Fr. Raymond J. Bishop, S.J. And His Diary

Many consider the 1973 "The Exorcist" the scariest movie of all time....If the mere thought of the famousflick gives you the chills, consider this: It's directly based on a true incident that happened in St. Louis. The real story that inspired the famous book and movie happened in 1949. It began in Maryland, ended in St. Louis, and involved several Jesuits from Saint Louis University. Father Raymond J. Bishop, S.J. kept a day-by-day account of the exorcism. Click here to read the diary. When Pat McGonigle's series on the history of the exorcism in St. Louis was airing last fall, he received a phone call from a woman that he can't forget. Read Pat's blog about what the woman said that still gives him chills months later.

Link (here) to KDSK channel 5 out of St. Louis to watch the video interview.

Endowments, S.J.

There are 79 private colleges with endowments of more than $250 million that charge low-income students  We found 17—about eight percent of four-year Catholic colleges in the U.S.—that had endowments larger than $250 million in FY 2010. Not one of the 17 appears on Burd’s lists of most charitable colleges for low-income students, measured by percent of students receiving federal Pell Grants and the average cost of attendance (net price) for each low-income student in the 2010-2011 academic year an average net price over $10,000; 51 that charge over $15,000; and 26 that charge over $20,000. That prompted The Cardinal Newman Society to look specifically at Catholic colleges.

.The Jesuits’ Saint Louis University had an even larger endowment—more than $700 million in FY 2010—and yet charged low-income students an average of $23,842.  And Boston College, with one of the nation’s largest endowments of nearly $1.5 billion,still charged needy students an average of $13,128. 

But six wealthy Catholic universities appear on Burd’s list of institutions with relatively low percentages of Pell Grant recipients and high net price for the neediest students—including three Jesuit institutions,despite the Jesuits’ traditional emphasis on social concerns. At Santa Clara University in California, Burd reports, the average price charged to low-income students was a whopping $46,347—more than150 percent of their families’ annual income. And yet Santa Clara’s endowment (more than $600 million) was among the largest 100 for private colleges in the U.S.

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society

The Pool Of Jesuits With The Right Resume Is Rapidly Shrinking

For 25 years, St. Louis University has been led by the Rev. Lawrence Biondi. And for nearly two centuries,

it has been led by Biondi’s Roman Catholic order, the Jesuits. Soon, it may be led by neither. Biondi recently announced that he intends to retire, and university officials are saying little about the specifics surrounding his departure. But one thing its board of 50-plus trustees will have to consider is whether to replace Biondi with another Jesuit priest. That is, if they can find one to take the job. 

The “biggest challenge” for a Jesuit institution selecting a new president is that the pool of Jesuits with the right resume is rapidly shrinking, said the Rev. Thomas Gaunt, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Jesuit-run Georgetown University. “You’re looking at a pretty tiny group of guys,” he said. “And the right one might not be available.”  

SLU does not make its bylaws public. But the most recent version — obtained and published online by the university’s faculty senate — makes it clear that the next president can come from outside the order that founded the school. The bylaws were amended either in 2006 or 2010 to eliminate the first sentence in Article III, Section 3: “The President shall be a member of the Society of Jesus.” Striking that requirement likely has a lot to do with simple math. The 1960s saw the peak of Jesuit membership in the U.S., with about 7,000 priests. By 1982, that number had diminished to 5,500. Today there are about 2,500 American Jesuits.

Link (here) to The Huffington Post

Fr. Lawrence Biondi, S.J. To Retire From St. Louis University After 25 Years

The Rev. Lawrence Biondi, S.J. announced Saturday that he will step down as president of Saint Louis University once a new president is selected. Father Biondi has served as president for 25 years, but in the last year has been the subject of no confidence votes and considerable criticism from students and faculty members who have said he has ignored their concerns, and who have questioned his management decisions. Father Biondi and the board had until Saturday indicated no intent to change course. The university's announcement did not reference the recent controversies.

Link (here) to IHE

"I Cry Every Single Day,"

David Clohessy

David Clohessy said Pope Francis has to take up the issue of sexual abuse by priests and hold them accountable."Gestures, like taking the name Francis, or carrying your own luggage, or living in a small apartment, however encouraging they might be, we can't as responsible adults be so moved by these positive first impressions that we forget about the children who are being assaulted, right here and right now,"

Clohessy said. Recalling a friend who as a child had been sexually abused by a Jesuit priest in St. Louis (a school that Clohessy's father attended), he said, "I've talked to many who've gone to Jesuit schools and feel incredibly grateful about the education they got." Clohessy then added, "and yet their positive memories and their positive feelings towards their school are now completely polluted by the fact that they know that one or two or five other classmates were undergoing this horror while they were flourishing and learning and thriving and making lifelong bonds of friendship." 

 He tried to keep his composure as he answered, but his handkerchief could not hold back the tears. "I cry every single day," Clohessy said.

Link (here) to NPR

The Jesuit Exorcism Expert

The Rev. Francis X. Cleary was 20 years old and about to enter the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant when Jesuits performed an exorcism on a 14-year-old boy in the old psychiatric wing of Alexian Brothers Hospital on south Broadway. The event would become the basis for William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel "The Exorcist" and the hit movie that followed. It also would remain a fascination for Father Cleary, who later in life became an unofficial historian of the event; the go-to Jesuit on all matters "Exorcist," both real and fabled. Father Cleary, who was ordained in 1963 and became a renowned biblical scholar at St. Louis University, died Wednesday (Dec. 8, 2010) of infirmities at Jesuit Hall at SLU. He was 81. In the years immediately after the Second Vatican Council, Father Cleary was a graduate student in Rome, studying sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and later earning his doctorate in sacred theology at the Pontifical Gregorian Institute. Vatican II opened up the Catholic liturgy to the vernacular, and Father Cleary took advantage of his proximity to that historic change in Catholic life by studying how to communicate the Bible to lay people.

