Fr. Robert Busa, S.J.

Fr. Robert Busa, S.J..

If you can read this article, typed using a computer keyboard, it is greatly thanks to him. If PC and notebook have left the typewriter permanently on the sidelines, if we can compose and decompose texts, perform analysis and researches at the click of a mouse, if we increasingly communicate through virtual messages, this is all greatly thanks to him. Father Roberto Busa, a Jesuit, inventor of computer language, forerunner of the active hypertext on the Web fifteen years earlier than American scientists, editor as well of the monumental Index Thomisticus, died of old age on Tuesday evening at the Aloisianum institute in Gallarate. He withdrew here decades ago, where he also found his friend and co-brother Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. He would have turned 98 this November and until a few weeks ago he was still very active and engaged in new projects.

The computer was born as a machine for making calculations. Immediately after the last World War, this enterprising Jesuit started working on a colossal job which involved analyzing the St. Thomas’ “opera omnia”, consisting of about nine million words. He had painstakingly drawn, by hand, ten thousand boards, all dedicated to the inventory of the preposition “in”, which he considered essential from a philosophical point of view. Father Busa had a bone to pick: he wanted to connect together expressions, phrases and quotes and compare them with other available sources. This is why in 1949 he knocked on the door of Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, who received him in his New York studio, listened to him, and finally said: "It is impossible for the machines to do what you are suggesting. You are claiming to be more American than us." The Jesuit did not give up and slid a punched card bearing the multinational company’s motto, coined by Watson himself, under the nose of IBM’s boss: "The difficult, we do it immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.” Busa gave the card back to the founder of IBM without hiding his disappointment. Watson felt provoked, and changed his mind: "All right, Father, we will try. But on one condition: you must promise that you will not change IBM’s acronym for International Business Machines, into International Busa machines."

Link (here) to Vatican Insider

Jesuit On Belief

The difference between faith and reason in technical affairs is that we can accept the testimony of others that they know. We do not take our busted car to the beauty stylist. We do not go to the grocer in order to cut our hair. We go to those who know: the mechanic, the barber. In all crafts and professions, some are better than others. So we, in fact, live and act in a daily world of trust. We think nothing of it. Is religious faith, in principle, any different? Not really. This faith understands that something else that we do not see is true, because we accept the testimony of someone who saw. The only issue, then,  is whether the witness is telling us what he saw, however odd it might seem to those who did not see. If we thought for a moment that the witness was telling us something that was not as he said it was, we might still believe him, but we are deceived. This is why the credibility of the witness is such an issue.

The essence of the Christian faith — that is, what it attests — is that God, the Logos, became man in Jesus Christ, who was true man. This is how He described Himself. He said that He is sent by the Father, His Father. He tells this to a number of fishermen who seem by no means naïve. He does a number of things to confirm His divine power. They see what He does. These apostles and others surrounding Christ are told to make known this Good News, that He is. 

Why He did not do it Himself might be wondered about, but He is crucified in a public trial in Jerusalem under the authority of Rome. Since that time, right up to today, we have folks who live in the company of those who attest to these truths, the ones that have been handed down about this Man-God. But at the basis of all our ability to “believe” is not more belief, but finally seeing. The apostles saw what He did and told us. Christ on His part simply said, “I have seen the Father.” He did not say, “I believe in the Father.” The reason is that He did see. 

Link (here) to read the rest of the article Fr. James Schall, S.J. in Crisis Magazine

The Jesuit With Laser Eyes

There was also a Jesuit, who looked so forbiddingly intelligent that we schoolchildren scattered like sparrows when he passed silently through the schoolyard, because rumour had it that Jesuits had the gift of laser eyes and could kill sparrows by staring at them hard, but most of us thought this was silly, although all of us flittered away from the Jesuit right quick.

