Fr. Felix Lobo, S.J. "Rest In Peace"

From the Jesuit Ignaciophile blog Brittonia

Fr. Felix Lobo, S.J. was born in Segovia, Spain, on 4 September 1926. He was very proud of his ancient city, which has such landmarks as the Roman Aqueduct, Alcazar Castle, and a magnificent cathedral. When I visited him there in 1990, he took me around to all these sights and treated me to Cordero asado estilo Segovia and finally took me to a real village bodega to taste the local wine.

He joined the Jesuits on 31 August 1943 and came to Japan in 1952 as a Jesuit missionary. Ordained a priest in 1959, he spent most of his life at Sophia University as a professor in the Spanish Language Department. After retirement, he kept himself busy writing language-learning materials and assisting in the Jesuit Parish of St. Ignatius.

Although he was still active and healthy-looking, he moved of his own accord to the Loyola Retirement House in a suburb of Tokyo, about two years ago.........Besides being a priest, Felix was professionally a linguist, a psycholinguist. He did his doctoral studies at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and became a devoted student, friend, and admirer of Dr. Robert Lado. When he returned to Japan, he took an active part in boosting linguistic studies at Sophia University.

In cooperation with several Japanese colleagues, such as the well-known scholar Kindaiichi, he re-organized the linguistics curriculum and established the graduate school of linguistics. In the 1970s, he was also well-known as a Spanish teacher on Japanese Educational TV channel.

He served for many years, sometimes even simultaneously, as the Head of the Spanish Language Department, Head of the Graduate School of Linguistics, Head of SOLIFIC [Sophia Linguistic Institute for International Communication], and Head of undergraduate section of Linguistics. He was also for many years one of the chief editors of Sophia Linguistica and several other linguistics-related and Spanish-related publications from Sophia.

Although Felix himself wrote few well-known treatises on linguistics, he was an able organizer, coordinator, stimulator and mentor. He was instrumental in bringing some of the most well-known linguists of the world, such as Chomsky, Halliday, Lado, and Crystal, to Sophia and several of his students are professors of linguistics in Japan.

He also encouraged many Japanese colleagues and students to study overseas, and there are several Georgetown graduates in Japan, thanks to his PR for his alma mater. Felix was a cordial, warm, and affectionate person who elicited affection and love from the people he moved with. He was also very faithful to his friends and to those who did him favors, treating them to lavish luncheons and parties. He rarely forgot any good deed done to him, and he loved to praise each woman he met as 'the most beautiful and charming' and every man as 'the most talented in the world.' Perhaps the secret of his stable felicity was his ability to feel thankful all the time, attributing every good thing that happened to him as the result of God's and people's love for him.

Read the full post entitled, Professor Emeritus Felix Lobo Passes Away

Sarah From The Right, Sarah From The Left

From the right

For the left to deceive themselves and the voters by pretending that that debate last night went any way other than Sarah Palin absolutely mopping the floor with Joe Biden, is nothing short of delusion. Now, yeah, Biden may be filled with Washington-speak. You know what his best friend last night was? The clock! One thing I noticed was that Gwen Ifill did not give this guy a chance to start rambling with diarrhea of the mouth. She kept those time limits dead certain. She also gave him the last word three times to every one time she got it. Now, if you're impressed with Washington-speak, no matter what it is... I mean, Biden's never been in a Home Depot unless he went in there to see if he could get a repair kit for his cuff links. He's never been into a Home Depot. Joe Biden doesn't know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah; he doesn't know where Gaza is. They talk about Sarah Palin not having her bona fides here on foreign policy! Sarah Palin came off as more experienced and qualified, personable and able to connect with people than Obama does, and that's where she shined last night. She was knockout gorgeous. She looked good last night, charming, pleasant, likable, witty. She was on point. She did not appear contrived.

See Rush Limbaugh's full analysis of the debate (here)

Now this what political expert Sean Micheal Winters posted (here) at the America Magazine blog In All Things

From the Left

An excerpt.

