Jesuit Priest Offering "Sex Class" Course

Fr. Christian Rutishauser, S.J.

Nestled amid farmland and forests in central Switzerland, the tiny hamlet of Edlibach is not a likely hotbed of controversy. But that may change in May when a Jesuit priest and a Catholic theologian begin offering sex classes for couples at the village’s Jesuit center. The seminar, entitled “Make Time and Room for Sensuality,” is intended “to remind people that Catholic doctrine considers sex to be an expression of love and not just a functional act for making babies,” Christian Rutishauser, the priest organizing the course, said in an interview earlier this month with the German-language newspaper Neue Luzerner Zeitung. “Until now, the Church has expressed particular prohibitions and set conditions for sex. It has said little about how sex can be active and positive.” In the same newspaper, theologian Eugen Bütler, a sex therapist from the city of Luzerne who will be conducting the seminar, said the course will help couples “go beyond the usual quarter-of-an-hour sex.” 

According to promotional materials, instruction will take the form of discussions, meditation and unspecified “body exercises.” Participants will also be encouraged to put what they learn into practice on the spot—retreating to private rooms at Edlibach’s Lassalle-Haus spiritual center for “time for love.” A Catholic-themed course that instructs participants how to improve their sex lives, then urges them to get actually find “time for love” on the premises, would seem destined to incur the wrath of religious leaders. Indeed, both Rutishauser and Bütler declined TIME’s request for interviews because of fears over a possible backlash from the Catholic Church. 

In an email to TIME, Bütler said Catholic authorities are “allergic to this theme and see a lot of problems with the course,” without specifying what those problems are or whether he and Rutishauser are under pressure to cancel the project. Although the Lassalle-Haus spiritual center is run by Jesuits, it is not linked to any physical church. And unlike regular parish priests who serve their congregations, Jesuits are mainly involved in missionary work and education. Rutishauser is program director at the center, organizing courses that primarily deal with worship, meditation and spirituality.

Link (here) to Time Newsfeed

Swiss Jesuit Fr. Victor Cathrein, S.J. "Of Its Very Nature, Socialism Is The Enemy Of Every Religion"

The first demand of socialism is tacitly based upon atheism. It demands perfect equality of rights and of the conditions of life for all, and that in every regard, but chiefly in social life. 

Every inequality in social life is characterized by socialism as an unbearable fraud and oppression. 

Although reason and revelation teach that the servant should be subject to his master, the inferior to his superior, the wife to her husband, and the child to the parent, and that for conscience' sake, because it is the will of God, yet socialism considers all this as a violation of the equal rights and duties of all. Link (here)

In the socialistic theory society or the state has the unlimited right of disposal over every individual; that every one is destined in the first instance for the service of the community, and that for the mere purpose of industrial production. 

This is the pagan idea of the state as we find it in Plato and other heathen writers. It does not tolerate any personal rights as against the community ; it also virtually denies that the first and highest end of man upon earth is the service of God and the attainment of perfect happiness after death. 

As a logical consequence of this pagan view of the state and of the individual, socialism unduly exaggerates the importance of industrial life or the production of wealth. Link (here)

The German social democracy in its official platform declares religion to be a " private matter." Thus the socialistic state, at least, is altogether divorced from religion, —non-religious and atheistic. 

And since the entire education of youth, according to socialists, is the business of the state, it follows that education should take no cognizance of religion ; in other words, that it should be non-religious and godless. 

The community as such should not concern itself with God and religion, but must consider both as equally indifferent. Such principles can manifestly proceed only from contempt of religion, and can only lead to open persecution of the Church. Let us suppose that the Church wishes to erect bishoprics and parishes, to appoint priests for the care of souls, to control the religious education of youth, to make laws and regulations in regard to marriage, to institute feasts, etc.—would, in that case, the socialistic state leave the Church at perfect liberty? Would it be possible for church and state, which are both concerned with the same human beings, to avoid a conflict? And if the socialistic state would force priests and religious, nay, even bishops, to abandon their vocations and to contribute their share to the public production of wealth—would not that be an open violation of the Church's rights ? Would it not lead to perpetual conflicts, which would finally develop into downright persecution ? And what would be the result if the Church would claim a right to at least so much ground as would suffice for its churches, convents, parsonages, hospitals, seminaries, etc., and, moreover, if it should demand labor-power and materials for the erection of such institutions? Would not the socialistic state, in that case, from its standpoint, be forced flatly to refuse such demands on the part of the Church, and thus violate the Church's most sacred rights, and take away, as it were, the ground from beneath her feet? 

