Pilgrims, Apostles, Souls And Salvation

From the very beginning Ignatius and his companions conceived of themselves as “pilgrims”, as “apostles,” who like the disciples in the Gospel moved from place to place under the urgency of announcing the Kingdom of God. “Their intention [was] to travel throughout the world and, when they could not find the desired spiritual fruit in one place, to pass on to another and another, ever seeking the greater glory of God our Lord and the greater aid of souls” (C 605). It is characteristic of Ignatius’ thinking that human “perfection” is not a theme in itself. He does not understand the sacrificial offering (the “holocaust”) as directed mainly to our own personal sanctification. He states, indeed: “The end of this Society is to devote itself with God’s grace not only to the salvation and perfection of the members’ own souls, but also with that same grace to labor strenuously in giving aid towards the salvation and perfection of the souls of others”

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Link (here) to the full essay by Fr. Jacques Servais, S.J. entitled, On the Apostolic Character of the Society Jesus. This and many more essays by Jesuits can be found at the New Jesuit Review.

Engraving (here)

Flowers for the Queen By Fr. Daniel Lord, S.J.

Mary is the lovely Mother of the world. She is the beautiful Queen of Heaven. Now the sweetest gift that people give to a mother and a queen is a bouquet of flowers.

Mary, since that first Christmas, has been wonderfully good to all her children. So we love to give her roses. Since she is in heaven, it is hard to give her roses from our gardens. 

Yet we do this when we decorate her shrines. Always we can give her our Rosary, a beautiful bouquet of prayers. So we lay the Rosary in the arms of our Queen and Mother.
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Link (here) to the Mysteries of Rosary by Fr. Daniel Lord, S.J.

Destined To Repair All The Calamities Which The First Eve Had Inflicted Upon Mankind

Oh, profound wisdom of the designs of God ! Mary is the most perfect of creatures. She comes forth from the hands of her author, so beautiful and so resplendent with glory that the angels, dazzled at the sight of her, ask with astonishment, " Who is she that cometh like a brilliant morning, who sends forth a light more pure and beautiful than the moon, and will soon outshine the sun itself ?"  

Quasi aurora consurgens ; pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol.

It is the future queen of heaven who is born upon earth. But, what splendour surrounds her cradle! With what majesty does He adorn her in the eyes of men ! This daughter of benediction, who has not shared in the corruption of sin, who bears upon her soul the living impress of the divine likeness, 

who is destined to repair all the calamities which the first Eve had inflicted upon mankind, who will crush the head of the serpent, and be the mother of God, had nothing to distinguish her outwardly from an ordinary child. That birth which constitutes the joy and admiration of the whole hierarchy of heaven, 

is an obscure and unknown event upon the earth, and merely attracts the attention of a few relatives and friends, who are very far from suspecting what a treasure has been bestowed upon the world.

Link (here) to the selected portion of the book entitled, Sermons of the Abbe Nicolas Tuite de Mac Carthy, S.J.

Jesuit Bishop Says, "Prayer A Foretaste Of Heaven"

" Our life on earth, seasoned with prayer, becomes in a manner heavenly. We have through prayer a foretaste of Heaven. For Heaven consists in perfect union with God, in the vision of God, face to face, as He is in Himself; and prayer is only a less perfect union with God: it is the effort of the soul to rise to its Creator by its highest faculties of understanding and will. St. Paul and many servants of God have been rapt up to God in prayer and admitted to the very threshold of Heaven. The lowliest may in some proportion draw near to God by prayer."

Link (here) to the mentioned portion of the writings of Jesuit Bishop George Porter, S.J. his book is entitled,The letters of the late Father George Porter, S.J., Archbishop of Bombay By George Porter.

Jesuit Says, "God Takes The Soul Out Of The World At A Moment When He Sees It To Be Merciful To Do So"

St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Colossians, speaks in marvellous language of the triumph of our Lord over the evil angels by means of the Cross, on which He took away and cancelled, as the Apostle tells us, what was a sort of title which they had over us on account of our sins. 

