reproductive health counseling and services. The event, which was banned from campus, was aimed at addressing the problems that result from the restrictions the University places on the medical providers at its student health centers and the prohibition on condom distribution.

Link (here) to "Members of the Fordham Community"

Celebrity Former Jesuit Calls Deacons, "Monster's"

Paul Lakeland

Earlier this year, former Jesuit priest Paul Lakeland, a Fairfield University Catholic Studies professor, was invited to give an address to students and faculty at the University of San Diego. He received this honor despite the fact that in 2007 he was the media spokesman in favor of Connecticut Bill 1098, a bill that would have forced Catholic churches to reorganize along state-mandated lines—giving lay control over parishes and effectively removing the authority of priests and bishops.

 As a spokesman in favor of the bill, Lakeland, like Cooke, has long lobbied for an end to what  he calls the “structural oppression of the laity” by the clergy. In his books (published by Continuum) and speeches, Lakeland promises to help all Catholics “exercise their baptismal priesthood” and dismisses the role of the Catholic deacon as a “monster” which belongs to a “lay-ecclesial species.” Claiming that his newest book identifies the task of the laity as working “to build a non-clerical Church,”  

Lakeland joins others in organizations like CORPUS and similar fringe Catholic groups to radically change the Church and marginalize the bishops’ teaching authority on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and women’s ordination. Earlier this week, Lakeland wrote a letter to President Lyons decrying her decision to rescind the invitation to Beattie (published on the “support Tina Beattie” website).

Link (here) to the Catholic World Report.

Former Jesuit Paul Lakeland On Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J.

The barrage of conservative pressure that you have had to face in recent weeks comes from people who wish to turn back the clock on church-state relations to a time before Vatican II, when the Church did what it could to impose its Catholic vision upon the constitutional systems of secular states. Fifty years ago the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner called this “the heresy of integrism.” It rears its ugly head wherever anyone attempts to take Catholic teaching and use it as a template for the ethical or legal system of a pluralistic society. It is vitally important to distinguish between the right to hold our views and the right to impose them on others, and I am afraid that the likes of the Cardinal Newman Society simply do not understand this.

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society read more of Paul Lakeland's statement.

Jesuit Professor, Confirmation And Gay Marriage

Fr. James Keenan, S.J.

............recently, Father James Keenan, S.J. was awarded the Portman Chair last year. Currently serving as the Founders Professor of Theology at Boston College, Keenan made headlines in 2003 when he appeared before the joint committee on the judiciary for the state of Massachusetts to offer his support for same-sex marriage. The judiciary was debating a bill (constitutional amendment H3190) that would mandate that only the union of one man and one woman be recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts. Claiming to present the Catholic perspective, Keenan claimed that “H3190 is contrary to Catholic teaching on social justice.… The Catholic theological tradition stands against the active and unjust discrimination against the basic social rights of gay and lesbian persons.” Keenan encouraged legislators to vote against a bill that would ban same-sex marriages

Link (here) to The Catholic World Report 

Bishop Michael Hoeppner

The parents of a teenage boy in the Diocese of Crookston (Minnesota) told the Fargo Forum that their parish priest has denied the Sacrament of Confirmation to their son, Lennon Cihak, because of his Facebook post in support of same-sex marriage. Father Gary LaMoine of Assumption Church in Barnesville denied the family’s charge but would not elaborate. “They’re my parishioners, and so when the press comes after me from different points of view and asks me all types of questions about their situation, I hesitate very much because I owe them, I owe that family confidentiality,” he said. “He said ‘I cannot, cannot confirm him,’” Lennon’s mother said. “Father would not confirm him, and they won’t confirm him unless he changes his views.” The parents also told the newspaper that they are no longer permitted to receive Holy Communion at the parish. “The mother did say that Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Diocese of Crookston informed her that if Lennon stood before the church and denounced his support of same-sex marriage claims, he could be confirmed,” the Fargo Forum added. 

Link (here) to Catholic Culture.

Lessius, Molina, Loyola, Vasquez And Escobar

Leonardus Lessius, Luis de Molina,  St. Ignatius Loyola, Gabriel Vasquez And Antonio Escobar

Jesuits To Reduce Provinces Down To Four In The United States

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Curiously enough, while I was in Atlanta making my retreat, the General of the Society of Jesus, Very Reverend Adolfo Nicolás, changed the boundaries of the New Orleans and Maryland Provinces.  South Carolina and Georgia, previously part of the Southern Province, will, on January 1, 2013, come under the jurisdiction of the Maryland Province.  This change is part of the realignment of the American Jesuit provinces that will occur in the next decade.  

