The Nature and Mission of Catholic Universities: According to Pope Benedict

A review of what sounds like an interesting book brought up some interesting historical notes. Excerpts:

...[A] revolution took place in 1967 that changed Catholic higher education radically, but we hope not forever. It was known as the Land O’ Lakes Conference, for that is where a group of Catholic college presidents and academics undertook a revolution in Catholic education that hopefully will someday (soon) be rolled back.

The Land O’ Lakes document began this way:

“The Catholic university today must be a university in the full modern sense of the word, with a strong commitment to and concern for academic excellence. To perform its teaching and research functions effectively, the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself. To say this is simply to assert that institutional autonomy and academic freedom are essential conditions of life and growth and indeed of survival for Catholic universities, as for all universities.”

Now compare this with Pope Benedict’s address to Catholic educators at Catholic University in Washington on April 17, 2008:

“It is the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university’s freedom and identity and mission: a mission at the heart of the Church’s munus docendi and not somehow autonomous or independent of it...”

I simply don't understand the basic premise of the Land O' Lakes document. "[T]he Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself." Authority of whatever kind? Really. And yet they don't complain about accrediting organizations, like the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, or even the most basic accreditors of colleges. But perhaps they would argue that such organizations speak from within academia, and as such cannot conceivably violate academic freedom. They maintain academic standards, right? They make sure the unqualified are not admitted to the hallowed halls of academe. They, in fact, test for the right teaching of the professors at a university. They check them for academic orthodoxy.

Why is it a problem for the Church to regulate the teachings of her theologians again? 

More from the review:

...I found most interesting those talks in England, on the occasion of his trip to beatify Blessed John Henry Newman, with whom Pope Benedict had a special relation as a fellow theologian. In his homily, Pope Benedict used Blessed John Henry’s own words to describe the goal of Catholic university professors:

“I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious — but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it...”

'29 Signs You Attended a Catholic University'

Heh. Yes. Yes, in so many ways, especially 3, 20, 28, and probably 29.

Catholic Memes

Gonzaga University Refuses to Recognize Male, Catholic Organization

Oh, don't worry, they still call themselves a Jesuit university!  And Bishop White Seminary is still permitted to operate in conjunction with the university!  There's just one pesky, service oriented, patriotic, faith-suffused organization that only admits male Catholics as members which they've decided they will not permit to exist on campus as a recognized organization: the Knights of Columbus.  Excerpts:

...“The Knights of Columbus, by their very nature, is a men’s organization in which only Catholics may participate via membership,” says a letter obtained by The Cardinal Newman Society written by Sue Weitz, Vice President for Student Life. “These criteria are inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organization recognition at Gonzaga University, as well as the University’s commitment to non-discrimination based on certain characteristics, one of which is religion.”

The letter continued:

The discussion at the meeting touched on formation of a Catholic Daughters student organization at Gonzaga. Such a group would address the gender exclusivity issue. However, it would not address the requirement that all members of a student Knights of Columbus group must be Catholic...

“I …believe strongly in the University’s commitment to non-discrimination and inclusivity,” continues Weitz in the letter. “If Gonzaga was an institution that served only Catholics and limited the benefits of the collegiate experience only to them, the decision-making process may have been different.”

“To embrace the diversity and yet endorse a group based on faith exclusivity is a challenge that cannot be reconciled at this time,” Weitz wrote in closing. “It is a decision about social justice, equity, and the desire of the University to create and maintain an environment in which none are excluded.”

The group is currently examining other alternatives and considering whether it should form a council completely independent of the University. One option that may be available to the group, and that is in practice at other universities, is for the Knights of Columbus council to form under the umbrella of campus ministry...

Speechless? Staggered? It's okay. You're not alone.  A decision about social justice, equity, and embracing diversity will exclude this organization from the life of the campus.  Excerpts:

...The Knights was formed to render financial aid to members and their families. Mutual aid and assistance are offered to sick, disabled and needy members and their families. Social and intellectual fellowship is promoted among members and their families through educational, charitable, religious, social welfare, war relief and public relief works.

