Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Missing Jesuits At America Magazine

Where are the missing Jesuits at America Magazine?
I tried a little experiment with the search engine at America Magazine. I wanted to find out how many times Jesuit Frs. Fessio (Started the largest Catholic publishing company in the world), Pacwa (the most watched Jesuit in the world, ever, on EWTN) and (RIP)Hardon (Prolific author, one of the nation's greatest catechists and world renowned spiritual director. He the spiritual director and confessor to Mother Teresa) where mentioned in America. In the last twenty years these three are some of the most popular Jesuits in the country. These three are also the most high profile conservative Jesuits of the ten provinces in North America.
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First I tried Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J.
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Here are the results.
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Just 2 articles mention Fr. Mitch.
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First, Prof. Gaillardetz lumps Fr. Mitch in his anti-catholic apologetic diatribe, of the most popular and effective lay Catholic evangelizers of the last twenty years.
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Apologetics has enjoyed renewed interest among Catholics of North America in the past 25 years. One sign of this is the burgeoning popularity of the so-called new apologists, figures like Scott Hahn, Gerry Matatics, Karl Keating, Mitch Pacwa, S.J., Peter Kreeft and Patrick Madrid. Their distinctive approach to Catholic apologetics lies in its determination to address the contemporary challenges of Protestant fundamentalism on the one hand, and what they see as the false irenicism and intellectual anemia of liberal Catholic theology on the other.
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Second, 6 years ago a small snippet in the catch all, Sign of the Times.
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Signs of the Times
CNS and Staff FEBRUARY 4, 2002
Jesuit Priest to Fill in at EWTN for Ailing Mother Angelica
Mitch Pacwa, S.J., who taught at the University of Dallas, is taking on a permanent role at the Eternal Word Television Network, which will include filling in for the ailing Mother Angelica. Mother Angelica, 78, remained in fair condition at a Birmingham, Ala., hospital after suffering a stroke, her second, on Dec. 24.
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Just one article mentions the late Fr. John Hardon, S.J.
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Fr. John is just a footnote in an article 5 years ago about Mother Teresa.
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Blessed Is She
By Patricia A. Kossmann OCTOBER 13, 2003
I t was on a balmy day in early autumn, some 20 years ago, that I was privileged to meet Mother Teresa personally. She was in the United States making visitations to some of her Missionaries of Charity communities. At this particular time she was at their house on 145th Street in the South Bronx. Actually, I was the guest of the late Eileen Egan (1911-2000), the well-known pacifist and a longtime acquaintance of Mother Teresa, with whom she traveled more than 30 years around the world. Doubleday was publishing Egan’s biography of Mother Teresa, entitled Such a Vision of the Street (which, regrettably, is no longer in print). We left from my offices at Doubleday, then located on Park Avenue, and were chauffeured to the Bronx by the late John A. Hardon, S.J. (1914-2000), who was then a spiritual adviser to the sisters.
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Now for Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. he gets just 3 mentions.
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Here 6 years ago Fr. Fessio gets his nose rubbed in his ousting at USF.
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Signs of the Times
CNS and Staff MARCH 18, 2002
Vatican Backs U.S.F. on Institute; Ignatius Press Launches School
After the Vatican backed the University of San Francisco’s control of the St. Ignatius Institute, Ignatius Press announced that it was forming Campion College, a two-year college “embodying both the spirit and the curriculum of the original St. Ignatius Institute.” The St. Ignatius Institute was founded in 1976 by Joseph D. Fessio, S.J., a theology professor at the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco from 1975 to 1992.
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Signs of the Times
CNS and Staff APRIL 16, 2001

Joseph D. Fessio, S.J., a co-founder of the institute who was fired by an earlier president for financial mismanagement, said the move was the result of a longtime effort by professors outside the institute, particularly Jesuit theology professors, to gain control over the institute, which they saw as “too narrow and too extremist.” Father Fessio said that he had met with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, about the situation and that he had appealed to Pope John Paul II to intervene. Father Frank Case, an assistant to the Jesuit general superior in Rome, said that as of March 29 he had no indication that the Vatican was considering Father Fessio’s request. The Jesuit superior general’s position is that the dispute is a matter that must be resolved locally, Father Case said.
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Here in a Jesuit pile-on from the same time frame of USF fiasco.
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April 02, 2001
By Fr. Fred Kammer, S.J. (Writing as head of Catholic Charities USA and now the outgoing Provincial of the New Orleans Province)
A frequently reappearing attack article relished by conservative commentators like the Rev. Robert Sirico, Joseph Fessio, S.J., and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, as well as the columnists Michael Novak and George Will, was written in 1999 by The City Journal’s Brian Anderson. Anderson visited two of 1,400 local Catholic Charities sites, then carefully wove together myths and half-truths garnered from many of the same archconservative sources and declared that we in Catholic Charities had lost our soul to government. Why? Because we had supported increasing the minimum wage, confronting racism, community organizing, parish social ministry and so forth. Furthermore—horrors!—we opposed welfare reform in its 1996 form.
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However,
Rogue theologian, Teilhard de Chardin, SJ get 39 mentions in past 8 years.
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The quaint, but archaic movement of the 60 and 70's, Liberation Theology gets 229 mentions in the past 8 years.

1 comment:

Jeremy said...

Hello, I am curious about the connection between the renewal movement in the Church and the craziness of a percentage of Jesuits. I am involved in the renewal, ie charisms, Baptism of the Holy Sprit, etc. But I don't hold any of America Magazines opinions. Is their any correlation in the hisory of the Charismatic movement to wacky perspectives of some theologians, if so can you give some examples so I can research. I know our last three Popes have been kind to the renewal, I am curious why these Jesuits are so far out of realities reach. Thanks Jeremy