Link (here) to read the full  story at CathNews

Manilla Jesuit On The Dead, Dwarves, Kything, Hypnotism And Synchronicity

Fr. Jaime "Fr. Bu"  Bulatao, SJ

Fr. Jaime Bulatao, S.J., the founder of the Department of Psychology in Ateneo de Manilla University can communicate with creatures that are normally invisible such as the dead and the dwarves. In one of his experiences, he asked a favor from a dwarf named “Anilaida” to help fix a diamond ring for a family. “As soon as the [Vargas family] got [home], they put the ring and the diamond in the middle table. Within ten minutes, [the ring and the diamond] disappeared. [When] they came back from lunch, they went up, and on top of the pillow, there was the ring and the diamond put into it, so you can be sure that there were energies at work. And furthermore, there was intelligence. [Anilaida] understood English,” he says. The psychology professor doesn’t keep his gift to himself. In fact, he allows many of his students to explore the workings of the normally invisible entities to either help them develop their sixth sense or satisfy their curiosity for a bizarre experience.

One of the many things that he taught was kything or the ability to send one’s presence somewhere where he is not physically present. Another would be the experience to communicate with someone without the use of direct words whether that person is physically present or not. It works in such a way that both you and the person you want to communicate with end up thinking about each other, allowing you both to communicate even with the absence of concrete words. 

Lisa, one of the students who Fr. Bulatao had taught, narrated her spiritual encounter with her mom. “Father, in a way, hypnotized me. He made me think of my mom, and she already passed away. At that moment, I really felt she was there, so in a way, I was able to communicate with her,” she says. In all of these things, Fr. Bulatao talks of the positive energies working around people. These are what make the illusionary occurrences a reality, such as the bending of the fork done only through rubbing its surface. In the same way, these positive energies are capable of telling one about the future or an answer to a yes-or-no question. “There’s… something else besides us. In the West, they talk of cause and effect. In the East, they talk of synchronicity. I discovered it by accident,” he says. “I was in Meralco Theatre [when] the people had asked me to do an illustration of hypnosis. While I was there, I hypnotized the whole group. I said, ‘Go up into the ceiling.’ Sure enough, when they were already near the ceiling, I shouted, ‘Be careful of the lights.’ The light [bulb] right then and there burst. So, I call that synchronicity… meaningful events that join together at the same time. Simultaneous,” he adds.

Link (here) to read the full story at The Guidon 

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Fordham University Professor Jeanne Flavin "Legally Separate The Fetus From The Pregnant Woman"

Jeanne Flavin

I am a professor of sociology at Fordham, a Catholic university. I also am president of the board of directors for National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), a non-profit organization devoted to reproductive justice using strategies of national and community organizing, public education, and legal advocacy. 

I am equally proud of both affiliations. Teaching at a Catholic institution, I encounter many students who oppose abortion. Fordham is a university in the Jesuit tradition, and as such, emphasizes progressive ideals such as social justice, a preferential option for the poor, and respect for the dignity of the whole person, all of which are very much consistent with the values of NAPW. 

Working in these two settings, I have become acutely aware of the divisiveness of the rhetoric defining much of the abortion debate. The rhetoric obscures the reality that most women who have abortions are—or go on to become—mothers. Many people concerned about the health and well-being of pregnant women do not speak to one another, much less work together on shared concerns.

There is a lack of awareness that efforts to legally separate the fetus from the pregnant woman have consequences not only for women who seek to terminate a pregnancy,

but also for many women who continue their pregnancies to term. 

Link (here) to read the whole piece by Professor Jeanne Flavin at ASA Footnotes

Jeanne Flavin is an associate professor of Sociology at Fordham University. Her scholarship and advocacy mainly examines the impact of the criminal justice system on women. She is author of Our Bodies, Our Crimes: Policing Women's Reproduction in America (NYU 2009), co-author of Class, Race, Gender & Crime, 2nd ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007) and co-editor of Race, Gender, and Punishment: From Colonialism to the War on Terror (Rutgers, 2007) as well as many articles. She also is 2008-09 Fulbright Award recipient to study gender, family and crime in South Africa.

