Jesuit

The term Jesuit used to signify a member of the order of the Society of Jesus, as founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Today, although many Jesuits' Catholic identity may appropriately be considered in doubt, Jesuit priests of the post-modern progressive mold are in the front of many journalistic rolodexes (and their PDA/smartphone counterparts) as "Catholic experts."

In the curious history of the Jesuits, however, the order was in turn suppressed and resurrected multiple times (including a major suppression by the authority of the Magisterium, under Pope Clement XIV, in 1773, but in political terms, the Jesuits were suppressed or "resurrected" within individual countries under the authority of their monarchs). It is not certain, of course, whether these multiple reincarnations account for mutations in the order's charism. Nevertheless, there seems little doubt that (1) the Jesuits managed to rub all sorts of people the wrong way throughout their history and (2) by the time we have reached the latter part of the 20th century, many Jesuits have become closet syncretists or closet New Agers, though these recent innovations are probably mere manifestations of earlier drift into the area of liberation theology. Perhaps the last well-known Jesuit in good standing with Rome is Cardinal Avery Dulles, though conservative Catholics will also know the name of Fr. Mitch Pacwa.

Before either of them, of course, the biggest Jesuit name in the 20th century is probably Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the fellow who caused a lot of trouble by reinterpreting timeless spiritual truths in ways that could easily be construed as materialist.

The corruptions of the Jesuit order, however, can be traced all the way back to the end of its first century of existence, by which time their innovations in the philosophical tradition of casuistry gave it a new epithet at the hands of the French Mathematician and Philosopher, Blaise Pascal, namely the term Jesuitical. In some respects, these early innovations in Jesuit thinking may be regarded as the source of later troubles. Liberation Theology, for example, may be regarded as a Jesuitical innovation of the twin Catholic social principles of Solidarity and the Preferential Option for the Poor.

Jesuit schools have come to be known, alternatively, as progressive (among progressive Catholics) or heretical (among non-hyphenated Catholics). President Obama's visit to Georgetown University, for example, occasioned much heat as a result of his hypersensitivity to the presence of overtly religious symbols and the fawning response of GU's administration. Not to be outdown in political correctness, Boston College, another hallmark of Jesuit higher education also removed crucifixes at the earliest provocation.

It's only been in the last few decades, however, that the overt post-modern political correctness of Jesuit education has come into its own. Prior to that, such leading lights as the famous Belgian priest and pioneer in Cosmology, Fr. Georges Lemaître, attended a Jesuit secondary school, Collège du Sacré-Coeur, Charleroi, before he enrolled at the Louvain at the age of 17 for the purpose of pursuing a degree in engineering.

So, while some may complain of the Jesuit's checkered history, especially of their academics, we might do well to recall the challenges they faced successfully during their history and the unique nature of the challenges they face, today. (We might note in passing their numerous martyrs for the faith, including, notably, Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brébeuf, Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell, Paul Miki, and, in the 20th century, Miguel Pro.) Indeed, as the order was once a star in the firmament in the Church's history, a star that seems to many an observer to have collapsed from the weight of its overweening ambitions, we might remember that in just such a collapse, a nova is born.

And God, for his part, works in a shroud of mystery.

Meanwhile, when it comes to many of today's Jesuits, the word incorrigible comes to mind.

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On the other hand, there are still a few Jesuits around who have common sense, even at Georgetown University (at least until 2013). See, for example Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.