HOLY SONNET XIV

Mr Richard McCurdy, S.J., told our sophomore honor class that Donne’s sonnet, Batter My Heart…, was a little “grown-up” for kids our age, but he thought we could handle it.

Also, since he was teaching it to a senior class at the time, it allowed him to kill two birds with one lesson plan.

I always think of Batter My Heart as a “terrible sonnet.” Then wikipedia reminds me it was Hopkins who wrote the terrible sonnets, although Batter… is every bit as terrible as say, Carrion Comfort.

Actually, some rhythmic riffs in Batter… foretell Hopkins’ sprungness.

Here’s a little scorecard to help tell the two apart.



BTW: According to wikipedia Donne wrote a polemic titled Ignatius and his Cohort which takes place in, and numbers Ignatius Loyola among the residents of, hell.

I wonder what pissed him off.

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SAINTHOOD MATH

Just the mention of Mother Teresa gets this blog’s juices flowing. We agree with Hitchens, et al, that this purported saint was anything but.

Like the witches inside Hans Castorp’s Magic Mountain, her vocation fed on a high birth rate.

Our seating plan for the eternal banquet called “Heaven” has Mother Teresa sharing a table with Pedro Arbues, Paul of Tarsus, and Augustine of Hippo—the “Mirth Group.”

The current press notice of her letters regarding the emptiness of Catholic theology focuses on Teresa’s hypocrisy—she adamantly preached things she didn’t really believe.

The Roman Catholic Church, by contrast, touts her perseverance in performing good works even in the face of dark doubts. This belies, however, the church’s contention that charity is connected to belief in Jesus God.

Let’s do the math:

Accept, for the sake of argument, that Mother Teresa’s public ministry can be called “good works.”

According to her letters, during some time periods of her ministry she had a clear belief in Jesus. During other times she did not have this belief.

Of course we find it despicable that Mother Teresa wanted her letters destroyed.

We at Jesuit Watch consider the experience of emptiness and darkness and meaninglessness as the starting point of adult spirituality, not something to be ashamed of. Sharing such experiences with others is the essence of “church.”

We surmise that for Mother Teresa to express her doubts publicly would have been an awkward career move.

[Note: The second picture is of Olivia Hussey portraying Mother Teresa in an eponymous made-for-TV movie.]

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JUST DOING THEIR JOB

One of the dumber sayings to come out of the 1960’s youth explosion was, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” It’s good advice only if you add, “…neither trust anyone thirty or below.” I heard a Jesuit twist it to: “Don’t trust anyone over thirty-three, unless they’ve been crucified.”

Poor Cardinal Bertone has been whining again about negative press coverage. Like the great majority of Enron employees who were hard-working and law-abiding, the Catholic Church is made up of mostly good people. Heck, even Hitler’s army was made mostly of people like our current pope!

“…the men and women of the church, have done and continue to do an immense volume of good in every part of the world," Bertone said.

SFW! To say anything less would be condemnation. The whole purpose of the church is to do good. The fact that it is doing some good should come as no surprise.

Bertone, in the CNS article, stupidly compares the Catholic Church to the newly restored Sistine Chapel ceiling. If only it were so easy!

Anyway, two Catholic priests are in the news for doing their magisterial duties.

Father Steve Kelly, S.J., and Franciscan Father Louis Vitale are facing federal trespassing charges in Fort Huachuca, near the Arizona-Mexico border.

Fathers Kelly and Vitale tried to enter the Fort Huachuca Army base with the intent of instructing the soldiers there about the evil of torture.

Jesuit Watch' position: there is no contingency that justifies torture.

The action of the two priests is elegant symbolism. They weren’t chaining themselves, or blocking entrances, they were simply doing their job, teaching people to avoid the unhappiness associated with mortal sin.

The CNS piece says that Father Kelly, S.J., had been associated with a Catholic Worker group in Northern California, and that Father Vitale is retired from St Boniface Church which for decades has served the down-and-out in San Francisco’s Tenderloin.

In the picture below Jesuit Kelly says mass in a setting that almost resembles that of the Last Supper, more so, at least, than say, St Peter’s in Rome, or the Sistine Chapel with Michaelangelo’s cartoons that the Cardinal is so proud of.