Link (here) to read the full article at Stltoday

REV. WALTER HALLORAN

Rev. William Bowdern

Liturgy At Saint Louis University

Link (here) to the entire English translation of the new Missale Romano

The Center for Liturgy at Saint Louis University is one of four such liturgical institutes in the United States, three sponsored by major universities: the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy, the Georgetown Center for Liturgy, and the Center for Liturgy at Saint Louis University. The fourth Center is the Institute for Liturgical Ministry, Dayton OH.

The Center for Liturgy at Saint Louis University came into existence in Fall of 1993. It was founded by Fr. John Foley, S. J., at the invitation of Fr. Lawrence Biondi, president of the University.

Motivation for this our work is founded in the following statement of Vatican Council II:

Liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the fountain from which all her power flows (from the Catholic Church’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy).

These words form a mandate for the Church, one that is at once obvious and at the same time unrealized. Catholics would never argue that the Mass is unimportant to them, in fact they would insist the opposite. Yet would they claim as their own the importance that Vatican II gives to liturgy? The Center for Liturgy takes as its mission the realization of the Vatican II vision.

Link (here) to the SLU website.

The Gizillionth Lavander Laced Article At America

As part of his doctoral research in the education program at St. Louis University in the 1990s, Michael Maher studied the attitudes toward student hom@sexuality in Catholic high schools. He was shocked by the silence about this topic. When he met with four experienced Catholic school counselors, with over 50 years of counseling experience among them, they told him only one student had ever come to them to discuss the topic of hom@sexuality. 

Link (here) to read the full article at America's blog In All Things.

In August 1949

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

Watch St.Louis University's live web-cam perched atop the clock tower (here)

The Sound And Shape Of Catholic Music

There’s no accounting for taste, but surely there is some answer to the mystery as to why Catholic music in America went the direction it did after the Second Vatican Council. 

Some insight arrives via a close look at the central players in this drama, a group that came to be called the St. Louis Jesuits—a phrase that alternatively inspires snickers and disdain in many Catholic observers, and deference and respect in others. One person credits them with wrecking the liturgy and the next person credits them with saving it. 

Neither side can begin to account for the perspective of the other. For all the talk of community and unity that is invoked on behalf of their simple, popular, folk-like style, this music remains some of the most divisive in the history of liturgical music.

Partisans of sacred music might argue that the whole period is best forgotten, the same way the fashion industry would like to forget the leisure suit or patchwork platform shoes for men. But this is not yet possible, for their music is still very much with us at liturgy. Their music continues to dominate contemporary songbooks. Of all the hymns in the mixed-repertoire, mainstream Heritage Missal published by Oregon Catholic Press, 24% are by a member of the St. Louis Jesuits, with 70% written in the style they pioneered. 

The 2000 edition of Glory & Praise, “the most popular Catholic hymnal ever published,” according to OCP[1] , contains 100 songs written by them. One member of the St. Louis Jesuits serves on the US Bishops’ Subcommittee on Music, which is working toward naming a common repertoire for parishes.

The St. Louis Jesuits have indeed succeeded in transforming the sound and shape of Catholic liturgy, so much so that the authentic sound of Catholicism has been largely relegated to the land of CDs and specialized liturgical settings. Their music does indeed constitute the “Catholic classics” of our age, as painful as it is to admit. 

To some extent, their music has penetrated beyond Catholicism: The Saint Louis Jesuit’s music was played at Ronald Reagan’s funeral and Bill Clinton’s inauguration.

 

Link (here) to the lengthy article entitled, The Mystery of the St. Louis Jesuits by Jeffrey Tucker

Jesuit Says "Communism Can Remedy No Evil, And Remove No Social Grievance

Well-administered government and wise laws are the means intended by nature for protecting and securing all classes of citizens in their genuine civil rights.

But the principles of communism can remedy no evil, and remove no social grievance.

Nay, to reduce that execrable theory to practice would be to substitute for occasional troubles that can be quieted by authority of just law, manifold evils that could not be endured in any but a savage nation.

Link (here) to a great anti-communist article by Fr. Walter H. Hill, S.J. published in The American Catholic Quarterly January 1878

Find original photo (here)

Fouled Out

Two years after receiving a public rebuke from Archbishop Raymond Burke, the basketball coach at a Jesuit university has reiterated his support for legalized abortion and the destruction of human embryos. “It's a great world out there and you should participate in it," said Rick Majerus of St. Louis University. “That's what the essence of Jesuit education is.”

Link (here) to the full story at Catholic Culture.

"The bishop was going to excommunicate me'' two years ago, Majerus said on the show and reaffirmed his positions. "I believe in that,''

Majerus said Monday of the stem-cell issue. "What you need is hope. All religion — I don't care what religion you are — is based on the premise of hope and contrition.'' He said his view on abortion is unchanged, that it should be an individual choice.

"Nobody is for abortion'' he said. "But I'm for a women's choice, I am pro choice.''

Link (here)