Watching the Jesuits Decline & Fall

The Archetypal and Declining Jesuits

Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 7:33 PM

by David Mills


“But even as the Jesuits brace for near-extinction in this part of the world, their ideals are spreading,” writes a sympathetic Washington Post reporter in Fewer Jesuit priests this Easter, but more people learning Jesuit ideals.

The lack of new priests, they say, must be part of God’s vision for lay people. So rather than mourn, the Jesuits have been busy building an elaborate system for passing along their beliefs and unique meditative rituals, imaginative prayer known as the “spiritual exercises.” . . .

“Some people outside will see this as a crisis, but we inside don’t see it that way. We see it as an invitation to share our tradition with lay men and women,” said the Rev. Kevin O’Brien, executive director of campus ministry at Georgetown University. “It’s no better, no worse; it’s just different.”

This is the decline she’s describing, of an order whose average age is getting close to 70, at least in America:

When John Langan came to Georgetown University in 1975 as a young Jesuit priest, he was one of 112 brothers from the Catholic order on campus. Jesuit Robert Drinan, a Massachusetts Democrat, was in Congress, and Jesuit John McLaughlin had recently been in the West Wing advising Republican President Richard Nixon.

Today there are barely half as many Jesuits at Georgetown, the order’s flagship university. Gonzaga, a Jesuit high school in Northwest Washington, is down to 17, compared with 43 in 1970. There’s talk that St. Aloysius, a Jesuit parish in the District known for its social justice efforts, could close when the last remaining Jesuit leaves. And there are no full-time Jesuit staff members at the Washington Jesuit Academy, where the board chairman is Jewish.

The situation is nearly as bad elsewhere in the country and Europe, though reportedly the Jesuits are doing much better in Africa. A once great religious order is now in the institutional equivalent of a hospice. (Though, let me be clear, I know some wonderful Jesuits.)

One can debate the reasons, but one of them seems obvious. As the author puts it, admiringly: “Jesuits are the archetype of priests with PhDs who protest in the streets or otherwise advocate for causes, often politically liberal ones.”

That is the archetype, but only part of it. They are also the archetype of the priests with PhDs who set themselves in opposition to the Church’s teaching and run institutions notorious for their disregard and abuse of that teaching. Think, for example, of the gay pride celebrations at places like Georgetown.

Some Jesuits will complain that this isn’t fair, that it’s a stereotype created by cranky conservatives and a sensationalist press, but to the extent that it is a stereotype, it is one the Jesuits have brought upon themselves and one they’ve done almost nothing to contradict. Has any official Jesuit body disciplined a member? Have they chided their colleges for their homosexualist events? No.

As archetypes go, this really isn’t one likely to attract many young men to a life of sacrifice. The average Catholic young man, even if he grew up entirely within the Catholic educational system, knows that he has a lot of choices for what he wants to do with his life. The priesthood and the religious life have to draw him in and appeal to him in a way all the other options don’t.

He can get a Ph.D. without being a Jesuit. He can protest in the streets without being a Jesuit. He can be a political advocate without being a Jesuit. He can do all that and have a family and a job.

What he has to want, if he’s going to join the order, is to be what only a Jesuit can be. And that archetype includes fidelity to the Church’s teaching. Such a young man these days will be religiously serious, which almost always means traditional and believing. If he’s going to be a Jesuit, he’s going to be an old-fashioned one.

But the Jesuits, revealingly, at least if the Washington Post story is correct, are happy to let their order decline and disappear, with excuses that sound as if they were made up by a public relations firm, like “Some people outside will see this as a crisis, but we inside don’t see it that way. We see it as an invitation to share our tradition.” That is a counsel of despair, however cheerfully expressed.

It’s like a banker watching the money disappear from the accounts and explaining that he’s helping people learn to do more with less, or a ship’s captain letting the leaks grow till the ship starts sinking, and explaining that even though other people see sinking as a crisis, he sees it as an invitation to learn to swim.

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Where O’ Where Have the Jesuits Gone?

This entry was written by CNS Staff, posted on December 12, 2011 at 11:25 am

The number of Jesuits in America are rapidly declining. While some Jesuits disagree as to why, they seem to agree that the decline is sure to have an effect on the 28 Jesuit schools around the country.

The Loyola Maroon reports:


The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities prefaced a survey of mission and ministry at Jesuit universities by saying it was “not uncommon for some to question just how ‘Jesuit’ and ‘Catholic’ they (the universities) are and will continue to be.”

The number of men entering the order in the United States and Western Europe has been rapidly declining for decades. The Society of Jesuits is still the largest religious order in the Catholic Church with 19,000 members. It reached its peak in 1965 with about 36,000 members. Still, Jesuits make up less than two percent of all faculty and staff at the 28 Jesuit universities…

While the number of Jesuits is declining severely, several small orders of orthodox orders are bucking the downward trend of vocations and actually increasing their numbers including The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia , the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey, and The Dominican Friars of the Eastern Province.