7,000,000,000

Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., the director general of Vatican Radio, welcomed the birth of the seven billionth person in his weekly editorial.“Dear baby number seven billion,” said the Italian priest Nov. 5, “we pray that you can understand that your life will find its fullest meaning not in this world but in the next. Because this is what you were born for. Your Creator and Father made you for this"

Link (here) to CNA/EWTN

Former Jesuit Clown, Now Just A Clown

Former Jesuit Priest Nick Weber

"To be a priest, you don't have to be a clown," says Nick Weber, 34, a Jesuit priest since 1970. Smearing on greasepaint, he adds: "To be a clown, you don't have to be a priest." Finally, putting his act and his faith together, Father Weber concludes: "But to be me, you have to be both priest and clown." And so, indeed, he is, the producer and principal attraction of the Royal Lichtenstein Quarter Ring Sidewalk Circus based in Santa Clara, Calif. From August through May every year, he and two student assistants take "the world's smallest circus" to more than 100 cities, traveling in a camper jammed with props, Jingles the poodle, an Asian pheasant, a fox from the Arctic Circle and Penelope, a spider monkey. The circus plays shopping centers, Indian reservations, even mental hospitals—where one patient was heard to yelp delightedly: "They're crazier than we are." The show is pure slapstick fun, interspersed with low-key morality tales and a few fleeting messages of faith. "I make an art of not laying my formal religious trip on people," Weber says (instructing his audience: "You don't have to call me Father"). But the show's purpose is "pre-evangelical—to soften up people to accept the surprise that God is present. God is a free spirit. He must be preached everywhere. In the temple, God is no longer a surprise."

Link (here) to the Sept 04th 1974 People Magazine to read the full piece.

St. Francis Xavier Undertook To Break Down The Religion Of India And Its Systems

Herbert Ponting's 1907 photograph of "a fakir in Benares"

The Faquirs are another order of Hindoo monks, who, during the whole course of their lives, subject themselves to the severest privations or " mortifications." They seldom, if ever, sleep on the ground, or at full length; but mostly on a thick cord suspended in the air and passed betwixt the legs. Some keep their arms always elevated above the head: others pass nine or ten days every month without eating. The most striking fact yet to be recorded is, that, "extravagant as many of these modes and customs are, they never draw down from castes of the most opposite habits and fashions, the least appearance of contempt and ridicule. Upon this point there is, throughout the whole of India, the most perfect toleration, as long as the general and universally respected laws of good behavior are not infringed." " With this exception every tribe," says the Abbe Dubois, a missionary,—

"with this exception every tribe may freely and without molestation follow its own domestic, course, and practice all its peculiar rites." 

And yet, seeing how evidently all their passions, all their feelings, are invested in their particular systems, is it not wonderful that "persecution" is wanting to give them completeness? The castes of India do not intermarry. A wall of separation is between each. Misconduct is visited with expulsion, and then the culprit becomes a Pariah. Exempt from all the restrictions of honor and shame which so strongly influence the other castes, the Pariahs can freely and without reserve abandon themselves to their natural propensities. They are the most numerous "caste" in India—the professional bad-livers of Hindooism, accursed of Gods and men. "It follows, therefore, that this division of castes acts as a check on human depravity." "I am no less convinced," adds Dubois, 

"that the Hindus, if they were not restrained within the bounds of decorum and subordination by means of the castes, which assign to every man his employment, by regulations of police suited to each individual,—but were left without any curb to check them, or any motive for applying one, would soon become what the Pariahs are, or worse; and the whole nation, sinking of course into the most fearful anarchy, India, from the most polished of all countries," 

says the missionary, "would become the most barbarous of any upon earth."* We have now to see how Francis Xavier undertook to break down the religion of India and its systems, and to build up the religion of Rome on the ruins.
Link (here)

Br. Jaun de Bustamante, S.J. "The Printer"

The Old Gate of The College of St. Paul

In 1556, King Joao III of Portugal dispatched a group of Jesuits with a printer and a printing press to Abyssinia at the request of its emperor. When the ship put in at Goa, the emperor changed his mind and now this Portuguese colony was suddenly left with a press and a printer. 

