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Fr. Matteo Ricci Related articles: Paul's Missionary Journeys & Last VoyageThursdayThursdayThursday Venice, Italy, Sep 12, 2009 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- A new documentary on the life of Fr. Matteo Ricci, a pioneering Jesuit missionary to China, was screened at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday. The film is part of a revival of interest in Ricci, whom Pope Benedict XVI has called a model for a “fruitful meeting” between civilizations.The movie, directed by Italian filmmaker Gjon Kolndrekaj, was shot in China and Italy.Political and religious dignitaries from both countries attended the screening, ANSA reports. They included the Patriarch of...

Cardinal Francis George's personal physician plans to depart Chicago and leave medicine next month to take a job with his Roman Catholic religious order. Dr. Myles Sheehan, 53, a Jesuit priest who has sported a clerical collar and white lab coat for 14 years at Loyola University Health System, has been selected to be the next provincial, or leader, of the Jesuits' New England Province based in Boston. "As provincial, one of my main responsibilities will be taking care of the 300 Jesuits in New England, and I have a real peace knowing I will be able to ensure these...

ROME (CNS) -- Incessant and unwarranted criticism against Pope Benedict XVI is part of a larger anti-church campaign being waged by major newspapers and media outlets in the United States and Europe, said an Italian Jesuit magazine. "Catholics in Italy and Europe know very well that a preconceived hostility exists against church doctrine, especially in the field of ethics," La Civilta Cattolica said. The mass media, "which is the voice of powerful forces and interests, is an excellent propagator of this hostility," said a May 2 article released to journalists April 30. The article, written by Jesuit Father Giandomenico Mucci,...

by Monsignor Owen F. Campion UPDATED: Notre Dame University’s recent decision to invite President Obama to address its forthcoming Commencement Exercises and to confer upon him an honorary degree caused an outcry from many Catholics opposed to the Chief Executive’s policies regarding abortion and stem cell research. The fury transferred in many cases to “the bishops�, assuming that either the bishop of the diocese in which Notre Dame is located could stop the whole thing, or the American bishops collectively could do something. Actually, the bishops have spoken. Several years ago, as a group, they formally resolved that Catholic colleges...

Bankruptcy proceedings started this week by the Jesuits in the Northwest could lead to intense wrangling over the institutions the order is best known for: its schools. The Society of Jesus, Oregon Province — as the Northwest Jesuits are formally called — filed for Chapter 11 reorganization Tuesday, beset by numerous lawsuits alleging past sexual abuse.

Word has come down that Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, one of the great figures of the Catholic Church, certainly in the United States, died this morning in the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham. He was 90, and his generally good health had begun to fail of late....

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Two Jesuit priests were murdered brutally in Moscow after being attacked with blunt objects. Jesuit Fathers Otto Messmer, 47, and Victor Betancourt, 42, were found dead late Oct. 28 in their Moscow apartment. The Russian bishops' conference denounced "those who committed this terrible crime" and prayed Russian authorities would "be able to find the criminals." "The assassin is in a state of serious, horrible sin and whoever committed (the crime) must undergo just punishment," the conference said in an Oct. 29 statement sent to Vatican Radio. It said it hoped once the perpetrators were found, the...

Article published on October 18, 2008 Can you have a Jesuit college without Jesuits? Shortage of priests endangers identities By KATHY MATHESON The Associated Press The shortage of Roman Catholic clergy isn't just being felt in church. Religious orders that have founded and run Catholic colleges and universities across the United States - in some cases for more than a century - are grappling with how to retain the institutions' distinct religious identities in the face of declining numbers of priests and nuns. The Rev. Timothy Lannon, president of Saint Joseph's University, can envision a time when a lay person...

