The JESUITS
In modern times, the Society of Jesus is a conundrum to the world, to the Roman Catholic Church. There are the “new†Jesuits, the “old†Jesuits, and the “new/old†Jesuits. By categorizing “The Jesuits†I do not mean to judge the members of the Society, but only to comment on how the Society represents itself to the modern world.
By “new†I mean those Jesuits who have converted to the mind of Vatican II and accept in principle the Teilhardian insight of evolutionary faith and Liberation Theology as the necessary vision for the Mission of effective Christianity.
By “oldâ€, I mean those Jesuits who remain radically committed to original Tridentine Theology/ Ecclesiology, and who are fiercely faithful to the Tridentine papacy, i.e., who do not accept Liberation Theology and the “open†Church of Vatican II.
Then there is perhaps the majority of Jesuits, the “new/oldâ€, who are in practice open to Vatican II but not yet ready to move away from the Counter-Reformation instincts of the original Constitutions of the Society.
One is tempted to apply the Gospel measure of passing judgment, i.e., of calling the new/old Jesuits “lukewarmâ€, neither hot nor cold for counter-reformationalism or for Liberation Theology. But such judgment would be grossly inconsiderate of the good faith and good effort of the larger membership of the Society.
The conundrum is: is the Christian Mission in modern times better served by the Theology/Ecclesiology of colonialism (imperial Church) or by accepting evolutionary consciousness, Liberation Theology and the Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council?
Religion is a Relationship
Religion is a Relationship with Jesus
In 1999 I stumbled upon Sacred Space and learnt from its Feedback that many from different lands and Faith were being Blessed by the Jesuit website. As a Convert of 50 years I hadnt experienced, before then, by word of mouth or direction, much of the reality of -"God's Love." Reading more about the Jesuits I discovered these words of the late Fr Pedro Arrupe - "Fall in love with Jesus,stay in love with Jesus, and that will decide everything."- which I believe is the focus that we all need for our earthly journey.
On 8 April this year Pope Benedict speaking in Savona, Italy, said the following:-
"This is the essence of Christianity (Mercy) because it is the essence of God Himself .God is one in that He is entirely and solely Love ,but precisely because He is Love, He is openness, acceptance, dialogue. And in His relations with us, sinful mankind, He is mercy, compassion, grace .forgiveness-----------"
Surely such incredible words explain why Jesus is the Good News of Salvation, and the way to that love.ThusI see the Jesuits are working to tell the whole world , inside and outside the church, that Good News
Its hard to understand how any christian church could find fault with anyone within its walls promoting our Lord; vows or no vows.
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I do believe that although
I do believe that although we moved into a new century and a new millenium, most people's minds (including those in the Church) are still back with the old. It takes more time than it does to flip a calendar page. The official Church is legendary in its slowness to adapt to the new (some in the Church delight in that fact, too).
What problem that the Jesuits may also have (don't know for sure), is that the Pope himself has a problem with Teilhard. It seems that Chardin is too "optimistic" for Benedict. The ideas, the vision of Chardin seem too rosy (too liberal???) for the Pope. Is it the 'German' in the Pope? Or is it just that the official Church just doesn't have the understanding of the Teilhard's vision to appreciate it yet? Hopefully, the Church (and Jesuits) will move out of the "old leven" and begin to comprehend the "new leven" that an evolutionary mystic like Chardin has for the Church---the world.
I sometimes wonder if we
I sometimes wonder if we have any idea of what Benedict personally believes. In order to underpin the institutional church I think it's easy to see where Benedict would espouse the Christ of the Crucifixion, and this would tend to give him a pessimistic view vis a vis humanity. Maintaining the unique status of the priesthood and it's exclusive power mandates and emphasis on the theological school of the crucified Christ.