The history of the Order shows how the foresight of Father Michael J. McGivney, whose cause for sainthood is being investigated by the Vatican, brought about what has become the world's foremost Catholic fraternal benefit society. The Order has helped families obtain economic security and stability through its life insurance, annuity and long-term care programs, and has contributed time and energy worldwide to service in communities.

The Knights of Columbus has grown from several members in one council to more than 14,000 councils and 1.8 million members throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Cuba, Guatemala, Guam and Saipan...

I could go on about the work of the Knights, but go ahead and do a quick Google search for yourself.

Update: Gonzaga University to review Knights of Columbus status.  Excerpts:

...The Knights of Columbus has a council at Gonzaga University but it is not recognized as a “student club,” the school has clarified, after reports surfaced that it denied the council its application as such.

“The Knights of Columbus College Council is on-campus and is supported by the University currently,” Hahn said.

“There are many ways for student groups to be present and active on campus,” she explained. “The initial decision pertained to recognition by the Student Life division under its current process.”

“They haven't been banned,” Hahn added.

Gonzaga said that “the Knights of Columbus College Council (#12583) is already present within the student body and receives support from the administration.”

“Gonzaga University’s core Catholic and Jesuit identity recognizes, encourages and supports many student organizations that advance faith-related issues,” the school said, citing Gonzaga Right to Life and Blessed John Paul II Fellowship.

Though the Council currently exists, it is not recognized as a “student club” or a “student organization.” The decision not to grant the Knights council recognition as a student group was based on the university's current “club recognition process...”

Present in what way? Active how? Doing what activities? If they were already present and active, then why did they feel the need to apply for status as a student club?  Why is their status as they somehow exist on campus all right, but their existence as a student club is not?  And "many" student clubs that advance faith-related issues?  I suppose if one says that any and all clubs doing anything that can be defined as social justice related are thereby faith-related, that claim makes sense, but citing two clubs is not pointing to "many."

Pope Francis: A Round-Up of Reactions

Man, Hugh Hewitt gets some good guests!

Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, author, former president of Gonzaga University, and founder of the Magis Institute (among a whole ton of others), reacts here.

Father Robert Barron, author, rector of Mundelein Seminary, and founder of the Word on Fire ministry, reacts here, including some interesting predictions on who will be replaced within the Vatican itself.

Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, founder of Ignatius Press, reacts here.

Rocco Palmo, blogger at Whispers in the Loggia, reacts here

Mark Steyn, author, columnist, and all-around rabble-rouser reacts here.  (Very interesting commentary on the western reaction to Blessed Pope John Paul II's death here.)

Dr. Albert Mohler, author, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and one of the country's leading Protestant theologians, reacts here.

Father C.J. McCloskey, author, a research fellow of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C, and a priest of Opus Dei, reacts here.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., author and archbishop of Philadelphia, reacts here and here.

And George Weigel, author, papal biographer, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, talks evangelical Catholicism here.

Jesuits React to Francis, First Jesuit Pope

Why so unexpected?

The power of prayer.

The experience of being there for the announcement.

From their Superior General.  Excerpts:

...In the name of the Society of Jesus, I give thanks to God for the election of our new Pope, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., which opens for the Church a path full of hope.

All of us Jesuits accompany with our prayers our brother and we thank him for his generosity in accepting the responsibility of guiding the Church at this crucial time. The name of “Francis” by which we shall now know him evokes for us the Holy Father’s evangelical spirit of closeness to the poor, his identification with simple people, and his commitment to the renewal of the Church. From the very first moment in which he appeared before the people of God, he gave visible witness to his simplicity, his humility, his pastoral experience and his spiritual depth.

“The distinguishing mark of our Society is that it is . . . a companionship . . . bound to the Roman Pontiff by a special bond of love and service.” (Complementary Norms, No. 2, § 2) Thus, we share the joy of the whole Church, and at the same time, wish to express our renewed availability to be sent into the vineyard of the Lord, according to the spirit of our special vow of obedience, that so distinctively unites us with the Holy Father (General Congregation 35, Decree 1, No. 17)...