On Wednesday, January 9th, pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama addressed a large crowd at Saint Peter’s College, a Jesuit Catholic institution in Jersey City, N.J., generating considerable media attention to his campaign.“It’s irresponsible for a Catholic college and its leadership to host a political rally for an aggressively pro-abortion candidate,” said Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society. “Such events curry public attention at the expense of public morality. In so doing, they demonstrate reckless disregard for the most vulnerable human lives and contribute to the general decline of Catholic higher education.”The president of Saint Peter’s College, Dr....

"I have yet to let Jesus enter my life, but I admire Warren," writes Alan Wolfe in a New Republic essay.  Well you didn't expect a New Republic writer to be a born-again Christian, did you? Just one thing: Wolfe is the director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Jesuit-run Boston College.Now why would an allegedly Catholic school choose an agnostic to direct a center on religion and public life? But wait, you say. Is it fair to conclude, from that one sentence, that Wolfe is a non-believer? Maybe he was making some subtle point. Let's fast-forward to the end...

ROME (CNS) -- The seven deadly sins are still key to understanding and healing the social and personal ills plaguing humanity today, said an influential Jesuit journal. The capital vices of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are not outdated and have not been made irrelevant by psychotherapy or other mental health counseling, La Civilta Cattolica said. The journal cited a survey commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. that found most people surveyed felt the list of deadly sins defined in the Middle Ages no longer applied to modern-day life and should be updated. The survey, released in...

CINO in Camelot by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 10, 2008 Oddly, even reporters on the education beat seem to have failed to grasp the significance of a meeting that took place 44 years ago of the Catholics they like to cover the most—the Kennedy family and Jesuit theologians. We have shown how the Tipping Point, as journalist Malcolm Gladwell might put it, for Catholic Higher Education came in 1967. That was when the presidents of the oldest, established Catholic colleges and universities met at one of them—Notre Dame—and declared their independence from all authority lay and clerical. From there, it...

Once a Southern Baptist pastor, Michael Cumbie converted to Catholicism in 2001 and has since been traveling far from his hometown near Pensacola, Florida, to preach his new faith to the nation. At Saint Therese Catholic Church in San Diego for a "renewal mission" this April, he spent three evenings speaking about his conversion, Catholic worship, and the Eucharist. About 200 hundred came to listen the last evening's talk. While he gathered his materials after his energetic presentation, I asked him some questions on the same topics. Can you say something about the experience of the Holy Spirit in your...

Carl Olson points us to a Catholic Insight article by Russell Shaw called Can the Jesuits Be Saved?. He begins by recounting an incident told him by a friend who attended the screening at a Jesuit university of a video on the life of the Jesuit Superior General Pedro Arrupe (1965-1983). Shaw continues: Questions and discussion followed the video. Someone asked if Father Arrupe would be canonized a saint. According to my friend, the answer was: Not as long as the people currently in charge in Rome are calling the shots. That strikes the authentic Jesuit note of the last...

Remember 4th vow, Pope urges JesuitsVatican, Feb. 21, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) gave the world's Jesuits a pointed reminder of their oath of fidelity, during a February 21 audience with participants in the 35th general congregation of the Society of Jesus. Meeting with the Jesuit leaders as they concluded their general congregation-- at which they had elected a new superior general, Father Adolfo Nicolas-- the Holy Father stressed that the Jesuit order today should act "in full fidelity to the original charism." That original charism, the Pope continued, is marked by devotion and obedience...

Robert Blair Kaiser, the East Valley Tribune informs readers, was once "a young journalist covering the heady and historic Vatican Council II in Rome for Time magazine." It appears that the "the Phoenix journalist and Jesuit-educated Catholic" is still lost in the Sixties, having written eleven books, "including four that deal with a call for church reform in the spirit of that council." His latest is a novel titled Cardinal Mahoney that depicts the Archbishop of Los Angeles being kidnapped by liberation theologians (I'm not making this stuff up; Kaiser is), and taken to a "southern Mexican jungle compound": In...

