Category: Blithe Spirit

The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times

Eighteen years a Jesuit: A story from the ’50s and ’60s

From: Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968 by Jim Bowman Reviewed by David H Werning Profiles in Catholicism

 The novice, Milford, Ohio, 1950

For Bowman, landing on his feet took 18 years of Jesuit experience, which is the main thread in his book: the various stages of education and formation and ministry in the society. He was introduced to prayer, philosophy, and theology. More than anything, he was enculturated into the Jesuit way of life, which according to Bowman emphasized academics more than the priesthood: “We Jesuits…were first of all students and teachers and maybe scholars.” Still, the reader gains an appreciation of both the academic and the spiritual regimens required of Jesuits in the fifties and sixties.
There is, however, another story that unwinds beneath the rolling wave of piety: the inner movement of Bowman’s heart toward a deeper desire, which may have been what God had in mind from the start. Bowman hints at it on the appreciation page, where he mentions the “loving” wife and the “perfect” children, who came after the Jesuits. The adjectives bespeak more than contentment with the vocation of husband and father. One could even say joy and happiness, indicators as good as any that one is in step with God’s will.
David H. Werning is a frequent contributor to Our Sunday Visitor.

The Fetid Sea in Which They Swim

Said sea is the top rank of Catholics, designated””fetid” for the now widely publicized crimes of their most visible and powerful members:

Cardinal McCarrick’s crimes are at least something of a gift since no one can claim this was merely pedophilia. It was homosexual predation like practically all the others.

Not to mention workplace harassment and horrifying, even sacrilegious abuse of power.

“The most favored group,” as this writer describes gays for their success in gaining victim  status, has denied this for years, preferring to speak of pedophilia, whose victims are prepubescent, lest their group as a whole be tarred with the more obviously indefensible aberration.

via Crisis Magazine

“Spain is becoming the Third World,” American tourist almost killed by migrants speaks up

Saw something, did something . . . .

“Now, I have a bad image of Spain, this country is becoming the Third World and that’s the politician’s faults, they are putting the tourists and their people in danger” he explained.

Let them in, says Pope Francis:

Overcome fear of immigrants and refugees

His compassion runneth over.

via “Spain is becoming the Third World,” American tourist almost killed by migrants speaks up