September 04, 2004

• Indian, Pakistani Honored for Working for Peace Between Two Countries
• Jesuit Schools Chosen for "Dead Man Walking" Play Project
• Candidates Not Talking About the Welfare Poor Says Jesuit
• Robert Drinan SJ, Law Professor and Former Congressman, Gets ABA Honor
• Jesuit Says School Closings Are Wake-up Call to the Church
• Is the Church Is Driving Youth Out?
• Remembrance of Things Past
• From the Editors

Indian, Pakistani Honored for Working for Peace Between Two Countries

The selection of an Indian and a Pakistani to share a Magsaysay award illustrates South Asia's desire for peace, said Fr T K John, a Jesuit theologian.

The Philippine-based Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation announced in August that retired Indian naval officer Laxminarayan Ramdas and Pakistani journalist Ibn Abdur Rehman will share the 2004 award for peace and international understanding.

Fr John, who is a member of the Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy that works for peace and progress in the region, said that the award recognizes "the fact that governments in India and Pakistan cannot ignore ordinary people's demand for peace in South Asia."

Rehman was founding chairman of the forum's Pakistani branch, and Ramdas was named vice chairman of the Indian branch and became chairman in 1996; both men guided the organization until 2003.

Fr John said that the forum was started in 1994 against the backdrop of decades of tension. The forum does not seek any direct support from the government, he said, but seeks to improve relations and reduce tensions between their governments by focusing on various aspects such as cultural relations. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]

Jesuit Schools Chosen for "Dead Man Walking" Play Project

The 28 US Jesuit colleges and universities have been chosen by actor Tim Robbins to perform his play, "Dead Man Walking", based on the book written by Sr Helen Prejean CSJ, over the course of the 2004-05 academic year.

"Tim has chosen Jesuit schools for the play project because he has high regard for the way Jesuit schools emphasize social justice as integral to Catholicism," said Sr Prejean.

In addition to having the play performed on the stage, segments of the script can be read in classrooms. Robbins has requested that schools give him feedback on the play and that as many departments as possible conduct simultaneous discourse on the death penalty while the play is being performed.

"The death penalty is one of the key moral issues of our day, and what better way to probe its meaning than to have living drama on stage and in the classroom," said Sr Prejean. "Complementing the dramatic effect of the play with discussions across disciplines should bring new clarity and focus to the issue." [Source: AJCU Connections]

Candidates Not Talking About the Welfare Poor Says Jesuit

Although both George W Bush and John Kerry emphasize their plans to improve the financial lot of the middle class, said Jesuit Fr Thomas Massaro, a moral theology professor at Weston Jesuit School of Theology, "nobody's talking about upward mobility for the poorest people, about people at the bottom of the job market."

Fr Massaro said both campaigns are responding to the political reality that "the poor don't vote," or at least not in significant enough numbers to make their concerns a priority.

"They're not a visible population," he said. "They're not well-organized."

He said Bush's policies, which the Republican describes as providing tax relief to stimulate the economy, are "all trickle-down economics. It's much more 'conservative' than it is 'compassionate.'"

Kerry comes closer to policies that actually address poverty, the priest said. "He keeps talking about the lower middle class, and that's great," said Fr Massaro. "The Democratic platform talks about raising the minimum wage to $7 an hour and that's great. But they're not talking about the 'welfare poor.'" [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]

Robert Drinan SJ, Law Professor and Former Congressman, Gets ABA Honor

Jesuit Fr Robert F Drinan, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a former member of Congress, received the American Bar Association's 2004 ABA Medal, the association's highest honor, on August 9 at a meeting in Atlanta.

The medal, which recognizes exceptional distinguished service to the cause of American jurisprudence, has been given since 1929 to some of the most important legal figures in American history, including eight Supreme Court justices.

"In an amazing career that has spanned more than half a century, Fr Drinan has never faltered in his extraordinary humanitarian efforts and support for justice under the law," said ABA president Dennis Archer, who presented the award.

A professor at Georgetown since 1981, Fr Drinan represented the Fourth District of Massachusetts in the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1981. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]

Jesuit Says School Closings Are Wake-up Call to the Church

"It's a wake-up call to the Catholic Church," said Fr Joseph O'Keefe SJ, of the growing number of Catholic school closings across the country.

The National Catholic Educational Association reported that 123 schools were closed or consolidated last year, while 34 new schools opened. Total Catholic school enrollment dropped by 2.7 percent.

Fr O'Keefe, interim dean of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, recently completed a study on urban Catholic schools and said the closings of predominantly inner-city schools "really runs against" the social justice mission of the church and its preferential option for the poor.

The only way to keep these schools open is through creative approaches, said Fr O'Keefe. They must "innovate or perish," he said.

Creativity needs to start with what he called "sophisticated fund raising" since schools can no longer just rely on bake sales, car washes, or Bingo nights.

Catholic schools, now run predominantly by lay people, no longer have the essentially free labor provided by religious sisters. Fr O'Keefe thinks schools, which he said pay their faculty two-thirds the salary of public school teachers, should look into what else they can provide as benefits to teachers – such as day care or senior care for parents--through local Catholic facilities. [Source: CNS. Do not repost electronically]

Is the Church Is Driving Youth Out?

Young people are being turned off to the Church and the priesthood by an increasingly autocratic and doctrinaire Catholic Church that is out of touch with the 21st century, according to Fr Frank Brennan SJ, in an article in The Australian newspaper.