The expectations of high drama were those that attend an execution. All this past week, Americans were treated to Gov. Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. Palin’s performance was dreadful; some of her replies were so unintelligible, you wondered if she was speaking in tongues. The confidant, sharp, attacking woman who had mesmerized the nation with her convention speech in St. Paul disappeared, replaced but an uninformed, deer-in-the-headlight, rube. Conservative columnists were questioning whether she should step aside.

Last night, Gov. Palin stopped the bleeding. She was able to answer all the questions or, as she herself said, answer the questions she wanted to answer. I think a candidate, especially a first-time national candidate, gets points when they assert themselves against the moderator and their opponent as Palin did. Her answers tended to be a bit sophomoric: some had details, some had broad strokes, but no answer demonstrated the ability to connect the details to the overarching philosophy of the candidates.

I thought her "aw shucks" demeanor would strike a chord with middle America especially in contrast to Sen. Joe Biden’s more senatorial bearing. My debate-watching partner disagreed: He thought of the debate as an interview or a professional presentation in which homey analogies would never be used. Evidently, he was right and I was wrong. The polls immediately after the debate showed Americans scoring the debate for Biden by 51-39 percent, even though 70 percent said Biden looked like a more typical politician.

Watch the full debate (here)

Palin Performance Helps McCain Regain Political Footing

Analysts say Sarah Palin, with a cool and confident performance at Thursday night's debate, helped running mate John McCain regain his footing going into the final month of the presidential race.

read the full article (here)


Poll: Sarah Palin Bests Joe Biden in Debate Expectations Game, More Likable

Jesuit Told "No" To The Traditional Latin Mass In Great Britian

Mass and Invariance

The Catholic Church has often enforced unity with ferocity. Yet in the present culture war (officially denied, of course) real unity seems far away. As the Pope's intentions become clear (Cardinal Castrillon said that the Pope wants to make the old rite available "in all the parishes" of England and Wales) the English bishops have fallen into a curious silence.

The parish priest of a famous Jesuit church, politely asked whether he would make some traditional masses available, responded with unconcealed rage. (This church advertises a children's liturgy, Japanese masses, services for Brazilians and Filipinos, but apparently drew the line at the ancient Roman liturgy).

The dispute about liturgy is part of a wider battle. Those who want to align the Church with modernity, which inevitably means drawing on current liberal values, became influential following Vatican II. But if they hoped that the Church would change its stance on liberation theology, divorce, homosexuality, the ordination of women, they found their nemesis in John Paul II . Woytila's reassertion of tradition in all these areas was less flamboyant than Pio Nono's famous denial that "the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to come to terms with progress, liberalism and the modern world," but it came to much the same thing.

Link to a wonderful and lengthy piece entitled, Rediscovering traditionalism by John Casey

A different Jesuit from the one cited, but with similar circumstances was California Jesuit Fr. Philip L. Bourret. Hit the link below for a detailed account.

Jesuit Who Was Ordered To Stop Saying Latin Mass Dies

Damian Thompson does a nice over view of Mass difficulties, his piece is entitled,

Spinning the return of Latin Mass.

Photo is of Cardinal Castrillon, If anyone knows the name or can cite another reference to "the Jesuit" please let us know in combox.

Authority Issues

Margaret Steinfels, (Former editor of the ultra-left Catholic magazine, The Commonweal) co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion & Culture, notes that many groups that start with calling for simple changes end up challenging such canon laws as priest celibacy and the church's absolute control over clergy appointments. "It is true that there is an atmosphere of suspicion of lay groups, and the roundtable has run into that," says Steinfels.

Link (here) to the full article that talks about the Church and fiscal management.

Game On!