I personally think the Church would stand a much better chance of reforming itself if it concentrated on the Christ of the Resurrection--or as I like to think of Him, Christ the evolved transcendant human. That's a much more hopeful and positive message, and one far more in keeping with the thoughts of Chardin. I also happen to think Christ didn't come to be crucified, He came to demonstrate human potential in it's ultimate form. The atonement theology of the crucified Christ isn't about a new covenant, it's the old covenant in new clothes.
Like you Little Bear, I really hope the Jesuits can follow Chardin's lead to a true understanding of the message of Christ. The Risen Christ is a statement of hope from a truly loving Father.
http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
"Is it the 'German' in the
"Is it the 'German' in the Pope?" Maybe, but I suspect that it is the Augustinian in the man (who happens to be German). The pessimistic vision of human nature is, I think, an Augustinian legacy. The battle with Pelagius and his ilk would seem to suggest that although Augustine fought the manacheans valiantly after he left their camp, he reamined tainted. Benedict seems to have adopted the "human nature bad" holus bolus. It is also key to the authoritarian hierarchism he seems so attached to.
As an aside, I wonder sometimes about the selective and adamant attachment of theologians to 'fathers of the church' as fossilized in their views and positions. I actually have a lot of respect for Augustine; I believe that should he have lived for a thousand or more years he would have come around to a Teilhard vision, or close to it. Augustine evolved significantly in his life time from libertine to ascetic dogmatist, from one extreme to the other. Maybe Augustine was more of an agent of the power structure at the time than we would like to think. I suspect the Spirit would have led him back towards Pelagius (and Teilhard).
Don't blame the Germans...
Don't blame the Germans... they have changed. And they had Wolfgang Goethe, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and other "Wolfgang" types who rock our worlds with the simple realization of incredible levels of transcendental beauty, which proves that men can do great things if they only act reasonably and not psychotically... It's not "the German" in Ratzinger, who makes the Pope behave like a weird old man. It is the misanthrope and the misogynist in the Pope... It is Ratzinger in the Pope. Cardinal Ratzinger is an old Inquisitor, a gynephobe and a fear monger. It is part of his public image, he has been working hard to produce that image since he entered the public discussion. Bavarians may feel proud of finally seeing a German Pope around after all... but that is possibly about all they can be proud of by seeing the German Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope. All he writes about feels constipated and hateful. He makes it very hard for us to keep focusing on the good parts of Catholicism, which unfortunately seem very insignificant when counterbalanced with the load of scandals and aberrations that come out of these hideous men who find their shelter under the Ratzinger's secrecy alliance all the time since the media became global and people are sharing what they know. Definitively, the Truth will eventually make us free. Let's pray that it will happen soon enough. The World really needs a functioning Catholicism and not that dysfunctional perversion that has come to happen.
Dear SantaGhingada~ A bit
Dear SantaGhingada~ A bit over the top but pretty close, I think.
Thank you. They kicked me
Thank you. They kicked me out of worse Catholic forums, for my God-given candor.
I acknowledge that I have
I acknowledge that I have lost contact with the Jesuits over the past number of years, but that will not prevent me from expressing an opinion. My sense is that the Jesuits are living a crisis of conscience, of existence and of faith - yes "operational faith" as opposed to "faith faith".
Faith faith is, I think the fundamental mind and soul set of the Jesuits: simply speaking- companions of Christ, comtemplatives in action.
Operational faith is the vow of obedience to the Pope.
I suspect that these two are in profound conflict.
The Society of Jesus cannot fully exercise their companionship with Christ (their fundamental energy)and maintain the purity in act or in spirit of their compliance with the spoken and unspoken papal direction (their fundamental restraint).
Will they be companions of Christ or servants of Church?
Qué será, será...
Qué será, será... Whatever will be, will be...
If the Jesuits are very close to the poor they will have to be companions of Christ. If they are very close to the Vatican, they will be servants of Church. Like the Finches, they will always adapt...