He speaks of our Lord as " blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us; and He hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to His Gross, and despoiling the principalities and powers, He hath exposed them confidently in open show, triumphing over them in Himself"

His words remind us of the image which our Lord used on more than one occasion, of the " strong armed man," who keeps his court and his goods in peace, until a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, and takes away all his armour in which he trusted and distributes his spoils.t The intense pride and arrogance of the devils made it most difficult for them to understand how they were to be conquered and baulked by the humiliations of our Lord, and, in the same way, they are for ever being disappointed and spoiled of their prey in the case of Christian souls * Coloss. ii. 14, 15. t St. Luke xi. 21, 22. which are rescued from their very jaws by the grace which is the fruit of those humiliations. These victories tend immensely to the glory of God and of our Lord, and are perpetual occasions of fresh discomfitures to His enemies. 

Thousands of souls, for instance, are saved from them by the last Sacraments duly received, even after a long course of sin; thousands more by interior graces, such as the power to make an act of contrition at the last moment, which are, no doubt, special favours on which no one could be so foolish as to reckon without almost certainly, by that very presumption, debarring himself from them, but which still are granted in a measure of which we have no knowledge to many sinners who would be lost without them, on account of the intercession of our Lady or the Saints, or in reward for some good work or service to God and the Church done long before, it may be, by the person or by some one to whom he belongs. 

Again, it may be considered as certain that God takes the soul out of the world at a moment when He sees it to be merciful to do so, knowing that if it lives on it will not be better, or that if its life is not shortened it may be worse. For the moment of the death of each one of us is entirely in the hands of God. In these and in other ways the malice of the enemies of our souls is constantly defeated, to their great indignation and confusion and disappointment, and to the great glory of God. All this part of His Providence, in their own case, is clear to the Holy Souls of Purgatory.

Link (here) to the referenced portion book entitled, The Prisioners of the King, thoughts on the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory by  Henry James Coleridge, S.J.

The Holy Souls In Purgatory, Have No Hope Save In Us

The holy souls in purgatory, in their extreme destitution, have no hope save in us. The poor man eases his poverty by working; if he can not work, he begs; and his sad destitution moves others to compassion. With regard to other unfortunates, the case is the same. Some resource is always left to them, and the surest ground of hope is prayer to God who never rejects it. But to the souls in purgatory everything is wanting if our charity will not remember them. 

For them there is no divine mercy—its reign is ended. The whole of the debt is now to be paid, "to the last farthing." They do not sow in the other world; the day is ended; it is succeeded by the night, "in which no man can work." (John ix. 4.) 

What of their companions? All are equally powerless to assist one another. To us alone it would be useful for them to make known their distress; but, alas, we can neither see their tears nor hear their lamentations. Let us at least hear the language which the Church puts upon their lips on this day, and if we feel any compassion while meditating on them, let us not harden our hearts. 

"Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, ye at least, my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me." (Job, xix. 21.) 

Shall we, through our negligence and indifference, be as severe as the just God who because of His justice is forced to chastise them? "Why do you persecute me as God?" (Ib.)

Link (here) to the portion mentioned in the book entitled, Meditations for he use of  the Secular Clergy, by Fr. Pierre Chaignon, S.J.

The Heinousness Of Sin, Its Evil Consequences, Or The Fear Of Hell And Purgatory.

Before the coming of Christ this sort of contrition was held up to men as the only penance, the only means of salvation; and it must have been an easy one to fulfil. How much more, then, may a Christian who leads a God-fearing life and strives after perfection feel assured that he possesses such contrition when he prays God for it, reflects earnestly upon it, and then recites the act given in his prayer-book. Suppose, for instance, that perfect contrition were really wanting, then imperfect suffices for the remission of sin in the confessional. 

Imperfect contrition is such as is born of the consideration of the heinousness of sin, its evil consequences,or the fear of hell and purgatory. 

A few moments' reflection must easily produce such sorrow in a Christian soul. From what has been said it follows that the sorrow required for a valid and efficacious confession is by no means so hard to obtain as many suppose.

Link (here) to the mentioned portion of the book entitled, The Way of Interior Peace: Dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. by the Jesuit Fr. Edouard De Lehen, S.J.

Bitter Things

Two meditations from the Spiritual Exercises illustrate how the exercitant comes to embrace the mission to glorify God through the salvation of souls. The first is the meditation on Hell from the First Week. The point of this exercise is  

“to ask for interior sense of the pain which the damned suffer, in order that, if, through my faults, should I forget the love of the Eternal Lord, at least the fear of the pains may help me not to come into sin.” 