Fr Brennan, a lawyer and human rights advocate, is about to spend time as a visiting fellow at Boston College, following more than a decade as head of the Sydney-based Jesuit Social Justice Center.

"All of us need to accept that the revolution in sexuality has left many people, especially young people, completely uninterested in the views of an all-male, unmarried clergy," he said.

He also said, "If we provide our Catholic graduates only with a rule book of do's and don'ts issued by the bishops, we know that many of those graduates will throw the book in the bin very soon after their departure from the school." [Source: www.cathnews.com]

Remembrance of Things Past

• Sep 1, 1907. The Buffalo Mission was dissolved and its members were sent to the New York and Missouri Provinces and the California Mission.
• Sep 2, 1792. In Paris, ten ex-Jesuits were massacred for refusing to take the Constitutional oath. Also in Paris seven other fathers were put to death by the Republicans, among them Frs Peter and Robert Guerin du Rocher.
• Sep 3, 1566. Queen Elizabeth visited Oxford and heard the 26-year-old Edmund Campion speak. He was to meet her again as a prisoner, brought to hear her offer of honors or death.
• Sep 4, 1760. At Para, Brazil, 150 men of the Society were shipped as prisoners, reaching Lisbon on December 2. They were at once exiled to Italy and landed at Civita Vecchia on January 17, 1761.
• Sep 5, 1758. The French Parliament issued a decree condemning Fr Busembaum's Medulla Theologiae Moralis.
• Sep 6, 1666. The Great Fire of London broke out on this date. There is not much the Jesuits have not been blamed for, and this was no exception. It was said to be the work of Papists and Jesuits. King Charles II banished all the fathers from England.
• Sep 7, 1773. King Louis XV wrote to Clement XIV, expressing his heartfelt joy at the suppression of the Society.
• Sep 8, 1600. Fr Matteo Ricci set out on his journey to Peking (Beijing). He experienced enormous difficulties in reaching the royal city, being stopped on his way by one of the powerful mandarins.
• Sep 9, 1773. At Lisbon, Carvalho, acting in the king's name, ordered public prayers for the deliverance of the world from the "pestilence of Jesuitism."
• Sep 10, 1622. The martyrdom at Nagaski, Japan, of Charles Spinola and his companions.
• Sep 11, 1681. At Antwerp, the death of Fr Geoffry Henschen (Henschenius). A man of extraordinary learning, he was Fr Jan von Bolland's assistant in compiling the Acts of the Saints.
• Sep 12, 1744. Benedict XIV's second Bull, Omnium Sollicitudinum, forbade the Chinese Rites. Persecution followed in China.
• Sep 13, 1773. Frederick II of Prussia informed the pope that the Jesuits would not be suppressed in Prussia and invited Jesuits to come.
• Sep 14, 1596. The death of Cardinal Francis Toledo, the first of the Society to be raised to the purple. He died at age 63, a cardinal for three years.
• Sep 15, 1927. Thirty-seven Jesuits arrived at Hot Springs, North Carolina, to begin tertianship. The property was given to the Jesuits by the widow of the son of President Andrew Johnson.
• Sep 16, 1883. The 23rd General Congregation opened at Rome in the Palazzo Borromeo (via del Seminario). It elected Fr Anthony Anderledy Vicar General with the right of succession.
• Sep 17, 1621. The death of St Robert Bellarmine, bishop and doctor of the Church.
• Sep 18, 1540. At Rome, Pedro Ribadeneira, aged fourteen, was admitted into the Society by St Ignatius (nine days before official papal confirmation of the Society).
• Sep 19, 1715. At Quebec, the death of Fr Louis Andre, who for 45 years labored in the missions of Canada amid incredible hardships, often living on acorns, a kind of moss, and the rind of fruits.
• Sep 20, 1990. First Congregation of Provincials meets at Loyola, Spain, on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the approval of the Society, and 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Ignatius.
• Sep 21, 1557. At Salamanca, Melchior Cano wrote to Charles V's confessor, accusing the Jesuits of being heretics in disguise.
• Sep 22, 1774. The death of Pope Clement XIV, worn out with suffering and grief because of the suppression of the Society. False stories had been circulated that he was poisoned by the Jesuits.
• Sep 23, 1869. Woodstock College of the Sacred Heart opened. With 17 priests, 44 scholastics, and 16 brothers it was the largest Jesuit community in the United States at the time.
• Sep 24, 1566. The first Jesuit enters the continental USA at Florida. Fr Pedro Martinez and others, while attempting to land, were driven back by the natives, and forced to
• make for the island of Tatacuran. He was killed there three weeks later.
• Sep 25, 1617. The death of Franisco Suarez. He wrote 24 volumes on philosophy and theology. As a novice he was found to be very dull, but one of his directors suggested that he ask our Lady's help. He subsequently became a person of prodigious talent.
• Sep 26, 1605. At Rome, Pope Paul V orally declared St Aloysius to be one of the "Blessed." The official brief appeared on October 19.
• Sep 27, 1540. Pope Paul III signed the Bull, Regimini Militantis Ecclesiae, which establishes the Society of Jesus.
• Sep 28, 1572. Fifteen Jesuits arrived in Mexico, including Fr Sanchez, as Provincial, to establish the Mexican Province. They soon opened a college.
• Sep 29, 1558. In the Gesu, Rome, and elsewhere, the Jesuits began to keep Choir, in obedience to an order from Paul IV. This practice lasted less than a year, until the pope's death in August, 1559.
• Sep 30, 1911. President William Howard Taft visited Saint Louis University and declared the football season open.

From the Editors

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