Although individual Southern Jesuits have long worked in South Carolina, Jesuit presence in Georgia has been more of a corporate presence.  In 1887 the bishop of Savannah offered the New Orleans Mission a former seminary, Pio Nono College, for use as a house of formation if the Jesuits would agree to staff a local parish.  The Jesuits came to St. Joseph’s parish in Macon, where they stayed more than seventy years.  Pio Nono College became the novitiate and juniorate, until a totally destructive fire in 1921 led to the removal of the house of formation to St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. 

In Augusta the Jesuits ministered at Sacred Heart parish for almost seventy-five years.  During the first twenty years, the Society of Jesus conducted Sacred Heart College, a high school.

  In suburban Atlanta the mother of Father John Schroder, S.J., one of our retired Jesuits, donated the family’s summer estate on the Chattahoochee River to the New Orleans Province for use as a retreat house.  For six decades Ignatius House has offered the Spiritual Exercises to the people of Georgia and has provided the Archdiocese of Atlanta and individual parishes a place for prayer and meetings.  This ministry will continue with the Maryland Jesuits.

Eventually there will be four Jesuit provinces (administrative divisions) in the United States instead of ten.  The entire east coast, except for Florida, will be one province, with the combining of the New York, Maryland, and New England Provinces.  The south central United States will consist of the Missouri and New Orleans Provinces, including Florida.  The north central section will be composed of the Chicago, Detroit, and Wisconsin Provinces.  The Oregon and California Provinces will make up a western province including Alaska and Hawaii.

Our province has shrunk in size in other decades as well.  North Carolina, part of the Maryland Province since the nineteen thirties, was once a stark mission region staffed by Southern Jesuits.  Even Oklahoma, now attached to Missouri, was once Southern Jesuit territory.

The Maryland Jesuits once had the most unusual legal name in the United States: the “Roman Catholic Gentlemen of Maryland,” dating from the Suppression of the Jesuits in 1773.  Those priests in the Colony of Maryland incorporated themselves under that title to prevent the expropriation of Church property.  As of now, we Southern Jesuits have the most unusual legal title, the “Catholic Society for Religious and Literary Education.”

As our Jesuit journey continues, let us remember that all of us—all of us—are on pilgrimage from the Lord to the Lord.  Let us pray for one another especially at the Sunday Eucharist.  Please pray for us Jesuits as we seek to serve the Lord and the Lord’s Church.

In the Risen Lord,

Fr. Donald Hawkins, S.J., Pastor
Link (here)

Will Peter Singer Speak At Fordham University?

Friday, February 16, there is a speaker who most certainly is not pro-life enough to speak at Fordham University. That speaker? Peter Singer. Fr. McShane has not sent out any statement in an e-mail addressed to the entire school about having such a speaker. The president not only did that in the instance of Ann Coulter’s invite, but expressed his “disgust.” I am disgusted with Peter Singer, and I expect Fr. McShane to be as well. Yet there has been no such e-mail.

In case you are not aware, Peter Singer is an advocate for abortion, as a woman’s right and as a form of population control; bestiality; and euthanasia, and he has made the moral case for infanticide, particularly for disabled infants. Yet from the description of the event and of Peter Singer on “FORDHAM NOTES: A NEWSBLOG FROM FORDHAM UNIVERSITY’S NEWS AND MEDIA RELATIONS BUREAU,” you would not know this.

The event is titled “Panel: Christians and Other Animals” with the subtitle “Christians and Other Animals: Moving the Conversation Forward.” Peter Singer is listed as the top panelist, with his credentials listed as “Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University.” There is also a brief one-sentence bio listed about him at the end: “Peter Singer—in addition to being the most influential philosopher alive today—was the intellectual heft behind the beginning of the animal rights movement in the 1970s.” Regardless of whether that bio was written by a person from Fordham, which it may very well have not been, by attaching it to a Fordham advertisement for a Fordham-held and sponsored event, it seems as if the university is standing by Peter Singer “being the most influential philosopher alive today,” and influential in not such a bad way.

