The Holy Founder

The Holy Founder
St. Ignatius of Loyola

Welcome the "Reforming the Jesuits" blog.

This blog has the objective of reforming the Jesuits. The logic is first to show that the Jesuits need to be reformed and second to consider the means needed to achieve that end.

Why should non-Jesuits be concerned about reforming the order?
The Jesuit order like any religious order has as an end to serve Christ by serving His Church. The members of the Church have the right to control the quality of the service that it is receiving.

The service that the Catholic faithful receive comes from institutional decisions and from individual Jesuits. Many love the traditional Society of Jesus, her saints, her mysticism, and her history but are dismayed by the direction taken by the current management. Many have been served by pious orthodox Jesuits but are scandalized by others. It seems that there is an identity crisis. The very institution does not know what its ends are. While the documents of the order are clear, institutional discipline has broken down, some members are confused and leaders have refused to lead.


What should be done? Some argue that the Society should be suppressed again. That would be a shame. Given that the name of the Society of Jesus in Spanish is La Compañía de Jesús, maybe what should be preferred is a hostile takeover of the Company. That does not seem possible. During the crazy post VCII days some Orthodox Spanish Jesuits advanced the proposal of the establishment of a reformed ordered following the example of the Carmelites and Trapists, others proposed the foundation of "strict observance" provinces.


This blog aims to apply moral pressure advancing arguments for what seems to be a clear truth: the Jesuits need reformed. Then it invites brain storming looking for possible solutions. Ideas are powerful but prayer is more powerful. We invite readers to pray. Invoke the Jesuit saints.

Followers

Monday, November 5, 2007

Reason 1,769,006 for reforming the Jesuits

A prominent Jesuit priest accused of sexually victimizing teenage boys who were his valets as he traveled the world leading Roman Catholic spiritual retreats was taken into federal custody yesterday in Chicago.

The priest, the Rev. Donald J. McGuire, was charged by the federal authorities with traveling to Switzerland and Austria to engage in sexual conduct with a minor. Father McGuire was convicted last year of sexually abusing two high school students on trips to Wisconsin.

He was free on parole awaiting an appeal.

If convicted on the new federal charge, he could face up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Father McGuire, 77, has spent much of his career directing retreats for laypeople and members of Mother Teresa’s religious order. He entered Federal District Court in Chicago yesterday leaning on a walker and wearing a blue suit, without a priest’s collar.

An assistant United States attorney, Julie B. Ruder, called him a flight risk and a danger to the community. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys decided against releasing him on bond.

Victims’ lawyers released documents this week that showed that as far back as 1969 parents had contacted Jesuit officials to report that Father McGuire was behaving in sexually incorrect ways with their sons.

The order also received complaint letters from parents in 1993, 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003.

In that time, Father McGuire traveled alone with teenagers as young as 13, usually sharing a room and often a bed, according to the affidavit unsealed yesterday.

The actions continued despite orders from his Jesuit superiors in the Chicago Province in 1991 instructing Father McGuire not to travel on overnight trips “with any boy or girl under the age of 18 and, preferably, even under the age of 21.”

In 2001, Father McGuire was ordered not to travel or share a room with anyone younger than 30.

Investigators in the United States attorney’s office in Chicago interviewed three men who said that as teenagers they traveled with Father McGuire to dozens of states and overseas, often cleaning his laundry, cooking, helping him shower and giving him massages and shots for diabetes.

They said Father McGuire repeatedly showed them pornographic magazines and movies, sexually abused them and intimidated them into remaining silent.

Sometimes after the abuse, he would perform the rite of absolution. One of the reported victims said the first time Father McGuire molested him was at confession, when he was 9. The parents had considered it an honor when the prominent priest mentored their sons.

The boy who reportedly traveled with Father McGuire to Switzerland and Austria roomed with him in a Jesuit residence in Evanston, Ill., in 1999, starting at age 13, and stayed until 2003.

That was one year after the Catholic bishops of the United States declared that all priests credibly accused of abuse should be removed from ministry service.

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