I'm wondering if there's something else, something related to canon law. Anybody know?
It's good to see that the Jesuits can still exercise discipline --- to some extent --- over their own members. It's a good precedent. It's small, but it's a start.
Let's see if Pope Francis confirms the dismissal.
“...So don’t be vain and don’t be whiny
Or else, my brother, I might have to get medieval on your heiny!”
There are peace advocates and peace activists. The problem is that they want peace through surrender, when the only way to get peace is to WIN it!
There's another douchebag at Jesuit HS in Sacramento who needs to focus on his flock instead of leftist activity.
I suspect this came from the very top. Francis’ biography is clear that though he embraced some of the goals of Liberation theology for the poor, he was very dead set against its Marxist component, and deeply distrusted its secular elements.
The activities of John Dear would be known to him, and the Pope likely saw him to be a viper in disguise.
Appreciate your insight. Even as a Catholic I am still not familiar with the Jesuits, beyond my dear Father Pacua on EWTN, whose name I misspell plenty.
This Jesuit J. Dear apparently jumped the shark politically speaking, and then added disobedience, independence and now resentment towards his fathers in the Church and it seems to me you have a case for a political radical who deserves the boot to the netherregion.
Unfortunately, the Church is home to some socialists and worse, particularly in some regions more than others. We are in trouble with the Enemy—always have been, always will be.
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I don’t know anything directly about this, but I imagine that if he was a peace “activist,” he probably annoyed his superiors by spending too much time on it, not free time but time when he was supposed to be doing something else.
Obedience is one of the vows of the order. Probably he disobeyed orders to report to certain places or do certain jobs because he was too busy being a peace activist.
Rather than discipline for his opinions, they clearly decided to discipline for his failure to follow one of his solemn vows. And to make it clear that he was refusing to mend his ways, they ordered him to report to a “specified house” of the order. He failed to do so, even when he would told that failure would mean dismissal.
So, he was dismissed, with no complicated arguments about whether or not his peace protests were justifiable.
I don’t think the Pope has any say in this matter. It’s the purview of the Jesuits, and the Pope is only a member, not the head of the Order.
The command seems to have been to return to the mother house, which he refused to do.
Many members of religious orders, from Thomas Merton to Daniel Berrigan, have gotten famous for doing things outside of the vocation of the religious order and have simply rejected the order’s control over them. They became celebrities and the order actually didn’t dare to discipline them.
Merton brought a lot of money into his order and therefore was allowed to live a nice “celebrity monk” life in his own space, write, have guests, travel as he wanted, etc.
Berrigan brought a lot of publicity to his order and they obviously thought this excused everything else he did.
But things have changed, and while I’m sure both Francis and the Jesuits probably think Dear’s leftist “peace activism” is just fine, it seems that maybe they want members of the order to remember that they are, in fact, members of the order.
Word on the street is that the Jesuits had found out that he had asked a Franciscan of the Immaculate to teach him how to offer the Traditional Latin Mass ;)
The Jesuits are in need of major housecleaning.
That's nonsense, isn't it? Pope Francis, since he accepted the position of Bishop of Rome, is neither under the authority of the Society of Jesus nor in authority over its internal matters.