Ignatius guides the exercitant toward a graphic and frightening contemplation of the eternal torments with the “wailings, howlings, cries, blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against all His Saints”. He is to smell “smoke, sulphur, dregs and putrid things”; he is to taste  

“bitter things, like tears, sadness and the worm of conscience”; 

he is to touch the fires and the burning souls. The experience of Hell shows the retreatant the horrors of sin, and awakens in him a deep sadness and a desire for God’s mercy. The exercise concludes, as always, with a colloquy in which one brings to memory  

“the souls that are in Hell, some because they did not believe the Coming, others because, believing, they did not act according to His Commandments.” 

Hell, therefore, is not a mere metaphor in this meditation, but a graphic experience of the horror of damnation.

Link (here) to the New Jesuit Review, and the read the full article written by Fr. John Gavin, S.J. entitled, The Salvation of Souls and the Glory of God. 

French Jesuit Theologian Denis Petau, "The Fire Of Hell Is A Corporeal And Material Fire"

The learned Jesuit French theologian Denis Petau, or Dionysius Petavius, who in his treatise De Aiigelis (III. v. 7) says that

"All theologians in the present day, nay, all Christians also, are of one accord in the belief that the fire of Hell is a corporeal and material fire," 

though at the same time he allows that there is no definition of the Church asserting it. It would be tedious to go through the long list of theologians of the Society of Jesus who with one mouth proclaim the same doctrine. Toletus (in 1am partem S. Thomse, q. 64, a. 3); Lessius (De Div. Perf. xiii. 20); Theol. Wirceburg. (De Ang. iii. n. 66) ; Hurter (Medulla Theol. 1236-8) ; Mazzella (Be Nov. VI. vi. 80), are but samples of a long list that might be quoted. We rather turn to one or two who belong to other religious bodies, to show the prevailing unanimity among those whose learning gives them a right to carry weight in such a question as this. Thus the Dominican Bannez uses these words:

" The fire of Hell is a sensible and corporeal fire. This conclusion is so certain that the opposite is to be regarded as erroneous or proximate to error;" 

and Billuart (De Aug. vi. 3, 2) tells us that it is the opinion of the Fathers and of theologians generally (communiter) that the fire of Hell is a material and corporeal fire ; so that though the doctrine is not of faith, since the Church has defined nothing respecting it, yet it seems one that is to be held as certain. In the same way Estius (In Dist. iv. 44, 12):

" It is quite clear that the doctrine which lays down that the fire with which the bad angels, and the lost both before and after the Day of Judgment, will be punished is a corporeal fire, is the common doctrine, and therefore the doctrine of the Church, and one to which we must make no opposition," 

 while Patuzzi declares the opposite opinion to be " in the opinion of some heretical, in that of others, proximate to heresy, while all regard it as at least erroneous and temerarious in the extreme."1 There can therefore be no doubt that he who asserts the metaphorical nature of hell fire makes an assertion which, by the common judgment of Fathers and theologians, cannot be reconciled with the teaching of our Lord, and the repeated declarations of Holy Scripture, and the express proposition contained in the Athanasian Creed. It is not for us to brand the statements of the upholders of metaphor with any theological mark or censure, though we do not see how they can be regarded as men who are not in distinct conflict with the practical teaching of the Church.

Link (here) to The Month, published in 1893 the essay is entitled, Is the Fire of Hell a Material Fire? by Fr. R.F. Clarke, S.J.

Jesuit Says, "Every Time That A Priest Is Seated In The Confessional, He Is There As A Judge"

Casuistry is the study of the law which is administered in the confessional. It is by no mere metaphor that the confessional is called "the tribunal of penance." The Council of Trent, speaking with dogmatic precision, says that Christ being about to ascend into Heaven "left priests behind in place of Himself as judges, that all crimes, amounting to mortal sin, into which Christ's faithful ever fell, might be brought under their cognisance, in order that, using the power of the keys, they might pronounce sentence of remission or retention"; and further, that priests " could not exercise this power of judgment without examination of the case "; and again, in the ninth canon of the same Session, the Council anathematises "any one who shall say that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act." Every time that a priest is seated in the confessional, he is there as a judge. He must, then, possess jurisdiction as well as order; otherwise his acts are invalid, and his absolution goes for nothing. He must be in fact either the ecclesiastical superior of his penitent, or the delegate of that superior. Being a judge, he is bound to decide according to the law of the court where he sits — the court of conscience it is called. The law there current presents many nice points for decision. The study of these, as I have said, is casuistry. It is essential to the training of a priest. It is matter of professional interest to him, and occasionally of keen discussion, as the treatment of wounds is to a surgeon.

