Posted on 02/05/2006 9:45:29 PM PST by Coleus
'Black Pope' to stand down By Richard Owen
The head of the Jesuits, known as the “Black Pope” because of his black robes, is to step down voluntarily for the first time in the order’s 500-year history.
Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, a Dutch prelate who has been Jesuit Superior General since 1983, resigned after tensions between the liberal-minded Jesuits and more conservative forces in the Roman Catholic Church. Since the election of Pope Benedict XVI last April a battle has been fought between the Jesuits and the conservative Opus Dei for control of the Vatican’s media operations.
The Vatican said that Father Kolvenbach wanted to “hand the baton to a younger man”, and that Pope Benedict XVI had given his blessing to the move. Father Kolvenbach will stand down in 2008, when he is 80. The Jesuits, the largest Catholic order, are said to have led opposition to the election of Pope Benedict.
The Jesuits have gone liberal?
Always. My husband described my Jesuit dissertation advisor as looking like a Miami gambler.
Is that sarcastic? Jesuits are now the most notoriously liberal group of priests there are.
Perhaps Benedict XVI will be tasking Father Joseph Fessio with the monumental task of cleaning up the Society of Jesus.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the Jebbies abolished again.
There are seeds of hope among Jesuits already. Specifically in the New Orleans Province. And of course, as everywhere else in the Church, they are more or less flourishing proportionally to their orthodoxy. Let us pray that one of these courageous Jesuits of the New Faithful takes command and brings the historically most badass order in the Church back in line.
I can't imagine what it must be like to be a "good" Jesuit, such as Fr. Fessio or others like him. They have been relentlessly persecuted by their order and it's hard to imagine how they have survived in such an environment. To say nothing of the lavender aspect, since the Jesuits have the highest (or is it second highest, after the Franciscans) AIDS rate among Catholic religious orders.
For all yours information and viewing pleasure, check-out the boys in the New Orleans Province Novitiate. A friend of mine (now a St. Louis seminarian) and I went on a vocations retreat there last December (2004) where I met some of those guys so I can roughly attest to their holiness, heterosexuality, and good-guyness! They had a big entry class this year (almost double the previous!) So please pray for them and their continued success!
http://norprov.org/vocations/index.htm
Suppression is in the air...there are precedents!
Benedikt, Gott Geschickt!
Now they look like the Jesuits of old! A sight for sore eyes!
Did you decide to go in?
Nope. While there is hope of reform for the Jesuits, it's a long way off and to put it bluntly I don't have a love for the Society that would allow me to stomach the liberal hoops I would have to jump through. For instance, in the NO novitiate for evening prayer, a different novice gets to lead it each night. While half the time they simply chant or pray from the Divine Office (when led by a more traditionalist novice) there's still plenty of more progressive forms of worship that I can't stomach. It's complicated and I won't go into it too much, but basically there's too much of the old guard left in the Jesuits for me. I know some really solid young SJs who will discretely become the future leadership of the order, but I don't feel called to join them. So no Jesuits for me, most likely I will beginning at the major seminary next fall for the Archdicese of St. Paul, MN. If you want a great diocese where good things are happening, that's where you should look. 15 newly ordained priests last spring! In the US, second only to Chicago and for a diocese probably a quarter the size.
Ad Majorem Gloriam Dei!
Checked your Supreme Court lately?
Where have you been? The joke is that the Jesuits were the largest order in the Catholic Church. Now they are the largest order outside the Catholic Church. But I kid. Sime Jesuits actually believe in God.
Do you really think that after he made the man who allowed Fr. Fessio to exiled, the head of the CDF?
I'm not a Catholic so I haven't been keeping tabs on them. Two jesuits that I had for philosophy years ago were staunchly conservative. Then of course they were ex-Jesuits. Both were products of Santa Clara University.
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