Karen Hall at Some Have Hats has started a cleverly titled new blog covering Jesuits called Some Wear Clerics. As fans of Karen know she often posts on Jesuit subjects and has many friends and acquaintances within the Society of Jesus. Her co-blogger Joe Garcia The purpose of the new blog is in part.
This blog, or at least my posts thereto, will require something of the reader if he is to remain sane: two-fold courage. Courage to admit there are things deeply wrong with the current Society of Jesus and many of its members, and courage to believe these problems, with God's grace, will one day find relief. ...
The election of the new Jesuit Father General seems like business as usual, but as I commented over at Karen's blog I doubt if the reform of the Jesuits was going to be a top-down affair anyway. More than likely it could be bottom-up with the the infusion of younger Jesuits who are much more inclined to be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church who will in part help to reform it.
I do wonder if historically if there have ever been a major reform of a large order that had become worldly without a split. Off hand I can think of the Discalced Carmelites and the Capuchins of examples of splits from the parent order that resulted when the parent order was losing their charism. Historically often these splits helped to also reform the parent order as a result. There is often a great animosity towards those working to reform an order as in the case of St. John of the Cross that ended up getting locked up for almost a year until he escaped. Fr. Groeschel who was once a Capuchin labored for years for reform within his order before making what he calls a very difficult decision to leave and co-found the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.
So it will be interesting to see if reform does occur what model it follows and I do hope that it can be one without a split. As easy as Jesuit bashing is I would love to see the order as a whole make the contribution to the Church they once did instead of keeping the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith busy.
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Thanks for the plug!
As my wise old Al-Anon therapist used to say, "More will be revealed."
I hope the order is able to turn around
As for reforms that didn't involve splits, see the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). While you can find friars that vigorously hold onto their orthodoxy (see the Eastern US province), or lack thereof (see the Dutch province), never once has any friar attempted to reform the Order by creating a splinter group (ala OCDs or OFM Caps).
The eastern US province? Really? :) I've been afraid to ask. I suppose cheering would be like being overjoyed that my own house isn't on fire while my neighbor's burns, but thanksgiving is always in order, right? And prayers for the smoldering house.