Interesting Bellamarie - the author of the link seems to see the Jesuits through a different eye saying they were not of the highest standing from the get go - where as my experience is they grew into the order described by Jessica Dalton - I agree this is what the order grew to become - I use a wonderful book based on the thinking and teaching of St. Ignatius, who founded the Jesuits -
Take Five: On-The-Job Meditations With St. Ignatius that does not match the character of what I've been seeing, what I've heard and now your link confirming the dark side of the Jesuits and so my question became - "Wha' Happened?" - This says a lot...
https://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/2024/07/31/what-would-saint-ignatius-of-loyola-say-about-the-order-of-jesuits-today/I'm also seeing the books written by
Malachi Martin are finger pointing the cause of what is happening within the church since Vatican II and aligns the upheaval within the church to the competition for power among nations and groups of nations like the EU - He sees the conflict between Liberation Theology which was actually started and the published handbook emanated from a Dominican in South American not a Jesuit however, Martin sees the battle lines drawn for world power based in economics that requires a strong leader in the Vatican as do the Jesuits rather than what many in the church see as its future, In place of a hierarchic Church, they are aiming at a church composed of small and autonomous communities of people—“the people of God,” as they are collectively known, or “the people’s Church”—all loosely associated only by faith, but definitely not by one central and centralizing authority such as the papacy claims to be.
Whose right and whose wrong it not my interest - but reading many books on the battle taking place within the church that most suggest started back in the 1920s and 30s and came to a visible head during Vatican II I've been trying to get a handle on what it is all about - I think the world powers have gone beyond the triumvirate Martin described of the U.S. versus Russia Versus the Church - this division was more about ideology where as I think it has now warped into a fight for power based less on ideology and more on economics and control fought out in ways to increase or decrease the power of a group by attacking its wealth. However, that is beside the point - I have known since some time in High School there are two sides to the church - the power, governing, political versus the prayerful, sacramental, theologian side - and yes, one affects the other - Currently this thirst for world dominance maybe to flood the world with a set of values however it is centered in the power game and leaves me questioning how to maintain a spiritual life that is the basis for my yes, existence which is a church definition but for me a basis of my daily ability to function. Understanding the power game helps me sort out what theology and examples of traditions and of those in church history that is being used as ammunition to support an aspect of the power game therefore, aspects of each are altered to make a point versus going deeper into the original intent to support my daily 'food' that I require to function.
All that to say I will continue to use the thoughts from St. Ignatius in
Take Five: and then realize the many authors published today describing and wrestling with changes in the church and the history of how we got here are simply carrying on a public dialogue that we can all hear or rather read rather than only a few privileged, who could observe and share their two cents as for instance during the time of the Medici's or even earlier the East-West Schism when the Eastern Orthodox Churches had a different view of papal authority and of course the Reformation that did include more of the public since the printing press made communications accessible.
I thought I remembered something and sure enough
Umberto Eco wrote in
Chronicles of a Liquid Society --- "We are witnessing the disappearance of something that used to ensure individuals could resolve the various problems of our time in a homogeneous fashion.
The crisis in the concept of community gives rise to unbridled individualism: people are no longer fellow citizens, but rivals to beware of. This “subjectivism” has threatened the foundations of modernity, has made it fragile, producing a situation with no points of reference, where everything dissolves into a sort of liquidity. The ... only solutions for individuals who have no points of reference are to make themselves conspicuous at all costs, to treat conspicuousness as a value, and to follow consumerism.
Yet this is not a consumerism aimed at the possession of desirable objects that produce satisfaction, but one that immediately makes such objects obsolete. People move from one act of consumption to another in a sort of purposeless bulimia: the new cell phone is no better than the old one, but the old one has to be discarded in order to indulge in this orgy of desire."
And in his
Inventing the Enemy: he says --- "It seems we cannot manage without an enemy. The figure of the enemy cannot be abolished from the processes of civilization. The need is second nature even to a mild man of peace. In his case the image of the enemy is simply shifted from a human object to a natural or social force that in some way threatens us and has to be defeated...
...Is our moral sense therefore impotent when faced with the age-old need for enemies? I would argue that morality intervenes not when we pretend we have no enemies but when we try to understand them, to put ourselves in their situation... Trying to understand other people means destroying the stereotype without denying or ignoring the otherness.
...since, in order to wage war, we need an enemy to fight, the inevitability of war is linked to the inevitability of identifying and creating an enemy."
Hmm and so wise words from of all writers a Novelist, who it appears is as much a philosopher as he is a story teller.