Sarah Palin
bio (here)

Watch the debate (here)

Palin says she represents 'Joe Six-pack'

Palin Proved to Be Formidable Foe in Alaska Debates

America Magazine more biased than Gwen Ifill?
You be the judge. (here)

"Republicans need Jesuits and Jesuits need Republicans"

Former Jesuit Married Spanish Royalty

A dazzling beauty in her youth, possessor of 44 noble titles and 150 hereditary ones, today's duchess is renowned for her forthright character, forged during a high-rolling spell in England in the Second World War where her father, the 17th Duke, was Spanish ambassador in London.

In 1947 She married Luis Martínez de Irujo y Artacoz, son of the Dukes of Sotomayor, in "the most expensive wedding in the world". The couple lived mostly in the ancestral Las Dueñas palace in Seville, and had six children. She is said to have enjoyed a lively love life. The father of her fourth son, Fernando, is widely reported not to have been her husband but the Sevillian flamenco dancer Antonio el Bailarin.

After her husband's death in 1972, the duchess controversially married the free-thinking former Jesuit priest Jesus Aguirre y Ortiz de Zarate, in 1978. On his death in 2001, the title and property reverted to Cayetana. Dedicated Alba-watchers say her six children are split over their mother's marriage plans.

Link (here) to the full story.

More on the former Jesuit (here) , (here) and (here)

Photo is Jesus Aguirre in the center and Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart the 18th Duchess of Alba on the right.

The High Cost Of A Clean Conscious

The University’s ongoing commitment to renewable energy, and establishes the University as the largest purchaser in Santa Clara’s nationally acclaimed green power program. “This purchase is just one of many actions the University is taking to develop a culture of sustainability for our students, faculty, and staff,” says Lindsey Cromwell, Sustainability Coordinator for Santa Clara University. “The Santa Clara Green Power program provides an opportunity to support renewable energy, a major initiative as we strive to reduce the University’s environmental impact.”...Santa Clara Green Power is a voluntary renewable energy program offered by Silicon Valley Power to all of its residential, commercial and industrial customers as a way to support energy generated from 100 percent clean wind and solar power resources at a low additional cost of 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Link to the full press release (here)

Jesuit Say's "I Have Always Wanted To See Afganistan"

IRAQ: Navy chaplain stays on the move in far-flung Anbar

Father Paul J. Shaughnessy (great link) has a unique congregation: spread out over 32,000 square miles in Iraq's Anbar province, about the size of South Carolina.

Shaughnessy serves troops of all religions in numerous outposts in the far-flung province as the Catholic chaplain for the Marines' Regimental Combat Team 5. At the mega-base at Al Asad, a Mass may attract a hundred or more Marines, sailors, soldiers and others; at a tiny outpost on the Syrian border, he recently performed Mass for a single Marine.

Now in his fourth deployment to Iraq, Shaughnessy, a Jesuit, keeps on the move: by Osprey (when available), by regular helicopter (when necessary) and sometimes by slow-moving overland convoys (done at night as part of a U.S. policy to give back the roads to Iraqis.)

The goal, Shaughnessy said in a telephone interview, is presence. The more times the troops see him, the more comfortable they are, more liable to open up with the issues that bother them, the less reluctant to discuss faith.

"When you're with them all the time, you're not as threatening," he said. "They're not worried you're going to hit them with religion."

As the pace of the U.S. mission in Iraq slows down, Shaughnessy said, the Marines have become "more contemplative, more interested in their relationship with God." He's taught a class about the references to modern Iraq in the Bible.

"Outside of Israel, Iraq is cited more times than any other region in the Bible," said Shaughnessy, 58, a native of Worcester, Mass., who worked for the FBI before entering the seminary.

And it's not just religion that piques the interest of the young Marines and sailors. A common question is about the definition of priestly celibacy. "When I tell them, the reaction usually is, 'Are you kidding me?' " he said.

Like the rest of the regiment, Shaughnessy will return this winter to Camp Pendleton. And after that?

"I've always wanted to see Afghanistan," he said.

— Tony Perry

Photo: Father Paul Shaughnessy, Catholic priest and Navy officer, says a prayer for a solider on the eve of battle in Najaf, 2004. Credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times

Link (here)

Articles by Fr. Paul Shaughnessy, S.J.