But there doesn’t seem to be alarm or worry from the Jesuits quoted in the piece. And there doesn’t seem to be any indication, at least from this report that they’re pointing an accusatory finger at themselves.

A report from the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesuits blames the culture’s, “Exaggerated individualism and consumerism” for the disappearance of the Jesuits.

According to Rev. James Carter, S.J., president emeritus at Loyola, it is the United States’ “great stress on the individual” that exists because of the country’s response to totalitarian countries around the world.

The Rev. Ted Dziak, S.J., vice president of Mission and Ministry, said it’s a lack of interest in life-long commitments from young people because we’re “a more mobile, secularized society.”

But one thing they all seem to agree upon is that this radical diminishing of vocations will have an effect on Jesuit schools.


We don’t know what Jesuit schools will be like in 50 years,” said the Rev. Charles Currie S. J., a former AJCU president. “The schools are open to new opportunities, and more engaged with society than ever.” Currie says that the happy, productive lives of seminarians and priests can serve as an example of how priesthood and religious life make sense today. Just as encouraging vocations is important, so is the “enthusiastic support for the increasing role of lay women and men in the work of the church,” he said.The Rev. Peter Hans Kolvenbach S.J., the former Jesuit General Superior, said the debate over the role of laity has changed.

“For there to be a partnership of equality, the question changes from: How can lay women and men assist Jesuits in their ministry? The new question emerges: How can Jesuits serve lay women and men in their ministry?” he said.

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MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2007

Jesuit Urban Center's rainbow flag photos disappear

The Boston Globe is sad that the "gay" Catholic church, theJesuit Urban Center(Church of the Immaculate Conception) in Boston, is closing down.

This blog once linked to a hideous photo of the interior of this beautiful church -- draped with rainbow flags. But now, as we read that the JUC is closing down, their rainbow photos have disappeared from their online catalog. (Sadly, we didn't save it.) We were, however, able to retrieve this photo of JUC church members marching in a "Gay" Pride parade. And their rainbow flag icon is still available.

The church assures the Globe that its "gay" identity had nothing to do with its closing. We wonder... From the Globe:

"The Jesuit Urban Center, a predominantly gay Catholic congregation in Boston's South End, will close at the end of July, and the landmark church in which services are held will be put up for sale, the Jesuit religious order announced yesterday. The Rev. Thomas J. Regan , the superior of the New England Jesuits, said in an interview that the rationale for the closing is purely financial. ...

Regan said that he had received no pressure from the Vatican, the Jesuit headquarters in Rome, or the Archdiocese of Boston, to close the church, and that the sexual orientation of the worshipers played no role in his decision.

He said that the Jesuits would continue to welcome gays and lesbians to worship at St. Ignatius of Loyola , the parish they oversee in Chestnut Hill, and that there are two other downtown congregations that have been reaching out to gay Catholics, the Paulist Center on Beacon Hill and St. Anthony Shrine, operated by the Franciscans, near Downtown Crossing.

Regan also said members of the congregation may choose to worship at the nearby Cathedral of the Holy Cross, also in the South End, but many gay Catholics are likely to balk at that option because the cathedral is the seat of Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley , who has been an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage. ...

The decision to close the Jesuit Urban Center comes nearly seven years after the Jesuits fired a nun and a priest from the Urban Center because the nun, Sister Jeannette T. Normandin , was allowed to help perform two baptismal rites for adopted sons of gay male couples. The Jesuits at the time said that the violation had nothing to do with the sexuality of the children's parents, but that baptismal rites, except in emergencies, are to be performed by priests. ..."

POSTED BY JEDI SCRIPT AT 5:52 PM

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                              Saju George, S.J.

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Robert VerEecke, SJ,  Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble
Pastor, St Ignatius Loyola, Boston College

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                                             Steve Kelly, SJ

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                  Fr. Geraldo Labarrere, S.J. 3rd from left




Fr. Geraldo Labarrere, S.J.          Archbishop Washington Cruz, C.P.

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Jesuit leadership defends pro-abortion organization denounced by Mexican cardinal

After 20,000 complaints Jesuit university still promoting Planned Parenthood

Jesuit U. of Detroit Mercy Criticized for Keeping Pro-Abort Nun Board Member

"The student advocacy group suggested that the school's insistence in keeping the links may be related to the presence of Sr. Margaret Farley, a Sister of Mercy, on its Board of Trustees. Farley, who earned her Ph.D. at Yale Divinity School, was one of 40 Catholic religious who infamously signed a 1984 statement by "Catholics for Choice" upholding abortion as justifiable from a Catholic standpoint. Several of the co-signers were subsequently excommunicated."

                       Sr. Margaret Farley - not a Jesuit