[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
International News Title: Profiling Pope Francis as a Jesuit Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) January 18, 2015: On January 18, 2015, OpEdNews featured a piece by Daily Kos headlined "It's Finally Official: Pope Francis Demotes Highest-Ranking US Cardinal Over LGBT Issues." Pope Francis did indeed demote Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, as the piece notes. In the parlance of the Roman Catholic Church, cardinals are referred to as princes in the church's hierarchy. Cardinals are also bishops. In the church's hierarchy, the pecking order is bishop, archbishop, cardinal. Like most monarchs throughout history, Pope Francis does not like to have his own views criticized publicly by a courtier at the Vatican, as Cardinal Burke had done. As Daily Kos notes, Cardinal Burke's strident cultural-warrior views are shared by a number of other bishops in the United States. In addition, a certain number of lay American Catholic reactionaries hold strident cultural-warrior views as well. See Damon Linker's book THE THEOCONS: SECULAR AMERICA UNDER SIEGE (2006). However, if you want to succeed as a discrete and prudent courtier at the Vatican, you should the seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracian's book THE POCKET ORACLE AND ART OF PRUDENCE, translated by Jeremy Robbins of the University of Edinburgh (Penguin Classics, 2011; orig. ed., 1647). I have no reason to suspect that Pope Francis read Gracian's book, but it is possible that he may have read it. However, it is far more likely that Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, learned in effect how to embody the spirit of Gracian's advice in that book by studying the life and example of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit religious order in the Roman Catholic Church that is known by the informal name as the Jesuit order (also known by the formal name as the Society of Jesus). Progressives and liberals might cheer on Pope Francis when he inveighs against economic inequality. In addition, they might welcome his announced upcoming encyclical of climate change. But Pope Francis appears to be a media darling still. In part, this is due to his off-the-cuff comments at times, which the journalists covering him dutifully report. Oftentimes, his reported extemporaneous comments do not seem scripted. On the contrary, they seem spontaneously and refreshing. For example, his comment "Who am I to judge?" was widely reported -- and itself widely commented on. He made this comment in response to a hypothetical question about a homosexual possibly serving as a Roman Catholic priest. In light of the Roman Catholic bishops' opposition to same-sex marriage, which Pope Francis is also on record as opposing, his comment seems almost "off-message" (as we say when a politician says something that does not seem to be the usual, scripted message we would expect to hear). Clearly Pope Francis can hold to his position of opposing same-sex marriage, on the one hand, and say, on the other hand, "Who am I to judge?" regarding the hypothetical case of a homosexual possibly serving as an ordained Roman Catholic priest. In effect, Pope Francis's comment shows that he can walk and chew gum at the same time, as we say. However, Pope Francis is decidedly conservative regarding established positions taken by the Roman Catholic bishops. As a result, he is not likely to initiate any significant changes in established positions. But because of his ability to walk and chew gum at the same time, he may continue to come across as something less than a fervent cultural warrior regarding the established positions that he is not likely to change. Of course Pope Francis is the first Jesuit ever elected to serve as pope. As noted, the Jesuit religious order in the Roman Catholic Church was founded by St. Ignatius Loyola. In a relatively short time, the comparatively well- educated Jesuits were being characterized pejoratively as being "Jesuitical" by certain detractors. Historically, the Jesuits adopted the approach known as moral Probabilism in their practice of being confessors for the faithful. Their Probalism contended with the more legalistic medieval approach known as Tutiorism. No doubt the Jesuit use of Probabilism as confessors also contributed to their detractors' use of the term Jesuitical in a pejorative sense. See Robert Aleksander Maryks' book SAINT CICERO AND THE JESUITS: THE INFLUENCE OF THE LIBERAL ARTS ON THE ADOPTION OF MORAL PROBABALISM (2008). Incidentally, in six of his 112 learned endnotes, Robbins provides mentions Cicero in connection with various points that Gracian discusses. In theory, however, the term "Jesuitical" could also be used in a non- pejorative sense as a positive characterization of certain typical tendencies or behaviors of Jesuits. After all, the quip about not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time can be turned into a positive quip by saying that somebody (e.g., Pope Francis) can walk and chew gum at the same time. So if the pejorative descriptor "Jesuitical" can also be used in a non- pejorative way, we might wonder what the non-pejorative way of using "Jesuitical" might mean beyond the obvious sense of meaning "like a Jesuit." For example, we might wonder if Pope Francis is Jesuitical beyond the obvious sense of meaning "like a Jesuit." In other words, can we amplify a bit about what it may mean to be like a Jesuit? Because the term "Jesuit" is an informal name for the religious order, we should note that the order's more formal name is the Society of Jesus. Therefore, first and foremost, to be a Jesuit means to be like Jesus. Thus the non-pejorative meaning of Jesuitical should mean "like Jesus." But what does it mean to be like Jesus? For example, does it mean to imitate Jesus (assuming that it is somehow possible to imitate him)? The American Jesuit Walter J. Ong (1912-2003) addresses this question in his short piece "Mimesis and the Following of Christ" in the journal RELIGION AND LITERATURE, volume 26, number 2 (Summer 1994): pages 73-77. Briefly, Ong argues that Jesus in the gospels is portrayed as calling for people to follow him, not calling for people to imitate him (whatever that might mean). In this view, Jesuits claim to be followers of Jesus, but not necessarily imitators of Jesus (whatever that might mean). Arguably Jesus is portrayed in the four canonical gospels as a kind of cultural warrior and hero. For this reason, imitating Jesus could be understood to mean imitating him as a cultural warrior. But the spirit of following might not necessarily entail being a cultural warrior. In any event, we might wonder if the self-described Christians who originally used the term "Jesuitical" in the pejorative sense meant that they (the detractors) did not perceive the historical Jesuits as imitating Jesus as they (the detractors) expected them (the Jesuits) to. In other words, the distinction that Ong develops between imitating Jesus and following Jesus is an important distinction to understand. Of course the cardinal-electors who elected Pope Francis to be the new pope were aware that he was a Jesuit. As a result, they surely must have understood that Jesuits tend to be Jesuitical in the non-pejorative sense of the term. But any Jesuit who is Jesuitical in the non-pejorative sense may for this reason be open to the charge of being Jesuitical in the pejorative sense. Surely the cardinal-electors must have understood this possibility as well. But when we consider how Jesuits themselves understand what it means to be a Jesuit, we should consider St. Ignatius Loyola to be the primary exemplar of what it means to be a Jesuit. He was a mystic, and all Jesuits aspire to be mystics. However, as far as I know, Pope Francis has not publicly claimed at any time in his life that he has had profound mystical experiences of the order of St. Ignatius Loyola's profound mystical experiences. No doubt this has been the case with most Jesuits over the centuries. Nevertheless, Jesuits over the centuries have considered St. Ignatius Loyola to be a great spiritual master and exemplar. As a result, they aspire to follow his example, just as they also aspire to follow Jesus's example. So what does it mean to follow the example of St. Ignatius Loyola? In the introduction to his translation of Gracian's book THE POCKET ORACLE AND ART OF PRUDENCE (2011; orig. ed., 1647), mentioned above, Robbins makes a relevant comment: "Reading early modern Jesuit lives of Ignatius, it is striking how the saint's recorded actions and attitudes embody the specifics of much of Gracian's advice, or vice versa" (page xliii). Gracian was a moralist and a stylist. His famous book consists of 300 maxims, most of which are accompanied by a brief explanation. They are not arranged in any obvious order. So reading them in the order in which they are numbered involves a hop-skip-and-jump from one topic to the next to the next. Occasionally, some of them can be connected with one another thematically. For example, one theme involves what Robbins renders as "moral sense." As a stylist, Gracian wrote each accompanying explanation/commentary is a staccato style, not in a long-winded Ciceronian style. As Robbins notes, Gracian's style is Senecan, not Ciceronian (page xxx). The culminating maxim and its commentary, numbered 300, says the following: "In a word, a saint [like St. Ignatius Loyola?], which says it all at once and for all. Virtue links all perfections and is the centre of all happiness. It makes a person prudent, circumspect, shrewd, sensible, wise, brave, restrained, upright, happy, praiseworthy, a true and comprehensive hero. Three S's make someone blessed: being saintly, sound, and sage. Virtue is the sun of the little world of [humankind] and its sphere is a clear conscience. It is so fine, it gains the favour of both God and [humankind]. Nothing is worthy of love but virtue, nor of hate and vice [e.g., as expressed in the pejorative sense of "Jesuitical"]. Virtue alone is real, everything else is a mere jest. Ability and greatness must be measured by virtue, not by good fortune. It alone is self-sufficient. Whilst someone is alive, it makes them worthy of love; when dead, of being remembered" (page 112). Gracian's thought here is consistent with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Jesuits helped promote the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Robbins makes it abundantly clear that Gracian's thought about prudence is deeply attuned to St. Thomas Aquinas's thought. For a study relevant to Gracian's above- quoted explanation/commentary, see A. N. Williams' book THE GROUND OF UNION: DEIFICATION IN AQUINAS AND PALAMAS (1999). No doubt Gracian and other early Jesuits saw St. Ignatius Loyola as embodying all of these qualities. But does Pope Francis embody all of these qualities? If he does, it would not be hard to understand why the cardinal-electors would be willing to elect him to be the first Jesuit pope. Christopher Maurer also published an English translation of Gracian's book as THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM: A POCKET ORACLE (Crown Business/Random House, 1992). In his introduction to his translation, Maurer points out that both Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) admired Gracian's book. Schopenhauer translated Gracian's book into German. His translation was published posthumously in 1862. Maurier quotes Nietzsche saying that "Europe has never produced anything finer or more complicated in matters of moral subtlety [than Gracian's book has]" (quote on page vi). Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|