The Gay Priest Problem What Needs to Be Done, and Why It Won't Be

Are the Jesuits Catholic? A review of "Passionate Uncertainty."

Blog posts about Fr. Paul

Incoming

Accountable for Your Actions

CWN author under fire-- literally!

Acaxee Indians Of Mexico And The Jesuit Missions

Acaxee Revolt - Northwestern Durango and East Central Sinaloa (1601). The Acaxee Indians lived in dispersed rancherías in the gorges and canyons of the Sierra Madre Occidental in northwestern Durango and eastern Sinaloa. Once the Jesuit missionaries started to work among the Acaxees , they forced them to cut their very long hair and to wear clothing. The Jesuits also initiated a program of forced resettlement so that they could concentrate theAcaxees in one area.

In December 1601, the Acaxees, under the direction of an elder named Perico, began an uprising against Spanish rule. The author Susan Deeds, writing in "Indigenous Rebellions on the Northern Mexican Mission Frontier from First-Generation to Later Colonial Responses," states that the Acaxee Revolt "was characterized by messianic leadership and promises of millennial redemption during a period of violent disruption and catastrophic demographic decline due to disease." Claiming to have come from heaven to save his people from the false doctrines of the Jesuits, Perico planned to exterminate all the Spaniards. Although he promised to save his people from the Catholic missionaries and their way of life, his messianic activity included saying Mass, and performing baptisms and marriages.

Ms. Deeds observes that the Acaxee and other so-called first generation revolts represented "attempts to restore pre-Columbian social and religious elements that had been destroyed by the Spanish conquest."

In the following weeks, the Acaxees attacked the Spaniards in the mining camps and along mountain roads, killing fifty people.

After the failure of negotiations, Francisco de Urdiñola led a militia of Spaniards and Tepehuán and Concho allies into the Sierra Madre. Susan Deeds writes that "the campaign was particularly brutal, marked by summary trials and executions of hundreds of captured rebels." Perico and 48 other rebel leaders were executed, while other rebels were sold into slavery.

Link to the full article (here)

Photo is of Durango, Mexico

Yaqui And The Jesuits

Jesuits and the Yaqui in Mexico

An excerpt.

By the mid-1600s, Jesuit missionaries were well established among the Yaqui Indians of Sonora. The Yaqui had repelled the slave raiding of the Spanish in 1533. But, in 1565, Yaqui had welcomed Spanish explorers who came in peace, the Yaqui showing them hospitality in hope of winning Spaniards as allies in the war they were planning against neighbors to the south - the Mayo Indians. The Spaniards had withdrawn, and other Spaniards had come decades later, also in peace. In 1587, the Spanish crown had given permission to Jesuit missionaries to work Mexico's northwestern frontier, and the Jesuits had arrived in Sonora in 1591, protected by soldiers. The Jesuits impressed the Yaqui with their good intentions and their spirituality. The Jesuits brought a message of everlasting life and won Yaqui confidence with their concern for the well being of the Yaqui. According to Jesuit missionaries, by 1606 they had converted 40,000 out of a population estimated to be 100,000. The Jesuits improved Yaqui political organization and integration, some Yaqui having been scattered and isolated on their individual agricultural plots. The Jesuits managed to make themselves into a ruling priesthood among the Yaqui, and as such they came into conflict with Spain's secular authorities in Mexico, the Jesuits wanting to protect the Yaqui from exploitation by mine owners.

Spanish authorities in Mexico became hostile towards the Jesuits, and in 1637 they lobbied the Spanish crown to secularize missions among the Indians, to "free" the Indians from mission controls. The Jesuits argued that exploitation would bring more Indian uprisings and that their authority over the Indians would keep the Indians peaceful.

Link to the full article (here)

Jesuit On The Value Of Ugliness

In the center of a Toledo church known for its architectural and artistic beauty, a Catholic theologian from New York gave a lecture this week on the value of ugliness.