Ann Coulter was invited by a student group on campus, an invitation which is to be approved or denied. Regardless how one feels about Fr. McShane’s statement or the decision by the College Republicans to (dis-)invite Ms. Coulter, one surely realizes that the university could have denied the speaker even before approving her, and that neither the event nor Ann Coulter’s views are endorsed by the university or Fr. McShane. However, not only is Fordham University displaying the panel with Peter Singer on a web page for the university, but the panel is also co-sponsored by the Department of Theology, the Center for Religion and Culture, the Office of the Provost, the dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, and the dean of Fordham University faculty.
Link (here) to Live Action News

From The Chapel Of The Jesuit Infirmary In Rome

A mosaic of Mary and Joseph presenting the child Jesus to Simeon decorates the chapel of the Jesuit infirmary in Rome June 8. The Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments is establishing an office to promote the development and use of appropriate liturgical art, architecture and music.
Link (here) to the Catholic Register

Jesuit Bites Cop, Cops Arrest Jesuit

Fr. John Lee Young-chan, S.J.

Jesuits in South Korea have urged authorities to release a man arrested last month after he bit the forearm of a police officer during a protest against a controversial naval base on Jeju Island. Father John Lee Young-chan, 61, was protesting against the violent arrest of a female activist at the entrance to the base construction site when the incident happened. A court confirmed the legality of his detention on Tuesday, and on Friday he was formally charged with attacking a police officer. He is being held in Jeju Prison. Following a Mass in support of Fr. Lee in Seoul on Friday, Father John Shin Won-sil said the accused should be allowed out on bail “as he is not a flight risk and would not destroy evidence.”

However, Woo Jeong-sik, chief inspector of Jeju police, said today the law would be strictly enforced given that “Fr. Lee bit a policeman who tried to restrain him,” which he described as “the obstruction of police work.” Meanwhile, Jesuit Fr. Kolbe Kim Sung-hwan, who claims to have seen the incident, said that Fr. Lee had done little more than bite the police officer’s clothes. “He acted in self-defense because he felt gravely threatened while three policemen held him by squeezing his throat and twisting his arms,” said Fr. Lee’s lawyer Kim In-sook.

 In a letter from prison, he said activists were engaged in “just protests” against the “unjust construction” of the naval base and accused police of undermining their rights. The construction of the naval base on Jeju Island, which will become home to a new fleet of 20 warships and other vessels, has sparked vigorous protests from residents, environmental activists and religious leaders. Protesters say the project would cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem of the island, a popular tourism destination and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Link (here) to UCANANEWS

Blogger Note:
Jesuit Fr. John Lee Young-chan and Brother John Park Do-hyun, were handed six months in jail, also suspended for two years. Earlier in the year for similar protests (here)

BC Cool Freedom Love

Boston College’s GLBTQ Leadership Council (GLC), a governing body of the Undergraduate Government, supports many groups and organizations that promote GLBTQ awareness. These groups include Allies of Boston College, Prism and Horizons support groups for those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning, and a Lesbian and Gay Faculty, Staff, and Administrators Association (LGFSAA). 

Approved in 2003, the Boston College’s Allies Constitution states that it “will respect the Jesuit, Catholic mission and heritage of Boston College…and shall not sponsor or support programs that involve public protests, petitions or activities and events that conflict with University policy or that University officials judge promote positions or behavior inconsistent with BC’s religious traditions.” 

 President Father William Leahy, S.J., also approved of BC Allies’ mission, stating, “It is essential that the topic of sexuality be examined in the Boston College community in light of Scripture, our Christian, Catholic roots and moral teachings, and contemporary culture. In particular, I think we need to come to a fuller appreciation of sexuality as a gift from God that not only shapes human identity and relationships but that also calls us to integrity, generosity and personal responsibility.” Although the University provides for it students through a variety of organizations, including BC QueerPeers, BC Allies, the GLC, Graduate Pride Alliance for graduate students, a Lamda Law Students Association of LGBT students, staff, and faculty of the Law School, and a GLBT Inclusive Fellowship of Theology Students (GIFT), some events or resources hosted by these clubs seem to directly contradict Church teaching. In March 2012, the GLC hosted a Gala with speakers from the LGFSAA, and 

Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of BAGLY (Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth). BAGLY’s website states, “Our approach to programming and services is youth-centered, non-judgmental and “sex-positive” (meaning we think consensual sex is natural and healthy) [sic].” It also promotes belief “in sexual freedom…[and] in condoms….” Boston College Allies also seems to explicitly support a lifestyle of sexuality that is not in accordance with the teachings of the Church. 

