SYRACUSE (NY)
Post Standard
March 7, 2019
By Rev. David McCallum
When the founder of the Society of Jesus, St. Ignatius of Loyola, was asked, “what is a Jesuit?” he responded, “It is to know that one is a sinner loved by God.” For many people, it is a challenge to accept that two, seemingly contradictory statements such as this could be true at the same time; for them, reality is perceived in black and white terms. Either I am a sinner and, therefore, lost, or loved by God, and saved. However, the capacity for holding paradoxical truths is at the very heart of Christianity, which espouses the belief that Jesus was both human and divine, that faith and reason complement, rather than cancel out one another, and that mercy and justice go hand in hand.
This “both/and” way of thinking, relating and acting is constantly on display in another Jesuit, Pope Francis. But at this juncture in the Catholic Church’s history, it must be exercised even more rigorously in the way he leads the church through the twin crises: clergy sexual abuse and the subsequent mismanagement and cover-up by some church leaders. At the moment, most U.S. Catholics demand more urgent and bold action than Pope Francis is currently demonstrating.
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