The Rev. Leo O'Donovan, a Jesuit priest and former president of Georgetown University,

helped Toledo's Corpus Christi University Parish celebrate the 10th anniversary of the dedication of the building by giving a talk Tuesday night entitled, "The Seduction of the Sacred." "I wanted to be a little provocative," Father O'Donovan said of the lecture title, which refers to the way humans are "drawn to the holy mystery" by images of the world, and also how created images help humans discover God. The focus of art is often on the beauty of form, color, and harmony, but "what may at first seem repellent, or even repugnant" can serve a purpose, he said. "An art of protest has used distortion and intentional ugliness to awaken viewers to the suffering and injustice around them," Father O'Donovan said.

Link (here) to the full article entitled, Scholar beholds value of ugliness.

The Funeral Of Liberation Theology?

One theology which has become many

Tue, Sep 30, 2008

RITE AND REASON:Will a conference in Dublin this week to mark 40 years of Liberation Theology become a postmortem, asks Maria Duffy

ALONGSIDE the utopian projects of Stalin, Hitler and Mao, who murdered millions in their attempts to transform the world, other projects also emerged which sought to imagine a radically better planet.

Significant among them are the Universal Human Rights Movement, which began 60 years ago, and Liberation Theology, which had its genesis in 1968 at the now-mythical Latin American Bishops Conference of Medellin, Columbia.

An international conference to be held at Dublin's Milltown Institute on Friday and Saturday of this week will reflect on one of the most significant ecclesial movements and social forces of the 20th century.

It will also ask the large question: was Liberation Theology a broad-based theological movement or was it simply an historical moment akin to the student protests of May 1968 in Paris?

In Latin America at the time, poverty, malnutrition, lack of housing, unemployment, non- existent health services, the very extent of human suffering across many different cultures, nations and societies fuelled the rapid growth of Liberation Theology.

Although a vast number of writers and activists in both Catholic and Protestant traditions shared in the construction of this new theology, four theologians in particular were influential, even beyond Latin America.

Already in 1960, Uruguayan Jesuit Juan Luis Segundo was already urging the Church to respond to the particular political and social situation of his own region.

After the Medellin synod, Peruvian Gustavo Gutierrez published A Theology of Liberation which canonised the Liberation Theology label. Gutierrez called attention to the poor of Latin America and challenged the Church to help change the economic and political systems that fostered social injustice.

Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff developed methods of liberation while the work of Jon Sobrino, a Basque Jesuit teaching in El Salvador, also gained international prominence.

In 1989 he escaped right-wing death squads which claimed the lives of six Jesuits at their university campus.

The movement gained strength under outspoken Church leaders such as El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed in 1980.

For all its dynamism, though, and unlike the international human rights movement which has established itself as the benchmark of civilised nations, Liberation Theology had run aground by the 1990s, due in part to criticisms by governments and by the Vatican.

Disturbed by what it considered Marxist overtones of class struggle, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), under the current pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued two cautionary documents.

Its Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation(1984) and Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation(1986) distanced Church social teaching from political activism.

The accusations that have beset the Liberation movement are also those which challenge the wider Catholic social agenda: to seek a balance between collectivism and individualism and defend the rights of the poor, while accepting the reality of the dominant global capitalist system.

Outside of Latin America, it has been argued that the South African Kairos Document(1985) and the anti-apartheid struggle were inspired by Liberation Theology, but it is not clear how wide its influence spread.

In Asia too, theologians acknowledge the debt owed to the movement started at Medellin.

A keynote speaker at this week's Dublin conference will be influential Asian theologian Peter Phan whose work has also caught the attention of Rome's CDF.

He criticises the dehumanising poverty that continues to crush immense masses in Asia and asks: "How can Christianity help Asian people to become subjects of their future and facilitate their struggle for liberation in the aftermath of oppression, economic exploitation and a communist regime?"

The new generation of Liberation Theology may well have its locus in Asia which has now produced several variations on the theme, including Minjung theology in Korea, Dalit theology in India and the Theology of Struggle in the Philippines.

