Canisius College And Planned Parenthood

Canisius College, a Jesuit college in Buffalo has helped “maximize [the] personal and company performance” of Planned Parenthood of Buffalo and Erie County, according to the college’s website. Planned Parenthood has taken part in Canisius College’s management development program (MDP), which offers participants “powerful tools and techniques to maximize personal and company performance.” Planned Parenthood is also a past participant in Canisius College’s Fundamentals of Fundraising course.

Blogger Note: All Links or mentions of Planned Parenthood have been removed from Canisius College's website.

Link (here) to the article at Catholic Culture.

New Jesuit Review

“The Second Vatican Council urged religious congregations to embark on a process of recovery and re-appropriation of the spirit of their founders and of their best spiritual traditions.

This is a complex yet important task, which the Society of Jesus has already begun to undertake. I applaud the inauguration of the New Jesuit Review,

hoping that it may play a part in the deepening of Jesuit understanding of the Society's extraordinary legacy.”

+Terrence Prendergast, S.J.

Archbishop of Ottawa

The first three articles in the New Jesuit Review

The Self-Sacrificing Pastor: Saint Anthony Daniel in the Year of the Priest

By Archbishop Terrence Pendergast, S.J.

'Circa Missiones': On the Jesuit Fourth Vow

By Fr. Kevin Flannery, S.J.

Ignatian Spirituality and the Apostleship of Prayer

By Fr. James Kubicki, S.J.

The editorial board of New Jesuit Review :

Fr. David Brown, S.J. Vatican Observatory

Fr. Kevin Flannery, S.J. Pontifical Gregorian University

Fr. John Gavin, S.J. Pontifical Biblical Institute

Fr. James Swetnam, S.J. Pontifical Biblical Institute

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. : On Being An 'Ultra-Catholic'

I cannot resist taking a stab at defining what a modern ultra-Catholic is. Some temptations are difficult to resist. Briefly, in today's multi-descriptor world,

an ultra-Catholic is one who is a believing Catholic, a fairly rare bird.

The country is full of ex-, disagreeing, non-practicing, right-to-choose, leave-me-alone Catholics. They tell us that they are better than their hapless co-religionists who naively think Catholicism is credibly the most intelligent thing on the public or private scene.

In the public area, the most often cited "authority" on what Catholics believe is the dissenter.

Catholics are the one group about which no one has to speak accurately. A be-knighted ultra-Catholic holds the Nicene Creed as true.

He thinks divine authority exists in the Church.

He knows that he, a sinner, needs forgiveness. But he does not make his sins into some social-justice crusade. He does odd things like go to Mass on Sundays, even in Latin.

He thinks it is fine to have children. He prefers to work for a living.

He also knows that the Church is under siege in the culture. He belongs to the real minority.

Link (here) to the full article at InsideCatholic.com

A 50 Million Dollar Gift To The Loyola University Chicago

Adorned with European antiques, 17th century tapestries, classical sculpture and other works of art, the entry to the Cuneo Estate is a portal to privilege most can't comprehend.

Casual visitors once included business titans like former Chicago Blackhawks and Bulls owner Arthur Wirtz and insurance mogul James Kemper. A hand-carved table of walnut and olive wood was a gift from publishing giant William Randolph Hearst, a friend of printing magnate John Cuneo.

What was once the family home for more than a half-century, the Cuneo Museum and Gardens was opened by John Cuneo Jr. in 1991 to share his father's collections with the public.

"It shows people another way of life," Cuneo said of his boyhood home.

But after all this time, Cuneo, 78, is ready to move on. Although his immediate involvement will end, the legacy and family largesse will be preserved with the gift of the Cuneo Estate and nearly 100 acres to Loyola University Chicago.

Link (here) to the full article.

Boston College Assistant Chair Has Extensive Ties To Planned Parenthood

The assistant chair of the nursing department at one of the nation’s most prominent Catholic colleges has been associated with Planned Parenthood in two states. The career of Dr. Allyssa Harris, professor of nursing at Boston College, “has included positions at … Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and North Carolina,” according to her website. Dr. Harris received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from the Jesuit institution.

Dr. Harris is the coauthor of “The Latest Advances in Hormonal Contraception,” an article that appeared in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing in 2008. In the abstract of her dissertation research, Dr. Harris wrote that “African American women represent a unique group of women in the United States and have a long history of lack of reproductive freedom.

