Your reminder about the suspect objectivity of some LifeSite reports is a good one. Spin must be kept within reasonable limits.
But the problem with the above part of your statement is that NOBODY calls themself a “pro-abortion” organization. Planned Parenthood even won’t call itself that. They all cloak themselves in distorted righteous vocabulary like Women’s Rights, or minority health care services, etc. In recent history (some Candian examples cited above, recent examples in the CCHD, not to mention the sex abuse scandals) bishop’s conferences haven’t done a terribly diligent job of checking under the sheepskins for wolves. When even ONE bishop DOES raise the alarm, it should take more than placating talk from one other ordinary to assuage the concerns to contributors. In my experience, when a bishop actually DOES call ‘WOLF’, there probably is one.
I’m not saying that the issue should be swept under the carpet. I’m sure it won’t be. Major Superiors do not function that way. I know, because I was a Major Superor for 12-years. When a bishop sounds an alarm, the Major Superior will present whatever information he has and ask the bishop to present whatever he has. Usually, a team is assigned to sort through it and report to both.
What is happening in the report is that the four Major Superiors are saying that they had an investigation done and the report that they receive does not reflect what the bishop’s report says. They’re not calling out the bishop and they’re not advocating anything. They’re stating a fact and the bishop is stating a fact.
However, the author of the article and some people on CAF are willing to jump and accuse these men of “supporting a pro-abortion organization” when they have never said that. They said the opposite. That the report they received says this is not a pro-abortion organization.
The difference here is a difference in findings between two sources. We would be unfair to take sides with either the bishop or the Jesuit superiors, as LifeSite has done in it’s title. Which is strange in itself. The title of the article alleges that the four Provincial Superiors are supportive of a pro-abortion organization. Then you read the article and it never shows you how LifeSite came to this conclusioin. By the author’s own admission, there are two reports, one given to the bishop and one given to the Jesuits and these reports are in conflict. They should have never titled that article as they did and we would not be having this discussion.
The title should have said that two independent sources are in conflict about X and that the bishop and the major superiors are talking about it.
We Catholics have to be very careful not shoot off our faces to spite our noses. In the USA we’re very fortunate to have 90% of our parishes run by secular priests who belong to the local diocese. That’s not the case around the world. In places like Mexico, the rest of South American, Asia, Africa and other, more than half of the parishes and institutions are run by religious men.
I did not become a Catholic unti my late teens. However, I grew up in a small town where the only parish, Catholic school and outreach ministry for 300 miles was run by Capuchin Franciscan Friars. I remember the Catholics, about the age my grandparents or just a little older than my parents, treating the Capuchin Provincial with great respect when he came to visit or when talking about him. Now that I look back, I realize that they had an awareness of the authority and power that a Major Superior has in the Church, even though they were simple people who probably did not know Canon Law… But they were smart enough to know that this friar controlled the Catholic life in this town. All he had to do was say one word and the paris, school and outreach center to the poor would close without notice.
Along with the respect that they had for religious, I believe there was a reality check going on there too. You can’t jump on someone who has the power to leave you in a spiritual ditch. I say this because some of these writers, not just LifeSite, have developed a very dismissive attitude toward Major Superiors, as if “We don’t need them. We can bash them and spin stories about them. If they walk, let them.” Such an attitude is neither kind nor accurate. Whenever you see a writer go there, pull back and ask yourself, “What’s his problem?”
As I said, the title is misleading. The content does not support what the title says. The title reflects that “We don’t care about the Major Superiors of the Jesuits or if we offend them by saying something that we cannot prove. They’re just religious superiors.” Very dangerous to the people who depend on these superiors.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