From the Jesuits’ secretary for the promotion of the faith.  Excerpts:

...Father Blaszczak said Pope Francis’ training and priesthood as a Jesuit “tell you that he’s been steeped in Ignatian spirituality,” has had “a top-notch secular education” and that “his formation has always put him in touch with real people in real-life situations,” which he then has reflected upon in an effort to identify the ways God was present.

“That he chose the name Francis signals to us where he’s from, what he’s about and what he believes the reform of the church is going to require: It’s not going to require moral muscle, it’s not going to require just philosophical analysis; it’s going to require an engagement with the person of Christ,” particularly through the Scriptures, he said. “But it’s going to be the Christ poor and humble.”

While some people thought maybe Pope Francis took his name thinking also of the great Jesuit St. Francis Xavier, Father Blaszczak said Jesuits know just how important the life, example and spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi was in the conversion of their founder, St. Ignatius, and in the development of what has come to be known as Ignatian spirituality...

“For Ignatius, Francis is the alternative to the life of the world. Francis, with his itinerant ministry and his intense devotion to the life of Christ and his ascetical lifestyle,” is the counterbalance to the worldly life in the court, the Jesuit said.

“Ignatius, as he admits himself, was given to womanizing, gambling and feats of arms,” but at the time of his conversion, “to his great surprise,” Ignatius finds himself “much more attracted, much more consoled, enlivened and given joy when he thinks about imitating the life of St. Francis,” the founder of the Franciscans, who died in 1226.

Father Blaszczak said Catholics already have a good hint of how Ignatian and Franciscan spirituality might impact the way Pope Francis exercises his ministry “in the way he engaged the people of Rome” when he first stepped out onto the balcony as their bishop and pope March 13 “with great simplicity, with minimal pomp and circumstance.”

The Jesuit said he expected Pope Francis to continue as much as possible to live as he did while cardinal and archbishop of Buenos Aires, with “simplicity and austerity in conformity with the life of Ignatius and Francis, in conformity with his intention to follow Christ poor and humble.”

The focus of St. Ignatius, St. Francis and “historically of our new pope” when he was bishop was to be closest to the poor and those on the margins of society, he said...

"From the conversations I’ve had with my Latin American Jesuit colleagues, this is a man who knows his own mind. This is a man who is not afraid of choosing and marking his own direction,” he said.

He also said he did not think the life of the Society of Jesus would change much with a Jesuit in the Apostolic Palace, because “we are bound to the service of the church through our connection and availability to the Holy Father, and that doesn’t change” no matter who is pope.

The Jesuits promise not to seek high offices in the church, which explains in part why there has never been a Jesuit pope before. However, Father Blaszczak said, that Jesuit promise is secondary to their promise to always be available for whatever mission the church needs them to take on...

American Jesuits react.

Muslim Students, Catholic Universities, and Secular Hospitality

Where do you really feel at home? Excerpts:

"... At any of the countless secular universities she might have chosen, religion — at least in theory — would be beside the point. But she picked one that would seem to underline her status as a member of a religious minority. She enrolled at the University of Dayton, a Roman Catholic school, and she says it suits her well.

“Here, people are more religious, even if they’re not Muslim, and I am comfortable with that,” said Ms. Alhamad, an undergraduate in civil engineering, as several other Muslim women gathered in the student center nodded in agreement. “I’m more comfortable talking to a Christian than an atheist.”...

Archbishop Tutu and Gonzaga's Commencement Exercises

The controversy over Archbishop Tutu at Gonzaga has come up several times recently in conversation with friends and family, so I figured I'd post this here.

First off, of course, he's a tremendous figure on the world stage, and I am a relatively innocuous blogger, so there's a certain temerity in commenting in the first place.  But I think there's a reason for this controversy.

Lives Transformed by Love

Body and soul constitute human nature.  The body is no less good than the soul.  In mortifying the natural we must not injure the body or the soul.  We are not to destroy but to transform it, as iron is transformed in the fire.  Most of our life is unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning till night.  But when it is transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels.

