I was a missionary in the Amazon for many years. The Society of Jesus was also there. These Jesuits came from the Boston group. They were most deidcated, hardworking and courageous men I have ever had the honor of working with. They had a genuine concern for the poor. They ran excellent schools. They had an excellent relationship with the local bishop and with other religious in the mission. They intervened on behalf of the poor with the local governments and alwasy won. They had many people in their mission parishes and excellent catechetical training centers. They aslo ran many technical schools, wich were badly needed in that region of the world.
As I was traveling back to the USA I stopped in Jamaica and found that one of them has founded a wonderful congregation of brothers, the Missionaries of the Poor. They also helped with the foundation and guidance of the male branch of Mother Teresa’s society, the Missionaries of Charity. Their current superior general is a Jesuit and those brothers are well trained and very holy men.
The most admirable quality of the Jesuits is their ability to face the Church as it is, not as we would like it to be. They deal in reality and they go from there. Many people do not like them because the Jesuits do not cherish ideals as we imagine them to be in order to protect ourselves from the painful reality that we live in a sinful world and a Church made up of sinners. They realize that perfection is not a way of escape. The Jesuits realize that you can only become a saint by facing yourself and assuming full responsibility for your life as your are and then submitting yourself to the transforming grace of God. Therefore, the Jesuits are not in the business of rescuing people from themselves. They are in the business of teaching people how to rescue themselves. Many people want priests and religious to rescue them and protect them. That is not the role of a Jesuit. You can find that among Franciscans who were founded to be brothers, but not Jesuits. They were not founded to be anyone’s brother. Therefore, they have no obligation to protect people from the sin in the world or the Church. Their obligation is to teach the sin and the way out. The rest is up to the listener.
In addition, they ae excellent scholars, which is also in their job description. They put issues and hard questions on the table. Often, people don’t like issues and questions on the table that are no in line with the tradition and faith of the Church. But no one ever said that Catholics should not be exposed to such issues and questions. How can Catholics identify them and respond to them, if they never hear them? That’s one of the roles of any theologian. What they do in the classroom and what they do in their own spiritual life are not always the same thing.
We have to look at how live and minister. The Church has no complaints about them as a Society. Like any other large organization, there are always lose canons. Heck, my family is smaller than the Jesuits and we have at least one lose canon to every 100 relatives. I guess that among 20,000 you’re going to have several.
I will say this. The Jesuits are not for the average Catholic. After working along side them I realize that they are at their best among the very poor and among the very educated and curious. I’ve always found that interesting and have never been able to put my finger on the why of it. They certainly do not do well with the average Catholic. My guess, only my guess, is that they are very oriented toward the poor, so they do well in that envrionment. Second, they are often so erudite that they speak another language, which makes them sound off-key to the average man in the pew, unlike the Dominicans, Franciscans and Salesians who are much more the man on the street type of preachers and teachers.
We have to ask ourselves if we don’t expect something of them that they are not meant to give. During my life as a religious, I have often found that people expect things of religious that are not realistic. They don’t do it out of malice. They do it because they don’t know the differences between religious charisms and mission. That’s our fault. We religious have not taught the laity enough about who we are and how we compliment each other, rather than be all the same. I know that my own community is finally waking up to this and we’re involved in a big campaign where ever we are to teach people about Franciscan charism and the differences between the many branches of our own religious fmaily. People just don’t know and they transfer expectations from one religious group to another. I believe this is happening here in this thread with the Jesuits. The expectations that I see are often more appropriate for the mendicants, not the Jesuits. The Jesuits are clerks regular. Therefore, their approach and the areas in which they will dabble, for lack of a better word, is going to be more flexible than the mendicants who are bound by a very tight and short leash.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