T-shirts being sold at many of their main events, especially during National Coming Out Week include stick-figure images of man-man, woman-man, and woman-woman figures holding hands are printed with “Support Love” on the bottom of the image. Due to the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts in 2004 and the revocation of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2010, Boston College, as seen on their LGFSAA website, provides the resources to access benefits for same-sex couples.

Link (here) to Irish Rover

The Bankruptcy filling (here) of the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus on  02/17/09 as a result of the aftermath of the child sex abuse scandal with in the province by 50 or so Jesuits (here).

Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. and his liberal politics at the left-wing NCR (here)

A Letter From Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J. Of Fordham University On Ann Coulter

The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus.

To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative — more heat than light — and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.

“Disgust” was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham.

Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully.

The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter’s (and the student organizers’) opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy — and one another — stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

Jesuit Property Up For Auction

One of the most pristine, scenic and unique properties in Tillamook County is on the auction block. Nestucca Sanctuary, a former Jesuit retreat facility near Pacific City will be auctioned through Realty Marketing/Northwest December 5. Opening bids start at $1,295,000. This is the first time the property has been on the market since it was developed by the Jesuits 73 years ago. The former Jesuit retreat facility with lodge and dormitory is located on a forested 93-acre parcel, the northernmost headland in the Nestucca Bay, overlooking the bay to the east, Pacific City to the north and the ocean to the west. It includes over a mile of shoreline. The property was developed in 1938-1939 by the Jesuits as a summer retreat location, in order to serve the Jesuit Novitiate of St. Francis Xavier, located in Sheridan, Oregon.
Link (here) to Tillamook Headlight Herald

The Jesuits' Residence Ransacked

King Charles the First

The Jesuits’ prudence did not save them, for their residence and oratory were ransacked the next day. The riot was duly reported to the King. In a few days an order was issued, commanding that the house should be demolished where the archbishop and mayor had received such an affront. Many religious houses, chiefly of the Franciscan Order, which by their retired situation had hitherto been saved from destruction, were now plundered and their inmates driven out. For four years the rule of the Lords Justices continued. Once they were rebuked by the King for over-zeal ; but he soon repented of the short respite, and ordered the laws to be still more strictly enforced against recusants. Charles, in the meantime, had summoned a third Parliament. Instead of obtaining the supplies he needed, he was called on to accept the Petition of Right; by which it was declared that no forced loans should be demanded, no taxes imposed without the consent of Parliament. Other grievances, religious and political, were discussed, and a motion was made for their redress. This the Speaker refused to put from the chair. In a few days Parliament was once more dissolved ; and a proclamation was issued, stating that the King intended in future to govern without parliaments. A few months before, Buckingham fell by the hand of the assassin, Felton. Laud and Wentworth were chosen to take his place and to guide the royal councils. Thomas Wentworth, better known in history by his later title of Lord Strafford, was born in 1593. His ancestors had held the estate of Wentworth Woodhouse from the days of the Saxons, and in later times not a few had filled some of the highest olfices in the State. In his youth he was carefully taught all the accomplishments suited to his rank. At Oxford, besides the usual course of study, he read with attention the best authors ancient and modern; and later he studied the great principles of law and the details of the management of an army. At the age of twenty-one, by his father’s death, he entered on the possession of the family estates. In the early part of Charles’ reign he did not enjoy the royal favour. 

Link (here) to The Irish Monthly.

Santa Clara Profesor Promoting Homosexual Marriage

Lisa Fullam

Magisterial teaching against same-sex CIVIL marriage hinges on the category of procreation, seemingly asserting that the institution only has social value because children might result.

But our own teaching on marriage is richer than that–marriage has value that includes procreation (or not), but also reaches beyond that important but ultimately merely biological category to encompass all the richness of living in committed relationships. 

Perhaps this is a moment when Catholics voting for marriage equality are showing that they have indeed learned the lessons of Catholic teaching, both the social teaching of the equal dignity of all people and our own rich heritage on marriage.