Link (here) to the full piece at Catholic Culture

A Berserkly Protest

When Bishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone visited Berkeley’s Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union on Sept. 22, approximately 20 protesters greeted him. The protesters were seminarians and faculty from the theological union’s schools. The bishop was there to commemorate the merging of the Jesuit school with Santa Clara University. The protesters were there to oppose Bishop Cordileone for his defense of natural marriage?

Link (here) to the full article at California Catholic Daily.
Blogger Note: The protesters were not from the Jesuit School of Theology.

Fr. Paul Le Jeune, S.J.

Fr. Paul Le Jeune, S.J. was the first head of the Jesuit order in New France, this Black Robe deserves the number of the holy trinity: Born a Protestant, he was a convert to Roman Catholicism. He gave out Jesuit rings to aboriginal converts, rings which became the first ceremonial rings to be distributed in Quebec - long before Stanley Cup rings.

Link (here)

British Provincial On St. Francis Xavier, S.J.

The Jesuit British Provincial Fr Michael Holman, preached at the Mass for the Feast of St Francis Xavier, which was also a Mass of Thanksgiving for contributors to and supporters of Pray-as-you-go. This is what he said:

Two days ago, having some time on my hands, I took a walk at around mid-day out of my office here in Mount Street, across Grosvenor Square and up to Oxford Street. I went to stand on a traffic island in the middle of the Edgware Road where it meets Bayswater Road just opposite Marble Arch. Well, what would you do with a few moments to spare in central London?

For us Jesuits and for a great many others in the Church in this country, that traffic island is a special place.

In the middle there is a plaque where Tyburn Tree once stood. On December 1st, we celebrated the memory of Edmund Campion. With two companions, the Jesuit Alexander Briant and the secular priest Ralph Sherwin, all missionaries to England, he was executed on that spot on that day in 1581.

It struck me at the time how, looking around from the middle of that busy street, you get a good enough idea of the city to which and the people to whom we have been sent today.

It's a world so different from that which Edmund Campion knew. And so different from the world of Francis Xavier who grew up 60 years before in a castle in northern Spain. There his horizons as a young man as he stood on its battlements were limited by the hills that surrounded him on all sides, yet in adult life he carried the gospel to the edge of the known world and beyond. Since then, he has become the model and the motivation for the generations of missionaries, from Campion's time to today.

Link (here) to the full text of the homily by Fr. Michael Holman, S.J.

Father George Porter, S.J., Archbishop of Bombay On Advent Customs In Italy

I must tell you some of the peculiar religious customs of Tuscany. We don't fast during Advent, we fast on the vigils of the Apostles instead. The animal man can hardly be the gainer, what with the Ember days and the vigil of the Immaculate Conception (a fast in Florence, in discharge of a vow against the plague, and elsewhere a fast much observed through devotion). The Tuscans are rather famous for their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Holy Souls. In Rome a De profundis is said one hour after Ave Maria. In Tuscany the same custom prevails, and in addition the bell tolls one hour before Ave Maria, alle venti-tre ore, and good people say a Credo for the dead. I have not found out when this custom was introduced, nor do I know why a Credo is recited. The devotion to the Blessed Sacrament has come to be mixed up with devotion for the Holy Souls in 96 Religious customs in Tuscany.

Link (here) to the book entitled The letters of the late Father George Porter, S.J., Archbishop of Bombay.

"Climategate" Not At America Magazine

Highlighted below is a small portion of an editorial entitled The Moment is Now, written by the editors of America, the leading Jesuit publication of the English speaking world. The subject is global warming or climate change. I would like to point out that the editorial pits the rich against the poor, implies a moral duty upon the reader to raise his/her taxes, buy a hybrid car, install expensive light bulbs and vote for liberal Democratic policies, I am not sure if violating any one of these would constitute a mortal sin or a venial sin?

No where can be found any reference to the fraudulent science that has been recently discovered at East Anglia University, nor the lack of co-operation from NASA, nor the fact that Al Gore has canceled his upcoming big speech in Copenhagen, nor that Australian Parliament just recently voted down their proposed cap and trade all in light of the recent development of what has become known as "Climategate".

"If the planet is to survive, as Pope Benedict XVI concluded in Caritas in Veritate, all nations must accept binding reductions in carbon emissions and construct an equitable structure for energy consumption and for sharing the development of green technology among rich and poor nations—for the sake of this generation and generations to come."

Link (here) to the entire piece.

The Climate Summit has just banned Christmas Tree's at its meeting, it's carbon foot print was probably to big, read more (here).