"Although human nature is essentially good it is infected by original sin, which is forgiven at baptism, but the effects will remain in the soul. We are prone to evil. We have a bias toward evil." These are notes which I took.--Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness, pg. 257

Keeping the Faith in Catholic Schools

Mark Shea gives some helpful hints.  Excerpts:

...The trick will be not so much to remain orthodox (that’s fairly easy, considering how dreadfully dull the theological legacy of the Pepsi Generation is).  Rather, the trick will be avoiding becoming a bitter Pharisee who turns Catholic faith into a particularly nasty and uninviting sort of Protestantism.

What do I mean?  I mean that you cannot build a life on protest, not even a protest against heresy.  If your Catholic faith is primarily a reaction against Those People Over There (whoever They are) then it is not about Jesus Christ, but about anger over some human hurt you have received (like the hurt of getting drivel from teachers who have betrayed their office and used it to subvert the gospel).  The Catholic faith is not a mere reaction to this world.  It is about God breaking into this world with joy in order to save it.  It is hell, not the Faith, that is on the defensive.  That’s why “the gates of hell” (a defensive image from siege warfare) shall not prevail against the Church.  So the trick is to be joyful, not angry and bitter, in your work of subverting the dominant paradigm.  Have worldly teachers sold the Faith for a pot of heterodox message?  Sure!  What did you expect the world to do?

But the good news is, not only is that project failing, but the gospel is emerging stronger than ever because Jesus Christ lives.  Brickbats and crosses it shall endure till That Day, but it remains full of joy, not bitterness, till then.  So the approach we take is not the mere anger of the Revolutionary against the Old Regime, but the gladness of the saint.  As Jesus put it:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:18-20)

This mistaken focus on defeating the spirits rather than rejoicing in Heaven is the central mistake that many of those concerned about retrieving the Tradition from the vandals have made.  They have become so focused on their anger over the vandalism that they have forgotten that it’s not about defeating Hell, but about rejoicing over the triumph of a Heaven that has already defeated Hell on Easter.

So do your subversive work joyfully, fixing your eyes on heavenly things and not on earthly ones.  You will receive all the opposition and hostility that are the saint’s badge of honor.  Take it to God and do not let Hell take away your joy.  It’s your birthright in Baptism.

One last thing: cultivate friendships with whoever in your life is on the same page.  Be proactive about that by seeing what you can do to create a bit of community around your interests.  Maybe fellow students, maybe fellow parishioners, maybe people on the web.  Flesh and blood is better, but wherever you can find it, support is good...

For more along those lines, see Disorientation: How to Go to College Without Losing Your Mind, The Snakebite Letters: Devilishly Devious Secrets for Subverting Society As Taught in Tempter's Training School, and Letters to a Young Catholic (Art of Mentoring).

Legal Consequences for CINO Universities

Catholic In Name Only (CINO) universities may soon face civil, not merely ecclessiastical, consequences for their lack of a Catholic identity.  CWNews has the story and links:

After the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that a Catholic university’s fundamental purpose is secular, the Cardinal Newman Society warned that many Catholic institutions are risking their religious identity.

The NLRB ruled against Manhattan College in a case involving a bid to unionize the faculty. The NLRB ruled that the college is not exempt from regulations, despite its claim to be a Catholic institution, because “the purpose of the college is secular and not the ‘propagation of the faith.’”

Patrick Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, warned that many American Catholic institutions of higher education may be subject to similar rulings because they have not guarded their Catholic identity...

Catholic Universities and Unions

Wow.  This should shake things up.  From Fr. Z:

...I found this at The Motley Monk.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) told Manhattan College that they are not really a religious institution and therefore they can’t use a religious character to prevent the faculty from unionizing.

The NLRB used Manhattan College’s own literature for this decision.  Apparently, since Manhattan College says it is not trying to promote the Catholic Faith, … well… they can’t hide behind their religious identity.

Bottom line: Nominally Catholic schools which are not serious about their identity may have problems coming...

What Does It Mean To Say Catholic?

And who's got the power to say so?

...If the only criterion for authentic Catholic conduct is “what Church rules are enforceable by civil courts?”, then there won’t be much left of Catholic codes of conduct. Thank God. I don’t want states being the final arbiter of what is acceptable Catholic conduct and what is not, and I would hope that Fullam doesn’t want that, either.