And Father Louis Vitale dresses the part, he's no stranger to police tape, and he doesn’t scare the children.

Bertone is right. There are lots of great Catholics.

BTW: One of the smarter sayings from the 1960’s was “Turn on, tune in , drop out.” Leary’s message repeats the message of Jesus, at least that of the hippie, contrarian Jesus as educed by the Jesus Seminar.

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BAPTISTS JUST AS BAD?

Don McGuire, S.J., might be the most famous Jesuit priest in America today. Freed by the court while appealing his felony child molestation conviction, Father McGuire has been jailed twice for violating the terms of his release.

According to this Chicago Sun-Times story, a new civil suit has been filed against McGuire and the Jesuits, by a John Doe.

The suit alleges that Jesuit priest Donald McGuire abused a boy over a three-year-period, beginning in 1999, when the victim was 13 years old and living periodically with the priest at Canisius House, a Jesuit residence in Evanston.

A spokesman for the Chicago province tried to pick a hole in the allegation:

"It is highly unlikely that a minor or a non-Jesuit would be living in a Jesuit residence in any capacity," said Jeremy Langford.

I guess that wouldn’t include, technically, the two mentally retarded live-in dishwashers who were serially raped by multiple Jesuits at their Northern California retreat center.

Notable in the Sun-Times story about Father McGuire is John Doe #116’s legal team—one of his attorneys is a nephew of Father McGuire.

"I'm ashamed of my uncle and I'm unmasking him for the child predator that he is," said [Kevin] McGuire, a personal-injury lawyer from Newport Beach, Calif.

McGuire, S.J., is old and fat and probably just doesn’t give a shit. He managed to touch some lovely stuff in his career.

Google image search turns up few images of Father McGuire. Here he poses, years ago, with a family that’s associated with Gonzaga. The little boy isn’t smiling.

There’s a story in recent news about a Chicago area Baptist congregation hiring a minister who is a convicted child molester. The Sun-Times story is here.

It’s kind of touching, and pathetic, that congregants believed so much in the transformative power of faith that they were willing to trust their children with a convicted sex offender.

There were sound-bites on the news last night of a woman who tracks clergy abuse in American Protestant denominations (or maybe just Baptists).

It was her contention that clergy child sexual predation was as big a problem in the Baptist churches as in the Catholic Church.

Catholics, including Jesuits, set the standard.

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SOME GAY HISTORY

[This article is reposted from sfwillie's blog.]

David Patrick McIntosh, my boyfriend at the time (1970-72), founded the first Gay group in Nebraska, actually two groups:

Lincoln Gay Action Group (LinGAG)

University of Nebraska Gay Action Group (UNGAG).

I’m proud of the important role I played but the driving force was David. He was my first love. We were both Jesuit-trained poets, as evidenced by the catchy acronyms for the two groups.

I’m reminiscing because of the Democratic presidential candidates forum last night that was sponsored by a gay group and addressed gay issues (according to reports, I didn’t watch it.)

I’m having a how-far-we’ve-come experience.

It had to be the summer of 1972, pre-convention, George McGovern was gaining inevitability as the demcand, and he was swinging through Nebraska and there was a townhall thingie in Lincoln that David attended.

David came home that night excited. During the Q&A he was able to get to the microphone and he asked George McGovern this elegant question:

“What is your position on Gay Rights?”

David said that McGovern sputtered, and sputtered some more, and embarrassingly sputtered some more before coming up with some sort of general platitude.

According to David it was abundantly clear that McGovern didn’t have a position on Gay Rights—never thought about it.

So, I would surmise that my boyfriend, David Patrick McIntosh, was the first person ever to ask this question of a presidential candidate. In those days what David did took guts.

The Jesuits should be proud.

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HAPPY JUST WAR DAY

According to Wikipedia, Nagasaki, in 1580 was a colony of the Society of Jesus.

Jesuit influence in, and actual rule over Nagasaki came to my attention a few months ago when the Society complained about incorrect statements in a wiki-entry about some rebellion in Japan and the involvement of the Jesuits. The Jesuits never mentioned Nagasaki, but that's where the action took place.

Tomorrow we remember another milestone of western influence in Japan, as we contemplate the Catholic just-war theory, which amounts to, “Hey, it’s just war!”

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