31 August 2012

REASONS 2546 AND 2547 WHY I NEVER BECAME A JESUIT


Two Irish Jesuits vocations posters. H/T Fr. Blake

A long time ago, a fair number of years after the Nu-Church Modernists assumed control, I seriously considered the priesthood. Discernment always, unequivocally, pointed in the direction of the Jesuits.


My mentality is thoroughly Jesuitical. Why do you wonder posts at this blog are so long, intricated and laborious? How else is to be explained the blunt meanness periodically interrupted by bursts of outlandish, edgy humour?


But, you see, I mean Jesuitical in the old time sense, positively - when the order was faithful, tough and intellectually rigorous. Now, after its transmogrification, it is mostly populated by proportionalists, liberation theology afficiandos and all manner of subtlizing fruitcakes. Thusly, I never applied to a seminary and never again considered the priesthood.


Fills me with a shuddering disgust when I'm reminded of what the Jesuits have become, as illustrated in those cheezy, vulgar, offensive posters. It is a personal, subjective feeling. Mine alone. But it is there nonetheless. Perhaps the intensity of my contempt (not hatred) is explainable by the fact that, in the naiveté of my younger days, I actually revered Jesuits and wanted to be like them.


What is Reason 2545, you ask?... America magazine.


Next post is coming. It will be long, intricated, laborious, sometimes bluntly mean, with bursts of outlandish humour.


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26 comments:

Seraphic said...

I am pretty sure the world "Ignatian" or "Jesuit" was in this promise when I took it back in 2006 (2007?): 

"As a member of Alpha Sigma Nu,I promise to do everything in my powerTo carry out the ideals of Scholarship,Loyalty and Service.I will be committed to intellectual integrityand the pursuit of wisdom.I promise to be loyal to the moral, social,and religious ideals of my education.I promise to be genuinely committedto the well-being of others and active in serving them.I will do all thisin light of the Jesuit concernAnd for the greater honor and glory of God."So here I am again to stick up for my buddies, the Jesuit ones this time. I know good, orthodox Canadian Jesuits. I also know at least one good, orthodox and seriously traditional Canadian Jesuit. And then there is, of course, Father Fessio.

AllenT said...

Good reasons, but did you ever consider becoming a fifth columnist & infiltrating from within, hooking up with other good Jesuits & staging a coup?
PS Has Mr. Scampers been kidnapped by aliens? He has been gone for way too long.

TH2 said...

You are a good friend, sticking up for the few remaining. Speaking of the few, recently deceased traditionalist priest, Fr. Hugh Thwaites, SJ, requested in his will that his Requiem Mass be Tridentine. His so-called brothers in his order are not fulfilling that request.

TH2 said...

That would be a monumental task necessitating saintly propensities, of which I am devoid. Interesting suggestion, however. Think I'll stick to being a Fifth Columnist at this here blog.

David Anthony Domet said...

Rather queer, methinks.

TH2 said...

Right you are. sir.

Cygnus said...

I went to the Jesuit-run Loyola College in Maryland.  If I had it to do over again, I'd try a Catholic school next time.

Suzanne Fortin said...

Someone should start the order of Discalced Jesuits or ...something like that. :)

TH2 said...

Sorry about that. The Modernist education contagion runs far afield. If it's any consolation, one year in elementary school, Catholic, the teachers made us do a play... Jesus Christ, Superstar. I was one of the Roman soldiers who - with tin foil helmet, shield and sword - "escorted" Christ to the Cross. The nightmares remain to this day and I've been on heavy drugs ever since.

TH2 said...

Nifty idea, m'lady. Another good name would be Deconstructed Jesuits.

Seraphic said...

Oh no. I hope there is a mistake there because I was told at my Jesuit ministry school that the wishes of the dead, as the most vulnerable people in the situation, must take precedence. 

Although I sometimes ponder the pre-Arrupe (aka "the Second Ignatius") days of the SJ with nostalgic sighs, I must admit that it looks like the pre-Arrupe SJ more or less killed Gerard Manley Hopkins with neglect. Thus, one of the greatest English poets died of preventable illness at 45 when his siblings lived into their 80s or 90s. 

I do not think that would happen today. Tall poppy syndrome does continue in the SJ, but not to such an extent. 

Tancred said...

Old school Jesuits were streetwise, modern Jesuits are out of touch elderly social workers.

TH2 said...

That would be my Reason No. 2544.

Roberto said...