On Sunday evening, the annual Lenten Retreat for B16 and the top brass of his Curia begins, and the Vatican essentially shuts down for the week. This year, reflecting both the upcoming Pauline Year and October's Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, the French scripture scholar Cardinal Albert VanHoye SJ (left) has been tapped to preach the seven-day gathering. Before B16, the naming of the preacher was always heavily awaited as a glimpse into the Pope's mind -- not for the present, that is, but the future. For successive pontiffs, Retreat Week has been the time when...

ROME (CNS) -- Spanish-born Father Adolfo Nicolas, the newly elected superior general of the Jesuits, called on the more than 19,000 members of his order to strengthen their service to the poor and those excluded from the benefits of economic globalization. Father Nicolas, who had been moderator of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania, was elected superior general of the Society of Jesus Jan. 19 and celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving Jan. 20 in Rome's Church of the Gesu. The new superior, who said his election was "a shock," began his homily by saying, "This is not a...

In a dramatic echo of the Arrupe legacy, Fr Adolfo Nicolás -- the Spanish-born head of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania -- has been elected the Society's 30th Superior-General and was rapidly confirmed in the post by Benedict XVI. Based until now in Tokyo, Nicolás immediately takes the reins of the church's largest community of professed men. Unlike the vast majority of those tipped for the post, the new Father-General comes short on Roman experience -- a former provincial of Japan, the theologian spent three years of study at the Gregorian University before a three decade...

http://www.nj.com/hudsoncountynow/index.ssf/2008/01/obama_coming_to_jersey_city_we.html

LifeSiteNews.com Monday January 7, 2008 Top Vatican Cardinal Tells the Jesuits to Clean Up their Act Repeatedly spoke about his "sorrow and anxiety" at the state of the Jesuit order in terms of infidelity to the teachings of the Church. By John-Henry Westen ROME, January 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The top Vatican official who deals with religious orders, Cardinal Franc Rode, addressed the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) today. Cardinal Rode who was installed by Pope Benedict XVI as Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life spoke...

After more than two years of preparations, the General Congregation of the Jesuits began this morning in Rome with a papal delegate's call for enhanced fidelity from the church's largest religious community. Representing Pope Benedict, Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rode CM, the Vatican's prefect of the Congregation for Religious Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, celebrated the opening liturgy of GC35, which'll shortly see the election of the Society's new superior-general to replace the retiring Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach. In his homily at the Mass, held in the Jesuit mother-church of the Gesu, Rode said that "with sadness and apprehension," he...

p>On a quick trip to Rome a few weeks ago, I made it a point to visit the Gesu, the mother church of the Society of Jesus, and to pray for the Jesuits and their general congregation opening January 7. I found much of the church's magnificent Baroque interior concealed by scaffolding set up for a housecleaning before that crucial event. The symbolism couldn't have been more apt. Just as the Gesu, in the historic heart of Rome, needed renovating, so does the Society itself. Rather than operating at the cutting edge of the Church, Jesuits in recent decades have...

A macabre 17th century book about the execution of Gunpowder Plot conspirator Father Henry Garnet believed to be bound in the priest's own skin will go under the hammer this Sunday. Perhaps most spooky of all, some claim to see an image of the priest's tortured face peering out of the anthropodermic binding of 'A True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings against the Late Most Barbarous Traitors, Garnet a Jesuit and his Confederats'. It is anyone's guess how much the book, which was made in London in 1606 by Robert Barker, the king's printer, just months after Garnet's...

SHOCKER: Catholic Georgetown U. Will Now Fund Law Students to Lobby for Abortion Oldest Catholic university in U.S. By John-Henry Westen WASHINGTON, DC, September 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A change of policy at Georgetown University Law Center will permit the university - which is the oldest Catholic university in the nation - to give grants to students who lobby for abortion for agencies such as Planned Parenthood.   The Hoya, the Georgetown University newspaper, reports on its front page today about the policy change. The policy change was announced September 7 by Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff in a letter...