The apparent permission of religion in the socialistic state as a private affair is, therefore, a mere illusion. Socialists are riot prepared to give offence to those who still maintain in their hearts some attachment to religion by demanding from them all at once the surrender of religion. 

Of its very nature socialism is the enemy of every religion which undertakes to raise the aspirations of men from earth to heaven, and to preach to man that he does not live on bread alone. Link (here)

These are just a few excerpt from the book entitled Socialism Exposed and Refuted, by Swiss Jesuit Fr. Victor Cathrein, S.J.

Link (here) to the Socialist Ten Commandments

This Jesuit Church Is One Of The Best Baroque Buildings Of Switzerland.

The Jesuit Church built between 1680 and 1689, 

with impressive and magnificent stucco applications, presumably from plans by Jesuit Brother Heinrich Mayer drawn up according to the principles of the Vorarlberg master builders for a baroque single space. 

The high altar from 1704 has monumental pillars which act as a frame for Franz Carl Stauder's painting of the Virgin Mary's Ascension.

Link (here)

Photo is a view of the choir loft (here)

A Weeping Indian Is A Rare Sight

He had been three years and one month among the Penosbscot warriors. With all their waywardness they loved the Black Robe. 

On the September day that he withdrew from the island they followed him to the river bank and showed by no uncertain signs that they mourned his departure. A weeping Indian is a rare sight. 

It was common on that day when the brave Swiss Jesuit priest Father John Bapst left his charges and transferred his residence to Eastport. He was not abandoning them altogether, he told them, as they crowded to the river's edge. They were still his parishioners, and he would come to them from time to time and minister to them.

Link (here) to the mentioned portion of an essay entitled, Father John Bapst, S.J. and the "Ellsworth Outrage" by Fr. Gerald C. Treacy, S.J.

Photo is of a Penobscot Indian woman named Clara Paul circa 1840 (here)

Lucerne Jesuit Church Site Of European Music Festival

State Choir "Latvija" made its debut at the Lucerne Festival

On March 30 the State Choir "Latvija" made its debut at one of the world's most prestige music event, the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, as LETA learned from the producer Ieva Vitina.

At 7 p.m. yesterday, at the Jesuit Church of Lucerne,

the choir "Latvija" performed Chapter Eight (Song of Songs) by Alexander Knaifel jointly with Riga Dome Boys Choir, Youth Choir "Kamer..." and violoncellist Patrick Demenga Andres Mustonen (Estonia). (Switzerland); conductor:

Beginning of the Lucerne Festival can be found already seventy years ago, when on August 25, 1938, the legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini gathered his most talented colleagues at the time in one orchestra and they all together performed a concert at the Tribschen Gardens, in front of Richard Wagner's mansion.

Nowadays, Lucerne Festival is an important and highly acclaimed music life event, attended by an audience of around 120,000 music lovers from all around the world annually.

Link (here)

Former Swiss Jesuit Seminarian Now A Methodist Pastor

Methodists pick new pastor
Jul 16 08 - 02:30 PMA new pastor has been named at Berta A. Penney Memorial United Methodist Church – Mark Ramsperger, a native of Switzerland.

Recognizing his gift for ministry, Ramsperger entered a Jesuit seminary in Fribourg, Switzerland. Differences of opinion led to his leaving seminary, against his family’s wishes.

I never denounced God, having been a believer all my life, but started a career in the secular world instead. I had the opportunity to get into the computer industry from its infancy, where I made a career as a consultant until coming to the United States in the mid 1980s.

Read the full story (here)

Photo is of the University of Fribourg

St. Francis Xavior Jesuit Church, Lucerne, Switzerland

St. Francis Xavier Jesuit Church
Lucerne, Switzerland