Link (here) to the essay entitled Casuistry by Fr. Joseph Rickaby, S.J.

Ignatian Resources

David Paternostro, S.J. recently posted this list of great Ignatian resource on prayer. At the Jesuit authored Spiritual Exercises blog.


Making Choices in Christ: The Foundations of Ignatian Spirituality by Fr. Joseph Tetlow, S.J.
Ignatius Loyola: Spiritual Exercises by Fr. Joseph Tetlow, S.J.
Meditation and Contemplation: An Ignatian Guide to Prayer With Scripture by Fr. Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V.
Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer by Fr. Mark Thibodeaux, S.J.
A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola
The website for the Apostleship of Prayer: http://www.apostleshipofprayer.org/
John Brown, S.J.’s website, Companion of Jesus (especially the section “Jesuit Review”): http://companionofjesus.com/
“Seasoned Spirituality”, daily reflections by Fr. Rodney Kissinger, S.J.: http://ignatiusresidence.org/blog/ 

Read the full post (here)

Jesuit Says, "A Socialist Is A Stone In The Wall Of A Government Office"

One great and obvious difference between Socialism and Religious life we have kept for the last. Religious men have no wife and children. Being single persons, without family ties and private family interests, they are able to club together: their Order is their family, their equals in age are their brothers, their seniors are to them as fathers, and their juniors as sons. The property of the Order is their family property. Among married people you have confraternities, you could never have a Religious Order. The precedent of Religious Orders, therefore, goes little or no way in favour of the feasibility of a Socialist commonwealth. We gather, however, some pretty plain hints from the pages of Socialist literature, that, though Socialists cannot do without children, some of them at least intend to do without the family; that though they must have women, they want no permanently wedded wives. Marriage shall not stand in the way of their collectivism. The morality of this procedure we may leave undiscussed. But we would propose one question:  

Where is this type of Socialist going to have his home ? Not in the next world, for he believes in none. Not with wife and family, if the State is to cut off, or discourage to the utmost, such individualist appendages, and take his children away from him. 

 The lodging-house or barracks in which he is quartered will be no home to him. The inmates will be strangers to the charities of Religious life. If he lives by himself, like Timon and Diogenes, he finds no home in that misanthropic solitude. He can hardly look upon the Guildhall as his home, or the House of Commons, or wherever be the meeting-place of the General Assembly. He is no longer a man, but a stone in the wall of a Government Office. He has no individuality and no home.

Link (here) to the essay entitled, Socialism and Religious Life by Fr. Joseph Rickaby, S.J.

The Jesuit Father Of Liberation Theology?

In 16 years as a Jesuit, he made his mark. His lectures to young people at Gregorian University's institute for laymen—on "religious science"—were immensely successful. Superiors admitted that Father Alighiero Tondi, S.J. could chase away spiritual doubts among Rome's younger generation "as no one else could." Secretly this skillful curer of souls began to doubt the rational proofs of Catholicism as not so all-inclusive as he had hoped. He began to investigate "scientific" philosophies. One seemed especially satisfying, since it held forth the "scientific possibility of dominating national and social events."  

In the Italian elections of 1948, Father Tondi, on the surface an ardent worker for Italy's Catholic Action movement, voted for the Communist Party. 

Through the next four years, his secret studies took him further. Catholic teaching on social injustice—if looked at in the new scientific manner—became a comfortingly rational conspiracy. Tondi reached a conclusion:  

"The game of the man who is well off is to convince the man who has nothing that there is no remedy for the suffering and disorder of the world because this is God's will . . . Communism throws out this rubbish and restores to man the dignity of his reason." 

Rationalist Tondi began to spend his evenings exchanging his new views with Communist friends. (He told his superiors that he was out electioneering for Catholic Action.)

Link (here) to the May. 05, 1952 edition of Time magazine, the full article entitled, The Rationalist.

Soviet Agent, Jesuit Traitor

Fr. Aleghiero Tondi, S.J. began his work as a Soviet agent in 1944 betraying the Russicum priests sent to the Soviet Union as undercover evangelists. The Holy Alliance later calculated that Tondi betrayed some 250 members of the Russicum, many of whom ended their lives in Soviet gulags or were exectuted on charges having spied against the USSR.