But if Fullam’s point is that a bishop’s authority over the use of the label “Catholic” is, absent state enforcement options, nugatory, then she needs to study up on some elementary canon law (and ecclesiology, for that matter). A bishop’s authority over the use of the word “Catholic” is reflected in, e.g., 1983 CIC 216 and 300, and those norms just get the conversation started. Canons 1319 comes next to mind, but an exploration of those options goes beyond what I can cover in blog post...

Links in the original.

On a Liberal Education

that is, one that sets us free, on the Feast of the arrival of the Wise Men from the East:

...In what does a liberal education consist but those things we are not at liberty to omit? And why is that? Because, at the deepest level, such things determine what it means to be human, i.e., free. Here are things which aspire to the highest possible perfection of the human personality, the pursuit of intellectual excellence for its own sake. There is the operative phrase, the crucial distinction at the heart of what a liberal education aims to accomplish. To use the language of Newman, "there is a knowledge worth possessing for what it is, and not merely for what it does..."

What ought the governing question to be? Why not ask to what extent this or that proposed course is likely to touch upon the most elemental dimension of the human person? Will it promote the desire to know the truth, the aspiration to do the good, the capacity to take delight in the beautiful? These transcendental pursuits are precisely what warrant the existence of a liberal education in the first place. And to that end courses in theology, philosophy, literature, history, natural science, music and art ought to be found at the center of the curriculum.

Asked once which books young people ought to read, the philosopher George Santayana said that it didn't matter so long as they all read the same ones. Can it be so hard to come up with a provisional list? While perfect curricular consensus may be quixotic, could not a cross section of our own University faculty produce a handful of books every student should be expected to read? Do not in fact such texts come almost trippingly off the tongue? After all, didn't we have to read them?...

Missing out on such stories and songs and speculations, the stuff of who we are and where we come from, is tantamount to a loss of complete civilizational identity. Why would a University want to deprive its students of so basic a patrimony? Why would it wish to commit suicide in this way? An education unmindful of the whole of human experience, of the best that has been thought and said, can only be contemptuous of the students it is charged with teaching. As Lionel Trilling once put it: "The best citizen is the person who has learned from the great minds and souls of the past how beautiful reason and virtue are and how difficult to attain." Or, to quote an old professor's pithy definition: the ideal citizen, he said, is someone who, in a pinch, could re-found his civilization. Are we preparing our students to become citizens in this way?...

Catholic in College?

Or wandering the wild ways of modernity?

...As college freshmen struggle to balance faith and other priorities — and some consider opting out of their Catholic faith altogether, campus ministries and other Catholic organizations are working to bridge the faith gap between high school and college by inviting more students than ever to live their faith through the sacraments, relationships, activities, prayer groups and even a TV show.

Citing the importance of campus ministry in fostering lifelong Church involvement, the Chicago-based Catholic Extension, which provides funds to assist U.S. Catholic communities, recently awarded more than $1 million to campus ministries to help 500,000 students grow in their faith on 59 college campuses in 30 U.S. dioceses.

“Campus-ministry programs create substantive opportunities to train the next generation of Catholic leaders and develop students’ gifts and talents to positively impact them as young adults, as well as the entire Church,” said Frank Santoni, Catholic Extension’s regional director of grants management.

The need for strong ministries is clear: A recent study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University indicates that college freshmen are most likely to make their best friends during their first few weeks on campus, and during that time they also join the organizations they’ll be part of for their whole college career, according to Judy Cozzens, chairwoman of the USA Council of Serra International’s program College Connection for Catholics...

There's also this handy guide.

Catholic Student at a "Catholic" College

Does this strike a chord with anybody?

...Being at a CINO (Catholic in Name Only) college is hard and getting harder. I'm beginning to see certain assignments marked down. The tension between professors and certain students (myself included) is beginning to increase. My anxiety's also beginning to get a lot worse. . . .

On Friday I was talking to another faithful Catholic and she was talking about leaving the school as soon as the semester was over... and she's not the only one. Many of us who do not agree with the "teachings" that happen at that school are considering transferring elsewhere, even if it means losing this semester. I had the good fortune of meeting a former student and she said she left after a year because she went through the same that I went through with the professors . . . and she had the same professors, years ago, that I have now.