The printer was Juan de Bustamante, a Jesuit Brother from Valencia, who was accompanied by an Indian assistant trained in printing in Lisbon. Bustamante, Gupta goes on write, 

set up the press at the College of St.Paul in Goa, and it was under the imprint of the college that most of the early publications were issued. 

Link (here) to The Hindu

Fr. Augustin Barruel, S.J. On The Horrors Of The French Revolution

ABOUT the middle of this century, there appeared three men leagued in the most inveterate hatred against Christianity. These were Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Frederick II, King of Prussia. Voltaire hated religion because he was jealous of its Author, and of all those whom it had rendered illustrious; D'Alembert because his cold heart was incapable of affection Frederick because he had never seen it but through the medium of its enemies. To these three a fourth must be added, named Diderot; hating religion because he doated on nature; enthusiastically wedded to the chaos of his own ideas, he chose rather to build his system on chimeras and form mysteries of his own, than submit to the light of the Gospel.

Link (here) to read the mentioned portion of the book entitled, Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobinism By French Jesuit Abbe Augustin Barruel

Dynamic

The current language used by the Church, called "dynamic equivalence" and put in place by Second Vatican Council, is not a literal translation. "[Dynamic equivalence] seeks to try to get at the heart of what is meant," Fr. Patrick Rogers, S.J., director of campus ministry, said. Throughout the fall semester, priests have taken time during the liturgy to explain these changes and why they matter. "These words touch upon important Scriptural references [that allow us] to enter more deeply into the mystery that is the Catholic Mass," Rogers said. "We want to have some kind of a standard so that people can enter into the same dynamics when they come out of the Mass."

Link (here) to The Hoya

Fr. James Schall, S.J. "Islam May Be As Fragile As Communism"

The major change Islam looks to is not modernization or objective truth but, in a stable world, the submission to Allah of all men under a caliphate wherein no non-believers are found. We still look back at communism, at least the non-oriental variety, with some astonishment in this regard. Almost no one thought it could “fall” without a major military encounter. That it disintegrated so quickly and so completely seems incomprehensible to anyone but a John Paul II. He understood its frailty, its failure to understand the human soul and its origins…. Religion or faith, even in Islam through Averroes, has been conceived as a myth designed to keep the people quiet. The scholars could quietly let the caliphs and the imams rule if the intelligentsia were left free to pursue philosophy, which was conceived to be anti-Koranic in the sense that the Koran did not hold up under scrutiny about its claims.  The fragility of Islam, as I see it, lies in a sudden realization of the ambiguity of the text of the Koran. Is it what it claims to be? Islam is weak militarily. It is strong in social cohesion, often using severe moral and physical sanctions. But the grounding and unity of its basic document are highly suspect. Once this becomes clear, Islam may be as fragile as communism.

Link (here) to Spengler's commentary on Fr. Schall's piece

John Nelson Darby's Jesuits

Dispensationalism is a method of Bible interpretation which was first devised by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), and later formulated by the controversial American Cyrus Ingerson Scofield [sometimes referred to as Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield] (1843-1921), and is also known as Pre-millennial Dispensationalism. Although Darby was not the first person to suggest such a theory, he was, however, the first to develop it as a system of Bible interpretation and is, therefore, regarded as the Father of Dispensationalism. The origin of this theory can be traced to three Jesuit priests; (1) Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), (2) Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) one of the best known Jesuit apologists, who promoted similar theories to Ribera in his published work between 1581 and 1593 entitled Polemic Lectures Concerning the Disputed Points of the Christian Belief Against the Heretics of This Time, and (3) Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801). The writings of Ribera and Bellarmine, which contain the precedence upon which the theory of Dispensationalism is founded, were originally written to counteract the Protestant reformers' interpretation of the Book of the Revelation which, according to the reformers, exposed the Pope as Antichrist and the Roman Catholic Church as the whore of Babylon.