The closest you go to the Vatican (even geographically), the more you will see the "Chemicalization" of the Church (as in getting rotten, reaching a putrid condition). If you go to where Jesus meant to do his job from the beginning, with the poor, the forgotten, the masses, that now the former middle class also belongs to because Wall Street is turning into a flea market, well... in that case: The Jesuits there will adapt and become companions of Christ and servants of the smallest among them. Does this mean there are two churches, two Societies of Jesus, two sets of values, two different standards? I would say yes. They were always there. Even in Christ's time, there was a church that drew to the service of wealth and power - even if that power was focused on a very few number of hands - and there was a church for the people, of which Christ became the central figure.
The good thing with the Jesuits is, they had traditionally some margin of independent thinking that allowed them to stand critically and act for what is right. But one should not forget that even Loyola nurtured some weird ideas when left alone for too long...
Loyola was, like many other Catholic men who built the empire, a theological Darwinist who built his doctrine on the sacrifice of women, whom he considered weaker, less valuable, not worth of equality, etc. Possibly he could have also disregarded the indigenous tribes as less worthy, because they were not converted to Catholicism. The question for today's Jesuits (including women Jesuits, though not yet recognized by the Vatican) would be, how to rescue the values intrinsic to the organization per se, from the biases and allegories of male supremacy that were imposed on our cultures without the informed adherence of the women, who passed to become objects of possession and never equal human beings in a Creation of Image and Likenesses of the Divine.
Consequently, we are all standing now in a Church and culture of Catholicism that is not even close to a sane projection of that so necessary sense for equality; therefore it is impossible to look at men like Loyola or at any of his contemporary theological gynophobes, for building anything positive that should make a difference for all peoples in our today's reality of cultural despair. All Catholics are under the desperate necessity of building up a different theological architecture upon which to restructure a more balanced and realistic sense of morals, ethics and compassion, definitively inclusive of the values of social justice that have come to change the public's perception of the curia and the curia's perception of who women are and how it is not possible to construct a balanced and sane Ecclesia on the one-sided Model of Darwinist Supremacy in which God is expected to be a white heterosexual male who has voluntarily relinquished his own virility to some form of guilt-loaded eunuchoidism that takes him to escape through unspeakable sexual fantasies with young boys. And, the prohibitions that the subject invents on his way to the solitary delusion become so many, that at the end he loses control and rapes any kids he may find in his way, thus realizing his most inexpressable sexual fantasies, because the church does not allow him to be otherwise virile.
The True Summa Teologica according to SantaChingada is this: The Church has created its own devils and its own hells; in which its own curia is being consumed now and here by the fires of their own suppressed human passions. Let's help them out of their insanity.
It is just an unreasonable pandemonium.
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I just translated this last paragraph for my friends in Spanish:
Loyola fue, como muchos hombres católicos que construyeron el imperio, un teólogo Darwinista que construyó su doctrina sobre el sacrificio de la mujer, a quien consideraba más débil, menos valiosa, indigna de la igualdad, etc. Posiblemente Loyola podrÃa haber también hecho caso omiso a las tribus indÃgenas como menos dignas, porque no estaban convertidas al catolicismo.
La cuestión de los jesuitas de hoy (incluidas las mujeres jesuitas, aunque aún no somos reconocidas por el Vaticano) serÃa, cómo rescatar los valores intrÃnsecos de la organización, con miras a superar los prejuicios y alegorÃas de la supremacÃa masculina, que se impusieron sobre nuestras culturas sin la adherencia de las mujeres, que pasaron a convertirse en objetos de posesión y de rechazo, pero no aptas para la igualdad como seres humanos en la creación de una imagen y semejanza de la Divinidad. En consecuencia, todos estamos de pie ahora en una Iglesia y cultura en donde el catolicismo no se encuentra ni siquiera cerca de una proyección social saludable, tan necesaria para el sentido de la igualdad que pueda generar una sociedad sin escapismos psicóticos.