You can just imagine how bad things are. I don't 100% regret going there only because it's taught me a valuable lesson, but I wish I would've really looked at the school before even applying. I knew things were bad but I didn't know the extent of it until I actually got there. I think I can withstand the abuse (and I feel like it is a form of abuse) for another semester or even until I graduate but I am not 100% sure. As I said, my anxiety is getting worse (so much worse) so I am really thinking about what to do. . . .

Ending Ostpolitik

John Paul II, hero of those seeking to heal the culture and build the civilization of love:

...while reading George Weigel’s The End and the Beginning, the second volume of his biography of Pope John Paul II, it occurred to me that John Paul might have something valuable to teach me. His predecessors, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, treated the Soviet bloc as a permanent fixture in modern Europe. Their so-called “Ostpolitik” sought to preserve what could be preserved of Catholic life behind the Iron Curtain by avoiding confrontation and cooperating as much as possible with the demands of Communist governments in Eastern Europe. This was a modus non moriendi, a way of not dying, not a way of fomenting Christian growth and expansion. Despite the pleas of many bishops behind the Iron Curtain to adopt a stronger stance and despite the Paul VI’s own anguish about Communist perfidy, the policy lasted through the 1960s and 1970s. Pope John Paul II, of course, ended the policy and began a vigorous spiritual campaign against the Communist domination of his homeland, Poland, and the other eastern European countries. The rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland and the eventual fall of Soviet communism owe much to the more confrontational approach of John Paul. “How many divisions does the pope have?” Josef Stalin had once asked. The Polish pope demonstrated that he didn’t need armies, that personal example, words of truth, and the creation of a culture of life were more important than guns and tanks. John Paul’s example and my own experiences at EKU have convinced me that it is time to end Ostpolitik on campus.

For at least two generations, Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelicals, and other religious conservatives have sought to “get along” with the prevailing American campus culture of relativism and moral license. We have dedicated ourselves to academic excellence, to fair and balanced teaching, and to keeping a low profile. We have kept quiet in department meetings, in the faculty senate, and on university committees. We have bitten our tongues when colleagues disparaged our religion, our morality, and our most cherished beliefs. We have convinced our colleagues that religious conservatives can be surprisingly thoughtful and urbane.

In the end, what have such actions won for us? Many of us have produced solid scholarship and positive teaching evaluations. We’ve been awarded tenure and even prizes. We have the respect of our colleagues and our administrations. Ostpolitik on campus has allowed religious conservatives to live normal lives, to teach our courses with a degree of independence, and to pursue the research agendas of our choice. Our jobs are secure and our careers give every sign of continuing success.

We have watched, though, as our campuses veered farther and farther off course. Sexual license is now taken for granted. Mentions of abortion, homosexuality, and even bestiality hardly merit a second glance in our campus papers. Many students have never heard a rational conservative argument about any moral issue. Our colleagues now scoff even at the idea of truth, as if it were some quaint notion from the Middle Ages. Discipline after discipline has lost its mooring and drifted into irrelevance or outright idiocy.

Perhaps all this might be justified if students were somehow benefitting from this atmosphere of license and relativism. The opposite is the case. Most students, even at the best universities, have no passion, no love of learning. Focused on careers, at best, or, more often, on nothing at all, they approach texts that have changed the world as if they were being forced to read the dictionary. Faced with the results of painstaking research, they yawn and check their phones. They do less homework than American students have ever done before because professors have relaxed their requirements. The result is that, amazingly enough, students are bored in their modern Sodom.

What is to be done?...

The answers to that question follow.

The Jesuit: "hyper-violent criminal reign of terror"

Oh.  Wow.  I wonder how we went from "peace and justice" to...well, read it yourself:

Soon, though—if Last Temptation of Christ filmmakers Paul Schrader and Willem Dafoe have their way—the Jesuit name could carry another connotation entirely: hyper-violent criminal reign of terror?

From ComingSoon.net:

In The Jesuit, a man comes out of prison in south Texas: “Neto” wants only a new life, far removed from his violent past. Just when it seems he might regain his wife and ten-year old son, she is brutally murdered and the boy kidnapped. Neto must abandon his dream of happiness in an explosive return to methods that made him the most feared man in Texas, and earned him the nickname … the Jesuit.