Link (here)

Fr. Jim McDermott, S.J. On The Very Very Literal Translation Of The Bible

If you've read my column at all over the last year or so you know I have little patience for the change in the eucharistic prayer from "for all" to "for many".  And if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, it's during the prayer over the cup:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it.
This is my blood, given up for you and for all
so that sins may be forgiven. 

The reason they're changing it: the New Testament text from which it's taken literally says "for many", not "for all".  So, it's a correction. The problem is, it sounds like we're suddenly rolling back God's plan of salvation. You know how we used to say God loves everybody, is interested in everybody, regardless of what they believe or ever did or what not?  Well, now we're thinking, not so much. He'd settle with a good 30-50%.

Link (here) to the blog Gone Walk About, by Fr. Jim McDermott, S.J 

Poe At Fordham

The awesome church historian Pat McNamara cranks out great features on lesser-known episodes of Catholic history at a terrifying clip, and for All Hallows Eve found a link between Catholicism and the poet of spookiness, Edgar Allan Poe -- a man marked by genuine tragedy, not just a spinner of Gothic tales as some would have it. 

Pat details Poe's later years in the Bronx, where he wandered, grief-stricken after the death of his wife, across the campus of what would become Fordham University:

An early Fordham Jesuit remembered Poe as a "familiar figure at the college . . . It seemed to soothe his mind to wander at will about the lawn and the beautiful grounds back of the college buildings." Another wrote: "It was one of Poe's greatest gifts that he could make friends wherever he went. To know him was to love him... It was a pleasure to see him and still more to listen to him." More than scenery, however, a recent biographer notes that Poe "found intellectual and spiritual companionship" with the Jesuits at the college. In this sparsely populated community, there weren't many people with whom Poe could discuss literature. The Jesuits, who sympathized with this starving artist, invited him to dinner many an evening, and gave him the use of their library.

Link (here)

Priest Removed From Ministry Former Jesuit High School Teacher

Fr. William "Bill" Freeser

Jesuit High School president the Rev. David Suwalsky, SJ released the following statement regarding a priest accused of sexual abuse: "It has been brought to our attention by the Diocese of Sacramento that the Rev. William "Bill" Feeser, a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento and a former faculty member (1982-1995), has been accused of sexual misconduct. The event in question took place prior to Fr. Feeser's employment at Jesuit High School. He has been removed from ministry in accord with diocesan policy which in no way judges the veracity of his accuser nor Fr. Feeser's culpability."

Link (here)

What A Drag

The Jesuit-run Loyola University of Chicago again hosted an annual drag show on the university campus last week, featuring a lineup of crossdressers and inviting students to “question why gender is rigidly controlled.”

Link (here) to LifeSite 

Pictures on the groups Facebook page (here)

More from the Cardinal Newman Society (here)

A Georgetown Professor And Vatican II

Vatican II

John L. Esposito is the director of the ACMCU, a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown, and one of the most prominent scholars of Islam and the Middle East in the nation; the Wall Street Journal once hailed him as “America’s foremost authority and interpreter of Islam.” He is the author of numerous popular books on Islam, and, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, has been “called upon often to brief government agencies about Islam, including the State Department, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security and various branches of the military.”

Esposito reportedly spent ten years in a monastery, is still identified as a Catholic, and is frequently invited to address Catholic audiences. However, emblematic of the doubtful orthodoxy, or even of the doubtful Christianity, of the perspective he brings to the Alwaleed Center was an extraordinarily curious remark he made shortly after September 11, 2001: Esposito said that he was “pleasantly surprised” that after the attacks the rate of conversions to Islam in America had not fallen off, but had actually increased.