Jumping To Conclusions

Earlier this week there was much furor in the press about comments attributed to Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan stating "transs@xuals and hom@sexuals will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Fr. James Martin S.J. posted on this twice (here) (here) in America Magazine first "instructing" the Cardinal on what the Catechism says and then later posting another response to the Cardinal's comments.

When I first saw this story I immediately figured it was typical medial slice and dice of the Cardinal's comments taking them deliberately out of the full context of what he had said. Twice I responded in the comments with this suggestions. Though the comments were mostly full of people angry with the Cardinal's comments. I had commented that this was likely media distortion, which is so common, and really should be the charitable reply to the story.

Link (here) to the full and interesting blog post by Jeff Miller at The Curt Jester
Photo is Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan

Jesuits In Residence At Berkeley

(here)

Fordham University's You Tube video channel (here)

Christmas Becomes Winter Break: The Culture War

The Cultural War for the Soul of America

by Patrick J. Buchanan
September 14, 1992

"What do you mean by culture? That's a word they used in Nazi Germany. -- Mario Cuomo on Face the Nation, Aug. 23, 1992

An excerpt.

But the cultural war is broader than two battlegrounds of abortion and hom.sexual marriage.

We see it in the altered calendar of holidays we are invited - nay, instructed - to celebrate. Washington's Birthday disappears into Presidents Day. States, like Arizona, that balk at declaring Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday face political censure and convention boycotts.

Easter is displaced by Earth Day, Christmas becomes Winter break, Columbus day is now a day to reflect on the cultural imperialism and genocidal racism

of the "dead white males" who raped this continent while exterminating its noblest inhabitants. Secularism's Holy Days of Obligation were not demanded by us; they were imposed on us. And while Gov. Cuomo may plausibly plead ignorance of the culture war,

the Hard Left has always understood its critically. Give me the child for six years, Lenin reportedly said, quoting the Jesuits, and he will be a Marxist forever.

J.V. Stalin, who was partial to Chicago gangster films, thought that if only he had control of Hollywood, he could control the world.

Link (here) to the Jesuit educated Pat Buchanan's full article

Society of Jesus on Facebook (here)

SLU Boots The Monologues! Maybe

Responding to Saint Louis University’s ban on the vile play The Vagina Monologues, a student club will no longer present the play even off campus, The University News reports. Una, a group described as “the feminine voice on campus” at Saint Louis University (SLU), a Jesuit Catholic institution of higher education, is reportedly creating a new production entitled The SLU Monologues.

A student leader of Una told the campus newspaper that The SLU Monologues will present stories collected from SLU students and staff on campus “in the spirit of The Vagina Monologues.” The V-Monologues is a controversial play that, among other vulgarities, describes the lesbian seduction of a teenage victim as her “salvation” that “raised her into a kind of heaven.

Saint Louis University is among Catholic institutions that once hosted productions of the play but have since decided to ban it from campus. The report also notes that The SLU Monologues has yet to be approved for campus performances. "Vagina Monologues [is a] good show for its purpose. But it's not the end-all, be-all to end violence against women," a student leader of Una said, according to The University News. Source: The University News

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Blogger Note: we shall see what unfolds.

yorubella said...

This is actually incorrect. The Vagina Monologues have been performed by SLU students for the past 10 years, and this is not changing. The SLU Monologues are a new production that the feminist group is doing in ADDITION to the Vagina Monologues to raise money. They are all part of the same campaign to end violence against women.

Seattle Preparatory School Graduate Sentanced To 26 Years In Prision

Meredith Kercher trial: Amanda Knox, the 'shy' former Jesuit school girl

To her parents, Amanda Knox will always be a shy former Jesuit school girl incapable of a wicked thought, let alone a wicked deed.

Link (here) to the full story

Japanese First Christmas Included Jesuits

CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN
By JASMIN K. WILLIAMS
December 19, 2007 --

How do you say Merry Christmas in Japan? Easy. Merry Christmas. THE big holiday in Japan is New Year's Day. The Christmas holiday was introduced to Japan by the Europeans who arrived during the 16th century. It is not celebrated as a national or religious holiday, as less than 2 percent of Japan's population is Christian. The major religion in Japan is Buddhism. If Christmas falls on a weekday, everyone still goes to work and school. But over the past few decades, the holiday has gained in popularity, with the Japanese taking up the traditions of decorating their homes, giving gifts to friends and having a holiday meal. The holiday became popular due, in part, to the Christmas products Japan manufactured for other countries. Women and young people are the biggest fans.