Say what?

...What’s next? A Franciscan hit squad? Outlaw bikers called the Knights of Columbus? An international crime lord known only as “the Thomist”?

How about a thriller about a serial killer who plays Russian roulette with his victims, called Pascal’s Wager?

Whatever. Hey, who’s looking forward to Shrader’s follow-ups, The Mullah and The Hasid? Your thoughts?

The comments are an absolute hoot.

The Legionaries Scandal

Certain aspects of their organization:

With regard to your efforts to investigate Legionary finances in Mexico you know it's not an easy task. Apart from any sinister reasons - of which I am unaware - in Mexico because of the anti-clerical laws, religious congregations "hid" their assets behind small, purposely created, "shell corporations" like a limited-liability corporation. The upside of this is that religious property (schools, universities, hospitals etc.) were protected from expropriation because the religious did not "own" them. The downside legacy is that it is not easy for an outsider to know precisely what is owned and by whom.

resemble other orders in the Church, and for much the same reason.

On (Maybe) Why the Jesuits Cracked

An interesting comment on the Dominicans v. the Jesuits from the Dark Lord Himself:

...when I discovered the liberty of the Catholic faith (and even more so, of the Dominicans where the prevailing ethos is "If you've met one Dominican, you've met one Dominican") I felt as though I'd come home. One of the funniest critiques of the Catholic faith has always been the "The Pope tells you what to think. You beome one with the mnonolithic Borg" thing. Nothing could be further from my experience. The Dominicans are nothing if not celebratory of immense diversity and ordered freedom of the intellect. (I remember one priest making fun of St. Ignatius remark that he would believe black was white if the Pope commanded it. A Dominican has too much common sense for such absurd authoritarianism.)

And right there--right THERE--we may have a reasonable explanation for the current crisis of fidelity within the Jesuit order and its institutions. What happens when a rope or a bridge, drawn incredibly taut by immense pull, suddenly snaps? It flies away from the center point of the breach at immense speed. What happens when an incredibly potent machine gets a bird inside of it when running at high speed? It destroys itself (and does significant damage to the plane). Or apply the metaphor to a boat--the Barque of Peter, perhaps... Thank God (literally) that the survival and running of the Church does not depend upon the Jesuits, or the Dominicans, or any of the Popes, or any human thing. We'd have seen it destroyed long since. But here, in this little remark, I think I can see suddenly clearly the heart of the issue. Simply: Ignatius crafted a hugely potent tool, with massive potential for good or evil. He harnessed that tool to the Papacy with the most stringent vows of obedience possible, hoping to hold the whole together. But vows are vows, and men are men. Anything under such intense pressure--such minds, such skill, in some of the most brilliant and capable men the world has ever seen pulling against the bounds of obedience--runs the risk of breaking out. The formation was too intense. The expectations, too much. The engine got the large stone of modernism in it and tore out fundamental pieces of itself. The effects are still being felt. Things were rusting for some time before. There had been decay, as is only to be expected in human organizations. But Ignatius's work held together...till the mid point of this past century.

Oregon Province Bankruptcy and Gonzaga University

There's a lot of speculation abroad, not least amongst the lawyers for the victims, that they'll be able to include Seattle University and Gonzaga University in the province's assets. If they go after the universities, it won't be as property of the Province.

Ironically, Gonzaga has a two-tier board that sets it apart from most of the nation's 28 Jesuit colleges and universities because Jesuits retain greater control. Most of the schools exist as independent corporations and are no longer owned by Jesuits. However, Gonzaga is owned by a corporate board of nine Jesuits, called the "board of members," which holds power to change the university's bylaws. The board of members delegates authority to the 29-member board of trustees for general oversight and hiring of a president, who must be a Jesuit...The board of members has the power to dissolve the board of trustees...

Either way, then, the universities will present a unique challenge for the lawyers of the victims: Gonzaga is owned by a small group of Jesuits as individuals and Seattle University is almost certainly a private corporation. What now?