The Second Vatican Council states “the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day” (Lumen Gentium, 16). It also says that “the Church has also a high regard for the Muslims” and calls upon Muslims and Christians to make “a sincere effort” to “achieve mutual understanding” (Nostra Aetate, 3). It does not exempt Muslims from the Church’s duty to preach the Gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:19-20) and to “proclaim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth and the life” (Nostra Aetate, 2). The call to hold individual Muslims in “high regard” does not conceivably justify encouraging or taking pleasure in conversions to Islam, even for liberal Catholic academics.

Link (here) to read the full article at Crisis Magazine

The Cardinal And Fordham's Sr. Johnson

US Cardinal Donald Wuerl's assertion that invitations to meet with Sister Elizabeth Johnson about her book went unanswered are "demonstrably and blatantly false", she said in a message to the cardinal, reports NCR Online. The letter, first obtained by Commonweal and posted on its blog, is a reply to a news release on October 28, posted on the bishops' website. The release claims Cardinal Wuerl, who is the head of the bishops' doctrine committee, attempted to meet with Sr Johnson three times since the committee publicly critiqued her book, Quest for the Living God, last spring, but that Johnson "did not respond to any of the offers." In her letter to the cardinal, Johnson says she is "aghast at the accusation you make in the USCCB website post that I have not responded to any of the offers to meet." 

"I never received an offer to meet at a definite time or with a protocol or agenda that would ensure serious discussion of the issues in my book.

If I had, I would have accepted immediately," writes Johnson.

Link (here) CathNews

Poor In Goodness

"One who desires to be the servant of all the servants of God Our Lord."

                            

St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1536
(here)

 

This Good Catechumen

This good Catechumen, between 12 and 14 years old, answered by fleeing, leaving there his presents, and him who offered them, without saying to him a single word. Having now recognized her constancy, we prepared her for Baptism. 

The devil tried to oppose this, for she was seized by a sort of obsession, so violent that she instantly turned her head around, with horrible distortion, and her stomach grew enormously swollen. We saw that she was utterly terrified, and unable to utter a word, except, " I am afraid, I am afraid." This happened to her three times, and always at a time when none of us could be called to see her in this condition. 

There were urgent requests to have her take some medicine, to clear her brain, they said. We were willing to do this, but negligence suddenly seized us. Baptism was destined to cure her; for, since the sacred waters have made her a child of God, the devil has never caused her this fright. She was called Magdelaine of St. Joseph. I hope that some soul dear to God will find in her a wife.

Link (here) to read the mentioned portion of the book, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents.
Blogger Note: Picture is not of Magdalaine of St. Joseph, however you can find it (here) 

Fr. John Hardon, S.J. On "Possessions that are Beyond Psychological Explanation"

In the second form of possession, it is the devil who is the direct active agent. The power he exercises in the possessed person is beyond the capacity of any human being. The following are some of the phenomena that characterize this more extreme form of possession. The possessed person is unable to maintain a stable posture or to move around or is able to carry out certain functions or activities which the individual had never learned before. The variety of these activities is beyond counting. It may involve the ability to sing or to paint or speak or understand foreign languages which had never been learned. The one possessed may acquire the knowledge of persons, objects, or events that are long past, hidden, or at a great distance. At other times, the person will rise from the ground and remain suspended in the air in the levitation or will move through the air or perform amazing bodily feats. Or again, he or she will be able to move heavy objects or furniture without touching them, or cause these objects to rise above the ground. Under the influence of the devil, a person is able to open or close doors or windows from a distance, cause huge paintings to fall from the walls, shattering objects at a great distance. To be emphasized is that this type of possession is entirely different from what we are calling psychic possession. This one is beyond all psychological power. Before we leave our reflections on demonic possession, no matter what type it assumes, one thing must be reemphasized. What is never absent in a possessed person is the inhuman hatred of anything having to do with God. In one of my conversations with an exorcist in Rome, he told me of a seventeen-year-old girl whom he was exorcising. She belonged to the second class of possessed persons. The priest exorcist wanted the possessed woman to attend a Mass which he was to offer for her deliverance from the evil spirit. It took five strong men to be able to move her bodily into the chapel and seat her in the last row.
Link (here) to read the rest from Fr. John Hardon's talk.