Por lo tanto, es imposible contemplar a hombres como Loyola o a cualquiera de sus contemporáneos teólogos gynofobos, para construÃr algo más positivo y diferente en la actual decadencia en que andamos. Todos anhelamos que los pueblos de nuestra realidad cultural lleguen a tener una esperanza factible para escapar de la compulsión de oprimir al otro. Debemos crear una arquitectura teológica nueva y diferente, en la que para reestructurar en forma más equilibrada y realista el sentido social de la moral, la ética y la compasión, definitivamente deberá éste esfuerzo ser inclusivo de los valores en la justicia social que han venido a cambiar la percepción de la curia acerca de las mujeres.
Habrá que pensar y elaborar una doctrina más humana (porque Humana es la imagen y semejanza de lo Divino) acerca de lo que los hombres y las mujeres son y cómo es posible construir una iglesia equilibrada y sana frente a la insensatez de un modelo Darwinista basado en la supremacÃa de un Dios que se espera sea un varón blanco heterosexual que voluntariamente ha renunciado a su propia virilidad para ser poseÃdo por la idea insensata de algún tipo de eunuchoidismo cargado de culpabilidad, que asimismo lo conlleva a escapar de la realidad a través de alguna fantasÃa sexual con niños. Y, son tantas las prohibiciones que confronta el sujeto, que al final de cuentas, pierde el control, y abusa de los niños que se le crucen en el camino, realizando asà las más inexpresables fantasÃas sexuales, ya que la iglesia no le permite de otro modo ser viril.
La verdadera summa teológica de acuerdo a la SantaChingada, es ésta: La Iglesia Católica ha creado sus propios demonios y sus propios infiernos, en los que se consume hasta su propia curia.
Es un pandemonio insensato.
Dear SantaChingada~ That is
Dear SantaChingada~ That is a powerful post and one long, loaded sentence in your second to last paragraph. Honestly, I find the language of your posts a bit strong for me while I agree in essence with most of what you have to say in this and most of your posts. I am not sure if that is a criticism, advice, caution or a judgment of my own timerity and lack of passion on these issues. I do know that it is not without real respect and well meant.
In another thread at another time but on the subject of the church and its treatment of women I contended that sitting quietly and waiting for the men to wake up or the institution to crumble is a failure to truly acknowledge that change was merited because of its rightness and of the 'repentence' so necessary for real reconciliation and reconstitution of the church on earth.
I do think that an organized resistence to the status quo is what the Spirit and the intransigency of the institution requires and a well-thought our analysis of the issue and its roots. I do not think that one needs to have all of the answers, what is essential is the will to address the issues and the answers as they arise.
Vitriol is like hate, it clouds and obscures the issues and one's capacity to address them; it also incites resistence in potential allies as well as in the adversaries and renders what should be a quest in the company of friends a crusade. Case in point: the manic zeal of a St Francis Xavier to baptize at any cost warrants inclusion and comparison with his brother, the early Jesuits in North America and many in Central and South America who virtually became advocates for the religious values of the indiginious.
What? Too strong for you?
What? Too strong for you?
Come on, you should act like a real Jesuit. We all should act like Jesuits. In spite of Loyola's problems with women, we are here to rescue the Church from its total collapse, I told you. None of us is going to chicken out. But we are to support one another, because we are here to save the act after those weird Curiae drove our lovely church to this disaster. We all must act responsibly now, because the Church is us, People.
VITRIOL is not like hate, unless you interpret it from the popular explanation of it, as sulphuric acid. But, when talking in the mysterious language of theology, one should refer to the meaning of the VITRIOL concept as that of the interconnectedness with the Theos:
V = Visita = Visit
I = Interiora = the interior
T = Terrae = of the earth;
R = Rectificando = in rectifying,
I = Invenies = discover
O = Occultum = the hidden
L = Lapidem = stone.
Do you get the picture? It means, look for the theological stone inside your heart...!
Forget about the theologians of deceit who only made themselves rich by sucking on one another's infirmities.