While it began 40 years ago in the heady days of Medellin, it is now clear that Liberation Theology has morphed into several different movements all over the world - Black, African, Womanist and Feminist, to name but a few.

As Jon Sobrino, who has more than 40 years of experience of working with the poor in El Salvador, put it: "As long as there is oppression there is need of a utopia - a dream of God."

• Dr Maria Duffy teaches at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy. Conference details on www.milltown-institute.ie

© 2008 The Irish Times

Link (here)

Republicans At Fordham

From the student blog The Fordham Observer Editorial Blog the post is entitled The Elephant in the Room: The Silenced Republicans of FCLC

An excerpt.

Between the anti-Bush greeting cards in the bookstore, the Obama flyers decorating the student plaza and the Bush-as-a-monkey printout taped up in the scene shop, it’s pretty clear where the political loyalties of most of our college’s population lie. But during this hotly contested Election 2008, we must not forget the Republicans in our midst - supporters of John McCain instead of Hillary or Barack. They’re the Few but Proud - the Republicans of Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

There is a longstanding College Democrats Club here on campus, but we’ve never had a College Republicans Club that lasted very long. In fact, when FCLC conservatives, in preparation for this historic election year, tried to gather support for a College Republicans Club, their efforts failed. This was in part because they just couldn’t get the required sixty signatures on their petition - liberal students weren’t very interested in helping the conservative cause, and there weren’t enough conservative students who wanted to publicly express their Republican politics.

Artur Jagielski, FCLC ‘09, who helped spearhead the movement to form a College Republicans Club at FCLC, said that the process was difficult because of “some of the criticism I received from several people [Democrats]. I’m sure there are more Republicans on this campus who don’t voice their opinion, and if we could reach out to them, maybe we could form a club here on campus.”

But who is it that’s really making the Republicans feel unwelcome at Fordham? It’s got to be the students, right? Everyone knows how hot-headed and opinionated college students can be. Actually, conservative students say that it’s not their peers who are the problem. It’s the people you’d expect to have a more reasoned approach: the professors.

While both the faculty and the student body are filled with Democratic supporters, Jagielski and Republican recent grad Howie Ray, FCLC ‘06, assert that while professors are very narrow-minded, fellow students seem open to debate. “I found a lot of the student body was open to intelligent political discourse,” pointed out Ray. Jagielski says that liberal politics aren’t even much discussed among students: “… I don’t hear much talk about it [liberal politics] outside of the classroom. All I see is pro-Obama posters here and there.”

Read the full post (here)

"Jesuits need Republicans and Republicans need Jesuits"

St. Ignatius Loyola

St. Ignatius Loyola

This picture is courtesy of Fr. Frank Majka, S.J.
and his wonderful blog entitled The Bridge (here)

I Have A Frog In My Throat

I found this post interesting, here is an excerpt.

The mighty and courageous Jesuit order has produced St. Francis Xavier, St. Jean de Brebeuf and the other seven first Canadian martyrs. They were once renowned for their complete loyalty to the Pope. The Jesuits also produced Teilhard de Chardin, a heretic whose work was condemned by Popes and his own order. He was involved in a paleontology fraud of Peking Man and of a similar fraud in Great Britain.

His theology has greatly helped to empty convents and seminaries all over the world.

He was a pantheist and a gnostic more than a Christian, but mostly his all embracing religion and passion was evolution. Man is evolving spiritually and Jesus is just on the road. Surely after the evidence of the last fifty years no one can believe that we are evolving spiritually unless our goal is to be more like the prince of darkness.

This from the blog entitled Mrs. Gay Caswell's Blog and her post is Collaboration

The Immaculate Conception Church In Baclayon, Philippines

Our third to the last stop is my favorite, the old Immaculate Conception Church otherwise known as the Baclayon Church. I've always been fascinated by old churches and is actually planning to travel and take photos of the numerous beautiful churches here in the Philippines. I've already started last summer and will continue to pursue it in the coming months.