Jesuits And Poltergeists

In the 1970s, the late Jesuit ethnologist Fr. Francisco R. Demetrio compiled a dictionary of Philippine folk beliefs and customs, with a chapter providing intriguing insights on our concept of death, spirits and the afterlife. Demetrio wrote that in Malaybalay, Bukidnon province,

“the ghost of a person returns three days after death. If there is constant noise in the house where the dead once lived, it means that there is something the dead had forgotten to tell to those left behind. People put candles at all openings in the house if they don’t want the ghost to come.”

These raucous spirits have been called poltergeist (from the German poltern, meaning “to knock,” and geist, meaning “spirit”), manifesting themselves through disembodied knocking or pounding, and inanimate objects floating or thrown about. Spiritualists believed that these paranormal entities are harmful demons, while parapsychologists consider these as psychokinetic phenomena emanating from troubled individuals.

Letter to a Jesuit

Interestingly enough, our national hero Jose Rizal witnessed this type of supernatural activity while he was in Dapitan, which he related to a Jesuit priest, Fr. Antonio Obach, in a letter dated April 12, 1895. Father Obach provided a copy to the Jesuit Mission Superior in a missive dated May 4, 1895.

This missive was later included in the multivolume work “Jesuit Missionary Letters from Mindanao” of noted historian Fr. Jose S. Arcilla, S.J.

In Rizal’s narration, the poltergeist phenomenon centered on Josephine Bracken, who feared her foster father, George Tauffer, had died and was haunting her:

“Here since Saturday night in this round house many things have been happening apparently without explanation. The English lady woke up last night while her cups were being broken and the lamp burned unusually bright. She believes her father has died. I advised her to talk with you, and the third time that she addresses a question, ‘In God’s name, I ask you what you want.’ All her cups, tea kettles, saucers, etc. fell down at the same time. All the boys and I saw it.” “…Tell us what to do, if it will be better to exorcise the clinic, sprinkle it with holy water. It might be good if you come and see the place. If it is certain that he has died in Manila the day before yesterday, is there a more conclusive proof to support the existence of the soul? I have talked to it, but it does not answer, nor does it perform this thing in my presence. Romulo will give you more details.”

Josephine’s defense

Father Obach acceded to Rizal’s request and visited his clinic, along with another Jesuit priest, Fr. Esteban Miralles. Josephine explained that what had happened was an unusual and frightening event. Father Obach suggested that she might have engaged in spiritism, but she denied the accusation.

He further narrated that: 

“Doctor Rizal defended her, that since childhood she had been and was a Roman, Apostolic Catholic. I answered him there were many who were Catholics only in name but did not practice their religion. In the end, I enjoined them to recite on their knees on turning to bed and on rising, one ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Creed,’ and if the things continued, to sprinkle the room with blessed water, that they should not be scared.” “…The next day they informed me the English lady did what I told her and that nothing had happened. Until today, May 4, there have been no further visits from beyond the tomb.”

What could have prompted the poltergeist events in Rizal’s clinic? Father Obach’s missive to the Mission Superior may provide a clue. Two days prior to the haunting, Rizal’s sister, Trinidad, accompanied by her nephew Antonio Lopez, arrived in Dapitan on a mail boat along with Josephine. However, the two women were indifferent and uncommunicative to each other during the entire trip. Father Obach wrote that:  

“What caused the greatest surprise is that Trinidad returned to Manila on the same boat. I waited in vain for Rizal to talk to me about his future bride, although according to someone’s report, his entire family is against his marrying her; that on Trinidad’s arrival, there were crying and recriminations which led to the latter’s return to Manila. Later, there was clearly vocal opposition from Manila, Rizal’s sister who, with her son and her nephew, is sailing to Manila on the next mail boat, leaving Doctor Jose completely alone.”

