The latest evidence of the widespread rebellion against the Church was found in the effort of Sister Mary Lou Wirtz, President of the International Union of Superiors General, to derail the reform of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious last Tuesday. Sister Mary Lou claimed that the nature of authority and obedience had changed since Vatican II, that the LCWR wanted to focus on what “Gospel leadership” means today, and that the Vatican was clearly not interested in that topic. (See If only the Vatican were open to the Gospel….) But Pope Francis cannot be fooled in this. He has experienced the rot in religious life first-hand; he was marginalized by his Jesuit Superiors as a young priest, just as true men and women of the Church in so many religious orders have been for the past two generations. This is an open scandal, and one of the key questions surrounding the election of Pope Francis has been whether he would find a way to escalate the fight. To put the question clearly: Will he shift from words to discipline?We don’t know yet, but it has not taken him long to respond to Sister Mary Lou or to go on the offensive verbally in a tone which sounds suspiciously like he is ready to lay down the law. The Pope received the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General in audience the day after its president gave her ill-conceived interview to Vatican Radio. The complete text is available under a striking title, Careerists and Climbers Doing “Great Harm” to the Church. Francis struck at the very heart of the religious malaise today, while responding pointedly to the leader of the IUSG.
Link (here) to Jeff Mirus's full piece at Catholic Culture
Read Fr. Z's take (here)
5 comments:
If Pope Francis can indeed reign in the religious orders (both male and female) by cutting out the rot, then he will indeed be one of the greatest popes of the next century. Personally, I believe this will be a non-issue, since the wayward orders with blatant modernist and/or heretical tendencies are for the most part dying out anyway. The Jesuits are an anomaly since they control vast amounts of wealth to sustain and lure enough new postulents to "feed the machine" for at least a few more generations.
How can one say, by any stretch of the imagination, that Pope Francis was "marginalized" as a young priest by his Jesuit superiors? Soon after ordination and tertianship, he was made Master of Novices, three years later, Provincial Superior, six years later, for a term of six years, the Rector of the Theologate, the Collegium Maximum, where scholastics prepare for ordination. Far from being at the margins, he was promoted very quickly to the very center of authority in the Jesuit order in Argentina.
The "rot" is to be found in the hierarchy which is not close to the laity, has engaged in the sexual abuse scandal coverup, and has a narrow understanding of the faith.
To the anonymous above, the laity absolutely had their part in the abuse AND subsequent cover-up. The irony is our blessed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did more to prevent and expose the abuse/cover-up than all of his predecessors combined...before AND after he was Pope, but all the time as part of the hierarchy. Your anti-hierarchy rant is baseless in this context.
Anonymous at 9.48 hit the nail on the head: Bergoglio was named provincial at 38 year old, he was one of youngest provincials of the world...so much for the "marginalized" as a youg priest.
And the poor father z don't want acknowledge as the whole jesuits' blogsphere is on seventh heaven with the bergoglio's election.
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