Link (here) to the book entitled, The Entity: Five Centuries of Secret Vatican Espionage by Eric Frattini, Dick Cluster

Jesuit Was Actually A KGB Spy!

No one in Italy seemed a more exemplary upholder of the faith than 44 year old Jesuit Father Alighiero Tondi, as a fervent lecturer on "religious science" at the Institute of Higher Religious Culture at Gregorian University in Rome. He was exceedingly popular, only recently impressed an audience profoundly with a talk on why he became a Jesuit 16 years ago. Then last month disappeared, "I am not coming back," he phoned the university. A few days later a Communist paper broke the news Tondi had quit the Church for Communism.

Link (here) to the Life magazine story from May 26, 1952. Be sure to check out Archbishop Fulton J Sheen's comment in the same story along with the two pictures of Fr. Tondi, S.J.

The Re-instruction And The Recapture

To the Jesuits, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), was mainly due the "re-instruction" of Europe and the recapture of the renaissance. Sufficient to say that their success was so overwhelming that it aroused the violent antagonism of the Universities, and thus ultimately made a contributory cause of their downfall. They were, too, exposed to the peculiar danger of a system which is, after all, in some essential degree imitative. The training of the Society undoubtedly went to produce admirably efficient men of a generally high level of worth, rather than of isolated and very originative geniuses. Such men are perhaps too likely to trade on their resources without really developing them; and doubtless, to some extent, that happened. However, the Jesuits provided the seed plot for a number of first-rate men, and in their special way renewed the work of the early Benedictines in a distracted world.

Link (here) to the book entitled Catholic Thought and Thinkers, edited by Fr. C.C. Martindale, S.J.

The Plato Of The Society Of Jesus

Gabriel Vasquez, S.J., 1551-1604, taught at Rome and Aleali, mainly theology, which he has bequeathed to us in a great commentary on the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, with philosophy interspersed. If Francis Suarez was the Aristotle of the Society of Jesus, Vasquez was the Plato. He and Suarez were rivals in the schools. Vasquez is always good reading, brilliant, suggestive, more lively, too, than Suarez, but less sure-footed. By this time the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas had replaced the Sentences of Peter Lombard as the text-book in the schools. At the opening of his commentary on the Summa, Vasquez has an interesting defence of scholastic theology against the allegations brought against it in the sixteenth century. Many of his remarks may serve as an apology for scholastic philosophy in our time.

Link (here) to book entitled Scholasticism  by Fr. Joseph Rickaby, S.J.

A Jewelled Shrine

As when in some dim jewel-crusted shrine,

A maze of shaft and scroll-work, swings on high

A lamp whose gleams, flooding the glories nigh,

Leave vistas vaguely rich ; around it shine

Responsive sparks of brilliance opaline

That down the scented dusk melt, glow, and die—

Tint chasing tint in soft light harmony—

As seems the flame, faint-stirred, to wax or pine :

So in the sonnet, where the hoarded treasure

Of poet's mind lies hidden, where is wrought

By heart and brain, as fire and hammer, nought

But strong and graceful, welded truth and pleasure—

How brightly answer beauties beyond measure

The flash of fancy in this shrine of thought !

by Fr. Joseph Keating, S. J.

Link (here)

Some Berlin Jesuit Fallout

Zollitsch, who leads the second-largest diocese in Germany, told the radio station Südwestrundfunk that he planned to inform the Pope Benedict XVI of the scandal in March. "Most of these cases are from 25 or 30 years ago," Zollitsch said. "At that time people believed that if the perpetrators admitted their injustices, they wouldn't do it anymore. It was naive to believe that." Last week the Church announced it would set up a telephone hotline for victims who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of church staff and would create a national office to review a rash of recent claims. Two priests have already resigned for failing to report sexual abuse accusations. 

Link (here)

 

Are You Ready To Die?

Just claiming to be a Christian and to be a follower of Jesus is not enough.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Mt. 7: 21)

Jesus further warns that we must be constantly alert.  Death and judgment will come unexpectedly.  “Two women will be grinding at the mill.  One will be taken, and one will be left.  Therefore, stay awake!  For you do not know at what hour your Lord will come.” (Mt. 24:41-42).  There is no explanation why one woman was taken from this life and one was left.  Up until the moment it happened, there was no reason why it should.  None of us knows when we will die and go before the Lord, so each of us must constantly ask the question: am I ready to die?