The Baclayon Church is the oldest church and the first symbol of Christianity in Bohol built in 1596 by the Jesuits.

Aside from its rich history, the church is also known for the miraculous appearance of the image of a Jesuit priest in one of the cobblestone walls. The image cannot be seen clearly by the naked eye but check the camera viewer and you would be able to see the Jesuit father.

For showbiz watchers, Baclayon is also known as the hometown of Cesar Montano (future gubernatorial candidate?). Link (here)

Clinging To Something?

Prop. 102 opponent the Rev. Frank Bergen, who has served as a priest in both the Roman Catholic Jesuit order and the Episcopal Church, said some people think everybody "should be bound by our religious concept of marriage." "Uh, uh; not so," he said. He said his objection to Prop. 102 is actually rooted in religion. "Proposition 102 offends my sense of justice, and my sense of justice comes right out of my religious faith," Bergen said.
Link (here)

Watch video of Frank Bergan (here) at an 2007 Arizona Obama rally

The Diamond Life

Father James Kubicki, S.J. in his audio blog post entitled, The Perfect Diamond: What does diamond appraisal have in common with the devout life?
Link (here)

College Athletics And Illiteracy

Kevin Ross made national headlines when he

completed four years of college and was found to be illiterate.

The Creighton Blue Jays, the champions of the Missouri Valley Conference, are alive in the NCAA tournament after their dramatic double overtime buzzer three point shot that defeated Florida and put Creighton in today's second round. Nearly 20 years ago, that Jesuit school was at the epicenter of the most basic issue for a scholarship athlete, illiteracy. Since that time, the NCAA has instituted requirements on SAT scores and core curricula for incoming freshmen; yet, the U.S. Department of Education says the problem of illiteracy among youngsters is increasing so that the story of Kevin Ross may be less history than a cautionary tale for the future;

Link (here)

Photo is of Kevin Ross learning how to read (here)

I Believe I'm Still A Jesuit

Author George Riemer (The New Jesuits) studied as a Jesuit for only seven years in the 1940s, but he continued to think of himself as a Jesuit until his death from cancer two weeks ago. "When I'm confronted with my own death," he said a few days before he died, "I believe I'm still a Jesuit, because the core of the Jesuit is still the Spiritual Exercises."

Link (here)

Papal Approval Of The Society Of Jesus

On September 27 in 1540 Pope Paul III officially approved

the Society of Jesus, a body of Catholic priests organized by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 for missionary work. Today, the Jesuits are one of the largest Catholic teaching orders.

Link (here)

Jesuit Missionary In The Sonora

Early Jesuits in Mexico

In 1572, the first Jesuit priests arrived in Mexico City where they established the Colegio Maximo of San Pedro and San Pablo some sixty years before Harvard University opened its doors. During the seventeenth century these priests moved northward from Mexico City in two columns, one on the west and one on the east side of the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northern Mexico. They gathered the natives in pueblos, taught them farming and stock-raising and tried their best to protect them from the exploitation of the Spanish civilians who wanted their labor in the mines and elsewhere. These priests acted as explorers, map-makers, historians and learned the native languages.

The best known Jesuit missionary in Sonora was Father Eusebio Kino, who established many mission churches and explored widely through northern Sonora and southern Arizona. (The town of Magdalena de Kino, just southwest of Cananea, is the final resting place of Father Kino. After his grave was discovered there in 1966. a 15-acre memorial plaza was constructed including a museum and a library.)

Link (here)

Pelestrina, Charpantier And William Byrd Composers For The Jesuits

Recovering the Jesuit musical heritage
Musician and scholar, Father T. Frank Kennedy SJ

Father T. Frank Kennedy is a Jesuit musician and scholar who has found actual scores of music composed for Jesuit schools in the 17th and 18th centuries, and then produced some of these very early examples of Baroque music. Composers who worked for the Jesuits include Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Marc-Antoine Charpantier and William Byrd. Kennedy teaches at Boston College which has also begun a new Monumenta Musicae Societatis Iesu to make this recovered music more accessible.