Link (here) to dotcommonwheel to the full piece by University of Santa Clara professor Lisa Fullam

“The Final Gladness,”

The Cardinal Newman Society has been informed that Father James V. Schall, S.J., one of the leading lights at Georgetown, is set to retire at the end of the calendar year. In honor of this momentous occasion, the author of such classics as Another Sort of Learning and What Is God Like?: Philosophers and ‘Hereticks’ on the Triune God: The Sundry Paths of Orthodoxy from Plato, Augustine, Samuel Johnson, Nietzsche, Camus, and Flannery O’Connor, even unto Charlie Brown and the Wodehouse Clergy, will be giving a final lecture, entitled “The Final Gladness,” at Georgetown on December 7, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. in Gaston Hall. People who intend to go are asked to reply to Utraque.Unum@gmail.com. They are, we are told, looking for “as many people as possible to give him a proper sendoff.”

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Justice Et Foi

A Jesuit-founded think-tank in Quebec has accused Canada's bishops of turning away from Catholic social teaching and toward the Government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In an open letter to Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) chairman Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton, the Montreal-based Centre Justice et Foi (Justice and Faith Centre) said recent decisions by the bishops reflected "a political conservatism that has nothing to do with the Gospel". "You seem to put the preservation of your ‘good relations' with the conservative Government above all other considerations," Justice et Foi director Elisabeth Garant wrote. She also criticised the CCCB for meeting with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney at a time the Government was tightening rules for immigrants and abolishing its post of chief counsellor for social justice

Link (here) to the extreme left leaning Catholic newspaper, The Tablet

Fr. Vincent Micelli, S.J. On Mormonism Founder Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith

Islam has its own special conception of the "holy war" called jiha d. And Iran is presently fighting just such a war to recall all nations back to their fundamental religious ideals. Jim Jones in his Peoples Temple, established in lush Guyana, organized a religious mass suicide to keep his millenarian cult faithful from "corrupting" contacts with the outside world. In the book The God Makers, authors Ed Decker and Dave Hunt, unmask the "holy war" that Joseph Smith, founder of Mormons, also known as the Latter Day Saints, planned to wage against the United States and the whole world. We read:

In spite of the fact hat every time he opened his mouth to "prophesy" he only further confirmed that he was a false "Prophet," Joseph Smith's giant ego wouldn't allow him to quit. Revenge upon the "Gentiles" became his obsessive madness. That revenge was to work itself out in two ways: the destruction of all enemies throughout the entire United States, and the establishment of his Independence, Missouri, "Zion" which was the key to reigning over the entire world.

As one former teacher at Brigham Young University has said:

The Mormons do intend to take over the world.....There is no secret about that. It's in the writings of Joseph Smith right on down. The Constitution of the United States will "hang by a thread" and the Church will save it by establishing a theocracy.

An excerpt from the book, The Roots of Violence by Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, S.J.

There Is Nobody To Make Them Christians

St. Francis Xavier, describing his experiences as a missionary in India in a letter to St. Ignatius Loyola, says he has hardly a minute to himself because he’s so busy teaching and baptizing the native peoples asking for his time.  

“Send help,” he says. “Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: ‘What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!’” 

He’s driven by missionary zeal.

Link (here) to The Passionists.org

For A Long Time Catholicism A "Religion Of Fear And Terror"

What hell is not

Nevertheless, we must talk about it.  For a long time the Church in its pastoral work has placed too much (sometimes, nearly exclusive) stress on this topic, 

thus generating a ‘religion of fear and terror’.  Basic responsibility and honesty require us to clear up misunderstandings that have done so much harm and to put things in their proper place. First of all, let us say that hell is not a ‘positive’ act, in the sense of something positively desired by God.  It is not a creation of God, a place established to punish the wicked.  

If hell were that, then it would call God’s justice seriously into question.  Hell would mean condemning non-eternal beings to eternal punishment for non-eternal actions.  Not only would God’s justice be called into question, so would his mercy.  All this is so clearly evident that we need not go into further arguments: the punishments of hell would not, shall we say, be a good ‘letter of introduction’ for divine mercy. 

In the ‘prayer for the conversion of the gentiles’ that Saint Francis Xavier composed, we read: ‘Eternal God, creator of all things, … Behold, Lord, how to thy dishonour hell is daily replenished with [the souls of the infidels]…’   

Hell is truly an insult to God.[1]  Like the ancient prophet of Israel, Xavier seems to be telling his God, in a final, supreme effort to convince him, ‘If you don’t do it for us, then at least do it for the honour of Your Name’ (cf. Ezekiel 36:22) – since he was convinced that, when all is said and done, the honour of God’s Name (his very reality) and the good of what has been created by God are one and the same thing.

