Two men considering a religious vocation were
having a conversation. "What is similar about the
Jesuit and Dominican Orders? " the one asked.
The second replied, "Well, they were both
founded by Spaniards -- St. Dominic for the
Dominicans, and St. Ignatius of Loyola for
the Jesuits. They were also both founded to
combat heresy -- the Dominicans to
fight the Albigensians, and the Jesuits to
fight the Protestants."
"What is different about the Jesuit and
Dominican Orders?"
"Met any Albigensians lately?"
-----------------------
When you look at the body of work on Catholic humor the Jesuits’ are the equvilent of blond or ethnic jokes in the secular world. Really, when was the last time you heard a joke begin, “ A Precious Blood Priest walked into a bar...” or “Two Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus went to the beach...”
The odd thing for me is that some of the best and worst priests I’ve known or read were Jesuits. And their work in spreading the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is truly driven by the Holy Spirit
It’s not that members of other religious orders don’t slip from the path it’s just that the Jesuits always do it with a monumentally arrogant flare. (two recent examples here and here).
There is a danger in fighting any opponent and it is not that you might lose the battle but lose the line that separates. The most effective way to fight a foe is to really understand him and the danger comes in understanding him so much you become like him.
We’ve seen that within the police who fight crime every day suddenly begin to commit crime. Or between the republicans and democrats. Where the republicans have now embraced the intrinsic evil of torture because the dems have the intrinsic evil of abortion.
And the problem with all religious, in fighting the secular world, is they begin to
embrace it’s ideals or think, “well it’s not really that bad.” like Father Jenkins at Notre Dame.
It is often the little slips that left unchecked turn into...well...big sin. For example, this past Sunday at my church, one of the petitions was “that government leaders work to solve the problem of climate change.”
There was no petition that they work to respect the dignity of life from conception to natural death.
yep climate change is now more important.
Maybe it was joke.
"It is not funny that anything else
should fall down; only that a man
should fall down.
Why do we laugh? Because it is a
gravely religious matter: it is the
Fall of Man. Only man can
be absurd: for only man can
be dignified."
G.K.C.
IN OCTOBER
5 years ago
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