Link (here) to the full post by Mr. David Paternostro, S.J. entitled, Death and Judgment: In Light of Eternity at the Jesuit authored Spiritual Exercises blog. 

Drawing of "Two Women Grinding at the Mill"

Stephen Surovick, SJ "Growing In Grace And Understanding Of God's Call"

Through these six years of formation, I have learned that religious life in the Society of Jesus consists of a personal relationship with God, which in turn supports the public reality of a Jesuit’s mission. The Society’s mission, as it is lived by each individual Jesuit, regardless of the mission, is one of availability. Finally, the opportunity to be ordained a Jesuit priest means having the opportunity to connect people’s daily lives with the Catholic Church. And while I have much more to learn, I have humbly requested to continue theological studies in the coming academic year in preparation for eventual ordination to the priesthood, as my relationship with God continues to draw me into greater service of His people.

Link (here) to read the full essay.

Stephen Surovick, SJ (MAR) is in his second year of Regency, teaching European and American History at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.

Constitutiones Societatis Iesu Et Epitome Instituti.

Romae: Apud Curiam Praepositi Generalis, 1943. Small 8vo, xxiv + 352pp. Good cloth with gilt title to spine. Interior condition good. Pages slightly browning. Top corner of front free endpaper clipped.

Price: $20.00

Link (here) to Loome Books to purchase this book.

Fr. Pierre Francois Pinet, S.J. And "The Mission Of The Guardian Angel"

It is my purpose to tell you what I have been able to learn of one of these men, a Jesuit missionary— PIERRE FRANQOIS PINET, and of his Chicago mission, "the Mission Of The Guardian Angel," where, over two hundred years ago, near the western shore of Lake Michigan, he began his labors among the Indian tribes of our state.

Two and a half centuries form but a brief epoch in the histories of many countries of the old world. A like space of time not only covers the entire written history of Illinois, but reaches into such remote antiquity that we find no record. We all know that the written history of Illinois begins with the expedition of Father Marquette and Joliet in the year 1673. The histories of Illinois also tell us that twenty-seven years later, in the year 1700, the first permanent settlements in our state began with the founding of two Catholic missions by Father Pinet at Cahokia and Kaskaskia, but the writers fail to record the fact that on the western shore of Lake Michigan, which in these modern days of Chicago's greatness we call "The North Shore," and within two miles of the city limits of Evanston, this same Father Pinet in the year 1696, twenty-three years after the first expedition of Marquette, four years before Cahokia or Kaskaskia were thought of, ninety-four years before the first permanent white settler built his log cabin at Chicago, and over thirty-five years before the birth of Washington, founded his first Illinois Mission among the Miami Indians on the bank of what was then an inland lake and which in these days we call "The Skokie,"—with one exception the oldest mission in the state of Illinois.

 Link (here) to the cited page in the book entitled, Fr. Pierre Francois Pinet, S.J. and his Mission of the Gaurdian Angels of Chicago (1696 - 1699)  by Frank Reed Grover  

Most likely map location of the mission was between Michigan Avenue and  Rush Street on the north-side bank of the Chicago River on a “dry” area where the ancient Indian Green Bay Trail began. Near the site of the present day British Consulate. Citation (here)

The Olden Days

Johann Baptist Metz (pictured), Rahner’s student and friend, wrote that by the time Rahner died, “he had become probably the most influential and important Catholic thinker of his day.”

A priest from the southwestern U.S. said that of his 1970s seminary training, “Everything was Rahner; Rahner was in; Aquinas was out.” 

Metz said elsewhere, “Karl Rahner has renewed the face of our theology. Nothing is quite as it was before.”

Link (here) to the full article by John Vennari, entitled Karl Rahner's Girlfriend

Jesuits And Leprosy

Dr. Bross, a Jesuit missionary attached to the lazaretto at Trinidad, takes the ground that the disease in some way or other is transmissible. It is a well-established fact that when leprosy has once gained for itself a foothold in any locality, it is apt to remain there and spread. The case of the Sandwich Islands illustrates the danger. Forty years ago the disease did not exist there : now one-tenth of the inhabitants are lepers. — Dr. H. S. Piffard of New York in Medical Record, February, 1881.

Link (here) 

Photo link (here)

Blogger Note: I can not find one reference to a Jesuit named Bross, if you come a cross one please put a link or address of it, in the comments section.