Here's a twist: I had a rigorous secondary school Jesuit education in the 1970s. By university, I could bang out a very well referenced A essay without too much trouble. My theological studies were largely with Jesuit professors in the 1980s. I learned from them to go to the sources (i.e., Sacred Scripture(  [ss] and Tradition) for my research, writing, theologizing.  I learned to reference, cross-reference and check for internal consistencies in what I was reading, and to check theological writings for corroboration with SS and Tradition and with theologians who stayed rooted in the same.  Hmm... come to think of it, I do smell the same Jesuitical flavour in your posts, HH :)
I now work with colleagues coming out of faculties of theology and religious education who are the fruit of theolgies formed in discontinuity with the past. They don't know their bible well, and don't know Tradition, even if only Vatican II, the CCC and BXVI encyclicals - in fact, some of them struggle so much with the theological language (like many lay persons unfamiliar with the terminology), they just don't read it. They're put in positions of leadership in their Catholic organizations, and in my mind, they're not ready. Most have their hearts in the right place, but the Jesuits taught me that I must be able to back up my opinions with solidly founded sources. I thank the Jesuits for teaching me to reason like a Catholic, and not with the sad hermeneutic of discontinuity which has led so many astray.  Bishop Terry Prendergast (+Ottawa) is another fine example.

Patrick Button said...

I suppose the orthodox order most similar to the Jesuits would be the Dominicans.  

TH2 said...

Thanks for dropping in. I envy you in that your Jesuit education was legit, the real thing. One regret of mine is that, although attending Catholic schools, I never received that kind of rigorous training/education by a religious community. I suffered through the "World Religions" universalism phase of Catholic education, laymen teachers just going through the motions, acoustic guitar circles, kumbaya and associated krap. Another regret, I wish I known a tough, no-nonsense, faithful priest to look up to and model myself after when a young lad. I know for sure that, had that been the case - if I had the guidance (moral, intellectual, disciplinary), I would not have made certain choices, or done stupid things, later on.

TH2 said...

That might be the case.

P.S. Followed your Iraq chronicles. Fascinating. Must have been a great experience.

Michelangelo said...

I mentioned the escapades of some of my Jesuit teachers in a previous post, and after my 8 years of Jesuit education, HS and undergrad, BA 1975, I realize I was witnessing the undoing of a once-great order,  at least in the US.  The Jebbies still have some excellent priests in NA, and the order in certain other countries (where some of the good guys fled to) is doing better.  From my limited experience, as with other orders, when the "authoritarian" style of running the order was set aside as one of the misinterpretations of VII, all hell broke loose.  Over those 8 years, the good guys, who were generally older, did not go into leadership posts, but remained instructors, and then retired.  I was one of those who just tried to get what I could out of what was given.  That sounds heroic, but it wasn't, I was pretty much confused, and did my share of going with the flow.  Not a lot of great leadership.  But I did get to know one very holy retired Jesuit priest at college who resided on campus, and that made up for the rest, thanks be to God.

 I read Aquinas's Summa at the Public Library on my way home from HS between changing city buses.  I would pull out books in the HS library on the art of Rhetoric, which were obviously textbooks used in previous years, but no longer taught.  The kids now do the same I imagine with the Greek grammar, Xenophon, etc, that I used.  So we can pray for the order and our Church here in the New World, that the new growth, by the Grace of God, come fast and furious, so we don't have to endure such sad situations much longer.  Pope Benedict has called for the religious orders to return to their original charism.  OREMUS!  God bless!

Anita Moore said...

So, you DO have a tinfoil hat in your pedigree!

TH2 said...

Reading Tommy on a bus while in high school! I like that imagery. Good stuff.

TH2 said...

Miss America is a comedian. How charming.

Marc Ratusz said...

If there was a Traditional Jesuit order (like the Dominicans at Avrille or the Benedictines in Silver City NM [alas they might fall into the Conciliar Ring of Doom] I certainly would have made a go of it. A great order that produced great saints.... that ended up giving us Karl Rahner and for a while before he left, Hans Urs von Balthasar, two great Balrogs whose theology has warped much that was good.

I pity any kid who had to watch let alone participate in any production of that uber-blasphemous Jesus Christ Superstar......the horror.....the horror..........

TH2 said...

Not too many speak of him that often, but the notorious Karl had a brother named Hugo, also a Jesuit. The latter a wrote a pretty good book I read years ago, entitled Church and State in Early Christianity

Patrick Button said...

 Thanks!  It was!

Bernadettepowers said...

I feel the same way about Jesuits..but for the exception of the humble and saintly Fr. Hardon. I met him at a conference several years ago and had the priviledge of buttoning the collar of his cassock. I think it was probably his first and only one. The collar was extremely tight and very frayed. He really was a great saint. I had heard that he lived in the basement of the Jesuit house..cant be sure of that though

TH2 said...

I know a nun who, too, met Fr. Hardon. She was also laudatory. Yes, a great priest.

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