Link (here) to the British Jesuit's online journal Thinking Faith. The piece is written by Fr. Josep Giménez Melià SJ

St. Ignatius of Loyola on Hell (here)
Doctor of the Universal Church St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J. on Hell (here) , from his classic work, "The Art of Dying Well"
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Hell (here)

Communists Hit

 

The city's 115-year-old statue of Father Jacques Marquette was vandalized recently, prompting officials to offer a reward. "It looks like spray paint. I don't know," said Emily Lewis, the president of the Marquette Beautification and Restoration Committee. "His face is red, there's some insignia on his chest, there are streaks on his robe." The statue, which was first erected in the city in 1897, currently stands to the north of the Lake Superior Community Partnership building.

Link (here) to The Mining Journal

Jesuit Novice's Building A Baseball Field In 1892

In March of 1886, after an exhaustive search, the Jesuits from Mission Santa Clara purchased 39 acres of land located just south of Los Gatos on which to build the Novitiate of the Sacred Heart, today the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center at 300 College Ave.

In 1892, the property was expanded to include a hill at the back of the novitiate where the novices built a baseball field.  

The boys wore clothing similar to that of the Spanish missionaries; long coats and broad-brimmed hats which protected their eyes and faces from the sun.

Link (here) to The Los Gatos Patch

Prayer Of Fr. Ignatius Diertins, S.J.

ROUSE up, O Lord, and foster the spirit of the Exercises which Blessed Ignatius labored to spread abroad, 

that we, too, may be filled with it and be zealous to love what he loved and do what he taught! 

Through Christ our Lord.   

 

Link (here) to the Literal Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola at CCEL

Regis University And The Obama Presidential Campaign

The Obama campaign attempted to schedule a rally-like event on a Catholic university campus in the key swing state of Colorado before settling on a dialogue with a co-chair of Catholics for Obama. “Their original intent was to have more of a rally element to it,” said Paul Alexander, director of Regis University's Institute for the Common Good, which hosted the event. “We just felt we couldn’t do a rally, but we felt a healthy dialogue among Catholics was important.” About 45 people attended the Oct. 25 dialogue and small group discussion with Catholics for Obama national co-chair Nicholas P. Cafardi, a law professor and dean emeritus of Duquesne University School of Law. The event was titled “Catholic Social Teaching: The Intersection of Faith and Politics.” Although it was hosted by the Jesuit university’s institute, it took place because of outreach from the Obama campaign. Alexander told CNA Oct 26 that another Catholics for Obama national co-chair by the name of Victoria Kovari, the “main point of contact,” had sought out the university and asked if it would be willing to host an event.Kovari is a former national field director and former interim president of the Democrat-leaning group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. She attended the Denver event along with Broderick Johnson, a senior advisor to the Obama campaign.

Link (here) to CNA

The Jesuit Back Story Of The Exorcist

Fr. William Bowdern, S.J.

The 1949 case of Roland Doe, in St. Louis, involved Jesuits at Saint Louis University but also required the approval of the Archdiocese of St. Louis at that time, Joseph Ritter. The exorcism performed on the 13-year-old boy in St. Louis, a child referred to as "Robbie" in most accounts, happened primarily in three locations: at the boy's relative's home in North St. Louis County, at the rectory behind the College Church on the campus, and at a now-demolished wing of the old Alexian Brothers Hospital in South St. Louis. Both the rectory behind the college church and the psychiatric ward at Alexian Brothers are no longer standing. Even so, SLU students throughout the years insist there are mysterious locked rooms on campus at DuBourg Hall and Verhagen Hall that were used to free the boy from the grip of Satan. "It's just not true," says David Waide, SLU archivist.

One location where some of the exorcism happened is still standing. The home of the boy's relatives in north St. Louis County. Thursday morning on Today in St. Louis, you will hear from the next door neighbors of that home. One of those neighbors, who sleeps with Holy Water near her bed, has a connection to the story that dates all the way back to 1949.

Read a priest's day-by-day diary of the SLU exorcism.
SLU expert talks about exorcism on campus
What became of the boy in the exorcism?
Link (here) to read the full story