UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
No, but too many Jesuits give Pope Francis a pass, in my view, despite clear Gospel mandates, such as to protect children from abuse. And where today are the Jesuits like Karl Rahner and John Courtney Murray who dared to question earlier unchristian and unhistorical Vatican positions? Why are more Jesuits not at least trying to re-assess the autocratic prior two popes’ ideological mandates such as the continuing ban on artificial contraception, the “non-biblical” exclusion of women from the priesthood, invented papal infallibility, the cruel assault on gay Catholics, the insensitive exclusion of remarried divorced Catholics from communion, the budding and dangerous crusade against Middle East Islam, etc.? Have many Jesuits lost their nerve?
For almost four decades, the intellectual “swat team” priests of the Catholic Church, the Jesuits, had often been suppressed and intimidated by ruthless popes, especially the ex-pope for over three decades. Even outstanding Jesuit educated “ordinary priest” theologians like Hans Kung and Richard McBrien were pressured to be silent on key issues, like challenging the pope’s claim since 1870 to personal infallibility and the purportedly “settled” exclusion of women priests and the “sin” of artificial contraception and other mythical papal claims to non-existent “traditions” that clerical opportunists “discover” and compromised clerics “accept”.
One would have expected under the first Jesuit Pope, Francis, that there would have been an outburst of Jesuit truth telling. Disappointingly, not so as best I can tell. Jesuits, and at times even ex-Jesuits like Gary Wills and Michael Walsh, seem often so thrilled with having a Jesuit pope, that they appear to see mostly good outputs under Pope Francis, no matter what the reality is.
Of course, Jesuits have had their own embarrassing and expensive scandals, including major ones involving child sex abuse, so may have good reasons to be wary of the spotlight. And the seemingly tough ex-bouncer pope has likely leaned on Jesuit superiors to enforce blind obedience. But to their great credit, Jesuits have always had prophetic voices despite scandals and overbearing popes, including the unmatched Karl Rahner among recent prophets.
Significantly, well informed UK journalist, Paul Vallely, in his superb recent biography, “Pope Francis-Untier of Knots”, reports that many Jesuits in Argentina, and even in the UK and Rome, had serious reservations earlier about their Jesuit confrere, Jorge Bergoglio. This likely helped steer the ambitious Bergoglio to become a bishop, unusual for a Jesuit, and to bring him to powerful Cardinal Angelo Sodano’s close attention almost four decades ago.
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