The first recorded Christmas in Japan was celebrated with a Mass led by Jesuit missionaries in 1552. When the missionaries were expelled in 1587, Christianity was banned and the public practice of Christmas was stopped. There was, however, a small group of Japanese Christians called kakure Kirishitan, or “hidden Christians," who continued to practice underground for more than 250 years. During the Meiji Period, from 1868 to 1912, the ban on Christianity was lifted and Christmas reappeared, but it was never the great religious holiday it is in other countries. Christmas Eve is more like Valentine's Day.

Sweethearts enjoy this big night out on the town at a fancy restaurant. Romance is in the air. There is a fabled Buddhist monk, Hotei-osho, who acts as a symbolic Santa of sorts. He brings presents for the children. He has eyes in the back of his head so children behave. Most children, however, prefer that Santa deliver the presents. Christmas is not a day of family celebration and food, as in other countries. The Christian population spends the day doing good deeds for others, especially those who are sick at home or in a hospital. The custom of exchanging gifts involves an oseibo, an end-of-theyear present. This is usually presented to teachers or people with whom you do business. Most people have a department store deliver the gifts. These are given to repay favors received during the year. These are usually not fancy or too formal. Popular choices are gift certificates, canned foods, coffee or fruit. On each oseibo, the giver includes a thin paper called a noshi on which the word oseibo is written. The oseibo is not to be confused with a Christmas gift. The traditional holiday food in Japan is Christmas cake. This is usually a sponge cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

Link (here)

Jesuit On The Ideal of One World-Wide Christian Church

Though the division of world history into centuries is arbitrary, as we look back upon them we see that each has none the less been characterized by some great spiritual movement.

This is true of the Church Catholic, and is also true of those Churches which broke away from her communion at the time of the Reformation.

The century following the Reformation saw a breach between Anglicans and Nonconformists and the establishment of Free Churches throughout the English-speaking world. The eighteenth century saw the rise and growth under Wesley of a great revival, which also led ultimately to the establishment of numerous religious bodies, each separate from the other.

In Scotland the seventeenth century saw the struggle of the Presbyterian Kirk to free herself from dictation by English kings and churchmen; while the eighteenth gave birth to a demand for further liberty, culminating in the secession under Erskine (1733),

and after another hundred years in the still greater secession led by Chalmers (1843). Six years later the last great secession from the Wesleyan body took place, this also being the outcome of a demand for greater liberty than the Conference was willing to concede. The year 1850 indicates the high-water mark of the disruptive tendency of liberty-loving Free Churchmen. After that date it not only declines, but gives place to the opposite tendency, a desire for reunion.

Already the Church of England had begun to lament her isolation and to search, in the Oxford movement, for a via media which should bring Catholics and Protestants together. Already Newman and others, relinquishing altogether the Protestant standpoint, had "gone over."

Already in Scotland, in 1847, the earlier secessionists had united, and by the end of the century there was to be a reunion, well nigh complete, in the United Free Kirk, of all those who had seceded from the Established Kirk. The reunion idea also took root amongst the Wesleyans, resulting in the United Methodist Church, and in proposals for an even wider reunion of all Methodist bodies.

Link (here) to read the fantastic full essay entitled, The Ideal Of One World-Wide Christian Church by the 19th century theologian Fr. Leslie J. Walker, S.J. Published in 1921 in Constructive Quarterly: a journal of the faith, work and thought of Christendom

Painting is of Cardinal John Henry Newman

Fordham Jesuit, "We are priests first of all"

Like all of Fordham’s Jesuits, first and foremost they are Catholic priests. They are ordained to celebrate Mass in any parish in the New York Archdiocese and to administer sacraments that go with the title: marriages, penance, last rites, Holy Eucharist and more.

That is why, when calls for assistance come from surrounding Bronx neighborhoods and beyond, Fordham’s Jesuits are answering them.

Some 20 of Fordham’s Jesuit priests regularly celebrate Masses in parish churches and other religious communities off campus. The jobs are rarely assigned tasks; they are, many of them say, tasks of the heart, and a privilege that keeps them connected to the world beyond the leafy confines of academia.

“We are priests first of all, and this is what our mission is,” said Father Joseph Koterski,S.J., who celebrates Mass on Tuesday mornings at the Sisters of Life convent in Throgs Neck and on Sunday mornings at the Missionaries of Charity convent on East 145th Street in the Tremont section of the Bronx. “We can be of great support to our fellow priests and to our dioceses. And people in the pews like a little variety in their sermons. The learning and spirituality that the Jesuits bring can be valuable.”

Link (here)

Photo is of Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J.