Link (here) to the MP3 audio podcast

The Mating Dance Of Crabs: Time Magazine 1973

Now that the church and the order are trying to understand and learn from the world, many Jesuits are disoriented, looking in vain for the old landmarks: the triumphalist faith, the proud discipline. The tight old Jesuit houses offer little solace. Deserted by the young and the adventurous in favor of small communal residences or private apartments, many of the houses have become sadly depopulated. Too many Jesuits no longer seem to be able to recognize one another.

Says Jesuit Kenneth Baker, editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review:

"Ten years ago when you met a fellow Jesuit, you knew that he was a brother and that his experiences and thoughts would be like yours. Now when you meet a Jesuit for the first time, it's like the mating dance of the crabs−trying to find out if the other crab is male or female."

There are Jesuits young and old all across the spectrum of opinion. Observed Catholic Journalist John Cogley in an accurate bit of doggerel in the Jesuit weekly America:

"There are Jesuits left and Jesuits right/ A pro and con for most any fight/ So wherever you stand, you stand not alone:/ Every little movement has a Jebbie of its own."

It is an odd position, almost a public embarrassment, for an order of such traditional rigidity−"the long black line"−to play out its differences before the world. Older Jesuits feel lost in a dangerous indiscipline; the younger members sense themselves on a ragged edge of change.

From the April 1973, (yes, 1973) Time Magazine in an article entitled, The Jesuit Search For a New Identity

Make Up Your Own Headline For This One

A few days ago this was written.

"My film The Devils (1971) may have been banned by any number of local councils and all over the world but it was not banned, for example, by the Jesuit Loyola University in Chicago, where it is taught on a film studies course."

Ken Russell Writer and Director
Link (here) .

Movie Plot:
The Devils is the story of an unorthodox (and very sexually active) Jesuit-trained priest, Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), whose parish was in the town of Loudun, France in 1634. Arrogant and proud to a fault, Grandier made many powerful enemies—something that came home to roost because of his political activities. Grandier dared to stand up to the political machinations of Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue), whose vision of a united France (with himself as the power behind the throne) was hampered by Grandier standing in his way concerning tearing down the walls that encircled Loudun. That Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) had pledged not to touch the city guaranteed Grandier’s power—for a time.

What Grandier had not counted on were the ravings of a se...ally repressed nun, Sr. Jeanne of the Angels (Vanessa Redgrave), who accused the priest of deb..ching her and several other members of the convent she headed up by means of black magic. Richelieu immediately seized on these allegations and used them to destroy Grandier, finally having him burnt at the stake as a sor.eror. ........The film did have its supporters, chief among them Time movie critic Jay Cocks.

It also became part of a course on film given by (RIP) Fr. Gene D. Phillips, S.J. at Loyola University in Chicago.

Moreover, even its detractors couldn’t deny that it was visually brilliant and that Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed gave shatteringly powerful performances.

Link (here)

A quote from Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.

A vague adherence to Christianity can also be combined with a culture that is hedonist, consumerist, and competitive to the point of violence. Many believing Christians find their faith called into question or undermined by a social atmosphere that endorses values quite opposed to those of Christ and the gospel. The inherent logic of contemporary western culture, in many of its post-modern features, threatens both to enfeeble the churches and to erode the religious heritage of the nation. These developments are a present danger both to the vigor of Christian faith and to civic virtue as we have known it.

Link (here) to the article entitled, Shaping Our Culture Through Dialogue

A quote from Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

The devil never rests. His only respite is when he is dealing with a confirmed sinner. So long as there is a chance of weaning a soul from God’s service he is untiring in his glowing presentation of appealing reasons for being proud, envious, impure, disobedient and slothful in doing good. His strategems are unlimited. Our human intelligences without God’s solicited help are no match for his angelic brilliance.

Link (here) to his article entitled, Angels - in Heaven, on Earth and in Hell.