Look for the divinity in your self. And then you will be one of the main cornerstones of the true Ecclesia.
The Vatican is out of Service. It was never a good idea, because it placed men in the position of Gods while keeping Christ out of the real picture. Go and live your life, bring Jesus to the world through actions and deeds, and stop attacking one another by disrespecting individual freedoms. That is all about V-I-T-R-I-O-L .
Dear SantaChingada~ "What?
Dear SantaChingada~ "What? Too strong for you?" I suspect you are addressing me. My response: no, too cute. If you interpret my post as "attacking" you have entirely misread, it was an olive branch; If you are advising me to "Look for the divinity in your self",I do and I often find anger where there should be peace and I regret. I have no desire to "rescue the Church from its total collapse"; it is an institution made of marbel,stone and red hats and shoes,and old men in dresses who do not see, do not listen and lack compassion. I am interested in Christ and Christ-ians.
By the way vitriol (language expressing bitterness and hate)is like hate, its root distorts one's capacity to hear, to love and it is corrosive.
...or nit-picking as in
...or nit-picking
as in picking the nit?
I think the 'vow of
I think the 'vow of obedience' to the Pope is often over-stated, although I'm not too sure about this. I think it is a vow to 'go where the pope says there's a need' (which is why they ended up in such political situations over the centuries) more than to clip along with the pope, especially since they are sometimes thought of as the renegades, and the B16 recently complimented them for going where others couldn't and doing what others couldn't. I don't know if there's anyone in the cafe who knows what the vow actually is?
I think that like in all
I think that like in all things, there are new and old ways of thinking - no matter where you go. The Jesuits are like everything else: Some are hot, some are cold, some are cowards... some are bold...
Some of my favorite Jesuits in Latin America would be considered freedom fighters by some of my favorite Jesuits in Europe, who are actually more sedentary. And, some of my favorite Jesuits in the United States could pass as giant chickens: They'll do no say, no listen and no see any evil... Which doesn't really make evil go away, as reality is proving to us all under the current desperate status of our beloved nation... Let me put it this way: All Jesuits are good, but some Jesuits are better than others, because God in the skies has given them more challenging experiences to go through in life. So? Sure, there is a difference between the Jesuit in Latin America, who stands side-by-side with the poor, and the Jesuit in the European Union, who dines side-by-side with the wealthy. And they are all part of the same society. God throws them like seed on the ground, and where they fall, they flourish according to the environment. Like the finches of Darwin, they adapt...
What I am trying to convey is this: there are 1.3 Billion different styles of (Catholic) Jesuits in the world, because everyone who is a true follower of Jesus is a true Jesuit. But, there are only men in that society... hmmm... because Ignatius Loyola had such a panic from women, and he succeeded institutionalizing his panic, that then went transferred into the Jesuits' DNA. But, as my grandma said: We all are going to get this history through to the next generation, so it should be important to stay tuned and not throw the towel, because some of the most visible have become so evidently disgusting. Better go kick some butt and unease some holy cows out of their complacency, than losing the hope that things will become better. We all know that things do become better.
One of my friends recently translated an article from Spanish (Spain and Latin America, that's where the Jesuits are really rocking for transcendental changes, for the horror of the hierarchy...), and the article was about a Jesuit, who, a couple of years ago was removed from his doctoral duty teaching at one of the Catholic Universities, for teaching about Bioethics. Here is that article in that blog, about Father Masiá, who was suppressed by Rome, for writing in some coherent science language. With so many Catholic Universities all over, it is scary that they are kicking priests out of teaching science. Particularly, because those who kick the scientist-priests are not even scientists themselves, only fear mongers dressed up in impressive cassocks.
What a shame...! Someone who has lost contact with reality in Vaticsneyland is trying to force us all to walk voluntarily right back into the Dark Ages...!
http://amravin-meditations.blogspot.com/
Now Ratzinger and his cronies are after the Jesuits who research on bioethics...