A Jesuit is Pope - Reflections on my Jesuit Education

A Jesuit is Pope

I am Jesuit educated. I am a graduate of Cheverus High School ('68) and Fairfield University ('72).

Yet, I somehow do not find myself swept up in the excitement that Jesuit priests and Jesuit alumni are expressing now that "one of ours" is the first ever Jesuit to be elected pope.

To informed and educated Catholics, the word "Jesuit" is often synonymous with social justice and a deep concern for the poor and vulnerable.

After all, the foundation of a Jesuit education is the formation of students to live and be "People for Others."

In late 2002, my wife and I traveled to Bolivia for a ten day "Ignatian Immersion Experience," sponsored by the Maryland Jesuit Province. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. Our small group was hosted by the Jesuits of the Bolivia Jesuit Province.

We quickly came to love, respect and admire the Bolivian Jesuits for their absolute dedication, persistence and hard work as advocates for peace and economic justice for the people of Bolivia.

Two years before the trip, my consciousness had been awakened by a speech given by the Superior General of the Jesuits, Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., at Santa Clara University.

My Jesuit teachers taught me that the "service of my faith must include the promotion of justice."

Compelling words: the "service" of one's faith.

In his speech, Rev. Kolvenbach urged Jesuit educated students to "let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering, and engage it constructively."

Rev. Kolvenbach noted that "solidarity with our less fortunate brothers and sisters...is learned through 'contact' rather than through 'concepts.' When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the degradation and injustice others suffer. is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry, reflection and action."

However, when the rubber finally hit the road and the worldwide Jesuits were confronted with allegations of child sexual abuse, they chose almost instinctively to hide behind their lawyers, to deny responsibility, to avoid accountability, to manipulate the truth, and above all else, the Jesuits failed to embrace those who were abused as children with love, compassion, care and understanding.

Instead , the victims became the enemy.

The victims were rejected and ostracized. They were called "liars."

Terence McKiernan, President of BishopAccountability.org said yesterday that Pope Francis "encountered many cases of sexual abuse in the years when he was auxiliary bishop and then the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Yet he has been content for the most part to remain silent."

At my Jesuit alma mater, Cheverus High School in Maine, the former Cheverus students who were sexually abused by Cheverus teacher and coach, Charles Malia, continue to be denied fair and just amends and reparations for the harms and injuries inflicted upon them as a result of their abuse.

The President of my Jesuit alma mater, Fairfield University, continues to ignore my pleas to help 22 former students of Project Pierre Toussaint in Cap Haitien, Haiti, who were sexually abused by Fairfield University alumnus, Douglas Perlitz.

For ten plus years the Fairfield University Campus Ministry operation devoted itself to Project Pierre Toussaint. However, five years ago, when the first cries of rape emerged from the mouths of these poor and homeless street kids, New England Jesuit and Fairfield University officials ran as far away as they could from the hurting and wounded victims.

The Haitian child sex abuse victims were forced back into the streets with nothing to eat. These kids sleep on rooftops, they have no one to tuck them in at night, no one to tell them they are loved, no one to tell them that the horrible and disgusting things that were done to their bodies is not their fault.

And here at home, when the very same kids who piled into the family car each Sunday to attend mass with their families found the courage, years later, to report that they were sexually abused by their parish priest, a nun, or a church employee, they were met with hostility and anger.

They, too, were called "liars" and were often despised.

Perhaps, the new Jesuit pope will stand in communion, in solidarity that is, with those who were abused and pointedly remind this clerical and harshly dogmatic Church, and the world, that the abuse victims and their long suffering families are, indeed, among the "Poor" whom we must care for with all our might.

I, for one, will judge the Jesuit pope's commitment to the poor, his caring for the least of us, by the manner in which he responds to victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

THE VICTIMS ARE THE POOR;
THE POOR ARE THE CHURCH

The day must come quickly when the new Jesuit pope has assured himself and all of us that, among other things, bullying and manipulating hardball legal tactics against abuse victims has ceased, that professional, long term, medical and mental health treatment is available to all victims at no cost, that databases are published in every diocese in which are listed the names, photos and other information about priests and church workers who abused children, that church documents detailing trails of abuse and coverup are made public, that measurable reparations and amends are made to compensate victims for their harms and injuries, that bishops and other church leaders who cover up or conceal child sexual abuse will immediately be removed from office; i.e., they will be fired.

Then, and only then, will this Jesuit educated guy begin to make some sense of what my Jesuit education really means.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

Paul Kendrick
Freeport, Maine
207-838-1319