Link (here) to the full article at the Inquirer. 

Garabandal's "Dark Side"

Four girls from the small town of Garabandal, near Santander, had repeated visions of both the Virgin and St. Michael and were given prophecies to disclose to the rest of the faithful. On June 18, 1961, while picking apples at a local orchard, the girls heard a "thunderclap" and saw a beautiful figure enveloped in light which they thought was an angel sent to punish them for stealing fruit. Over the course of the following twelve days, the girls would have visions of the same angel, dressed in blue and with pinkish wings, whom they took to be St. Michael the Archangel. The angel told them that they would soon be seeing the Virgin, and they did so after the eight visitation. The Blessed Mother appeared in garb that would be immediately recognizable to any school-age child in a Catholic country: a white dress with a blue mantle, a starry crown, and a scapular at her waist. The heavenly patroness told the girls to inform their elders that sacrifice and penance were in order to avert imminent punishment. 

The thousands gathered in Garabandal to see the miracle were hoping for something more substantial, however, and in the wee hours of October 19, 1961 those present saw the famous miracle of the communion wafers manifesting itself on Conchita's opened mouth (and of which photographs have been reproduced in countless journals and religious tracts). 

Garabandal's "dark side" -- if it can indeed be said to have one -- came about a few months earlier when theologian Luis Andreu lost his life in a car crash. Andreu had seen the four girls in their ecstatic trances and had been forced to proclaim aloud the miraculous nature of what he was seeing. When asked exactly what the miracle was, he told his friends that he was overwhelmed with joy at what the Virgin had shown him and that it was the happiest day in his life. Shortly after, he fell silent, much to the concern of those around him. The priest had died. When news of Father Andreu's death reached the young visionaries, they claimed that they had seen the Virgin looking at him at one point, as though saying: "you shall soon be with me". The death of this respected religious caused the bishopric of Santander to forbid members of the clergy from visiting Garabandal without permission from Church authorities. Worshippers were advised that they too must cease their visits, and the tide of pilgrims to the mountain village was stemmed for a while. But there was another death in the works... In 1965, Monsignor Vincente Puchol assumed the bishop's crook at Santander and was even more stringent in his prohibitions against any veneration of Garabandal, issuing a terse pronouncement: 

"there has never been any apparition of the Blessed Virgin, nor of the Archangel Michael, nor of any other heavenly personage. There has been no message, and all of the events which have transpired at said location have a natural explanation." It was this rejection of the miracle of Garabandal that many believed cost the bishop his life: he died while driving his car, allegedly screaming "God, what's wrong with me?!" before the collision. 

The car crash occurred on the same day as the feast of St. Michael the Archangel. Another (here) Jesuit father, Jozef Warzawski, wrote a comprehensive study on the phenomenon entitled El Mito de Garabandal (Madrid: Ed. Studium) accepting the reality of the events which occurred at the site but ascribing them all to demonic forces.

Link (here) to Conspiracy Journal 617

Edmonton Jesuit College 1913-1942

Charles Camsell Hosital

Charles Camsell Hospital: Inglewood, Edmonton

The Camsell is best known for flickering lights, screams at night and security guards posted to keep would-be ghost hunters away. The hospital opened in 1945 at a Jesuit college, (here) becoming a federally operated tuberculosis sanatorium for Inuit and First Nations patients. The current asbestos-lined structure was erected across the street in 1967, evolving into a general acute-care hospital by the 1970s. It's unlikely the haunting is spectral-voiced Roy Orbison, though the crooner checked in with bronchitis for more than a month in 1984. It was shuttered in 1996, and plans to retrofit the facility repeatedly fell through. The building eventually sold for $3.6 million in 2004. Vacant for the past 15 years, the building's mystique has been bolstered by rumours of rampant abuse and legends of a mass grave.

Link (here)