505 People Sue In The Oregon Province Abuse Scandal: Lawyer Wants Money From All Jesuit Provinces In The World

The claims are in. According to a tally released yesterday, a total of 505 people the Nov. 30 deadline set by a federal judge to lodge allegations of abuse against the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province.

The total cost to the Jesuits could be astronomical. In similar bankruptcy proceedings filed by California dioceses in recent years, settlements to abuse victims averaged approximately $1.4 million an individual--which would amount to a total $700 million due from the Oregon Province.

With a sum like that, Timothy Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney who represents 130 of the individuals filing claims, says he plans to argue that the Jesuits Worldwide needs to be held financially accountable.

Read the entire article (here) at Seattle Weekly
Photo is of Timothy Kosnoff

Jesuits Trading Food For Prayers

Jesuit Retreat House is offering free day retreats in exchange for food donations this holiday season, Jesuit Retreat House, 5629 State Road, Parma, is offering free day retreats in exchange for nonperishable food donations for the needy. Retreats that are part of this program include "The Prophecy of Isaiah,"7-9 p.m. Monday; "Preparing the Heart for Christmas," 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dec. 14; and "The Meaning of Christmas," 7-9 p.m. Dec. 17. For more information or to register, see jrh-cleveland.org or call (440) 884-9300.

Link (here)

More On English Conversion

"Campion, the Seditious Jesuit"

One of my favorite saints, is the great English Jesuit Edmund Campion,

who was hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1581 because he audaciously refused to renounce the Catholic faith—an act of defiance that,

in Elizabethan England, not infrequently proved hazardous to one's life. Apropos of this, I can't help but call to mind a quip by Oscar Wilde (whose death — and, far more importantly, deathbed conversion to Catholicism — 109 years ago) was commemorated yesterday. The Catholic Church, Wilde remarked, is "for saints and sinners alone — for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do."

Link (here) to the blog entitled Lunch Break by father five John Jansen

On Boxing And Discerning Vocations: Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J.

The former minister and now Australia's Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbott used his new book, Battlelines, to set out his Liberal philosophy and a route back to power. In this extract published recently in The Australian, he reveals the tensions between his private and public lives - and why he gave up on the priesthood.

An excerpt of Tony Abbott's piece.

I'm sure, through my role in student politics as through academic or sporting prowess, I was chosen as a NSW Rhodes Scholar at the end of 1980. Someone once said that Oxford had left him "magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life". For me, one legacy was a handful of friendships that have survived the tyranny of distance.

I doubt that I have ever met a finer man than Paul Mankowski. It's an unusual Jesuit who turns out to be a recruiting agent for the university boxing team.

A couple of drinks in the pub secured my reluctant agreement one night in 1982. After an initial training session,

I was preparing my excuses when Paul presented me with a new skipping rope.

This was a big investment from a man whose wardrobe was handed down from dead priests, so I didn't have the heart to quit. Within a couple of weeks, the challenge of a new and ferocious discipline had me hooked.

Another Oxford legacy, thanks to the tutorial system, was the ability to digest and assimilate texts and to produce to deadline a 1500-word essay. Whatever else they might be, Oxbridge undergraduate courses are superb preparation for op-ed journalism.

At Oxford, I'd again been asking myself how I could best exercise leadership and, again, my thoughts had turned to the priesthood. I didn't relish more years in the classroom, was far from certain about my aptitude for parish life, and hated the prospect of lifelong celibacy. On the other hand, the notion of becoming a priest had tugged at me for years.

Meeting Mankowski, a contemporary who was both the embodiment of muscular Christianity

and fully acquainted with the cross-tides of modern life, made me think it might be possible to become a priest and stay "normal".

Read the full story (here) in the Daily Telegraph

A Perfect Christmas Gift For Your Favorite Jesuit

Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J. 1801-1873.

Missionary Labors and Adventures among the Wild Tribes of the North American Indians, Embracing Minute Description of their Manners, Customs, Games, Modes of Warfare and Torture, Legends, Traditions.

Edited from the Original Unpublished Manuscript, Journal

First Edition. The Jesuit Father De Smet’s Life provides an overview of his life and travels among Western Indian tribes from 1838–70. His journals and notes contain some of the earliest records of the life and customs of tribal life in the Northwest.

4 volumes, octavo. Original dark green vertical fine-ribbed cloth, title gilt to spines. Frontispiece to each and 12 other plates, folding map in end-pocket to Volume IV. Hinges of vols. I & IV cracking, indistinct splash mark to upper board of vol. IV, but overall a very good set.

Link (here) to purchase these books.