Major US Catholic University Caught Deceiving Diocese: Diocese Losing Patience Vice-chancellor of archdiocese states, "there's a Catholic ethos in this town that rightly smells a rat" By Meg Jalsevac OMAHA, September 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Just a few weeks ago, LifeSiteNews and several online blogs reported on Creighton University's shameful invitation, and then hasty 'disinvitation' of ardently pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia speaker, Ann Lamott.  According to several recent news reports, the hasty 'statement' published on the University website to announce the cancellation has not appeased the powers that be at the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha. The official Creighton statement announcing the...

p> OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Days after canceling a speaking engagement to a best-selling author who helped a friend commit suicide, a Jesuit university says it will review policies that govern how and why it invites certain speakers to campus.The Rev. John Schlegel, the school's president, said Friday that Creighton University won't shy away from controversial speakers, including those whose opinions diverge with those of the Roman Catholic Church.But, he said, the formats those speakers appear under will ensure more balance and debate than the one-way mode of lecture."We don't teach our students what to think," Schlegel told the Omaha...

OMAHA, Nebraska, August 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Sunday, August 26 the Catholic blog Defend Us In Battle.org publicized the fact that Creighton University of Omaha, Nebraska, a Catholic institution, had scheduled abortion and euthanasia activist Ann Lamott to give the keynote address at a 2007 Center for Health Policy & Ethics lecture for women on September 19th.  Lamott is nationally known as an author and speaker who promotes her own self-proclaimed perspective as a "Jesusy" individual who is a "Christian and feminist."  The blog, authored by Omaha resident Jeff Baker, encouraged readers to contact the Director of the Creighton...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorAugust 28, 2007Omaha, NE (LifeNews.com) -- Creighton University in Nebraska has announced that it will cancel a planned speech by abortion advocate Anne Lamott after the Catholic school received significant outcry from pro-life advocates. School officials announced it has "mutually agreed" to shelve the talk with Lamott.News of the cancellation came yesterday and Lamott's appearance was slated for September 19 at the Jesuit university.In an announcement on the college's web site, officials said "Creighton University and author Anne Lamott have mutually agreed upon cancellation of her public lecture."Creighton officials said Lamott's public disagreement with Catholic teaching against...

A Jesuit Meets Jesus "I baptize you, Alfred Ronald Nemec, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." With those fateful words, at the tender age of ten days, I was enrolled on the official roster of the Roman Catholic Church. And, according to Catholic doctrine, I was indelibly marked as a child of God. As the son of a devout Catholic mother and a Catholic-convert father, my early training and schooling was centered around the church and Catholic schools. Even with a move from New Jersey to Florida my parents scrimped...

The Colombian daily, “El Tiempo,” published a column by a priest who said he has seen Madonna’s DVD of her latest concert tour and defends her “crucifixion” and nudity and calls the show a model of evangelization. In a column entitled, “Madonna: A Suggestive Presentation of Jesus,” Father Carlos Novoa, SJ, ex-dean of the Department of Theology at the Javeriana University, said he was impressed by the “deep spirituality” of some of Madonna’s choreography and claimed her parody of the crucifixion “is not a mockery of the cross, but rather the complete opposite: An exaltation of the mystery of the...

The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) has urged the University of San Francisco (USF)—a Jesuit, Catholic university—to cancel its invitation to pro-abortion Rep. Nancy Pelosi to deliver the university’s commencement address this Saturday. CNS also is opposing a posthumous honorary degree to pro-abortion politician Leo T. McCarthy. “Even as we celebrate the fact that a growing number of Catholic colleges are choosing exemplary commencement speakers and honorees, we learn that the University of San Francisco has chosen a much different direction,� wrote CNS President Patrick J. Reilly in a letter faxed to USF President Rev. Stephen Privett, S.J., today. “You are...

ROMA, April 23, 2007 – In “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the magazine of the Rome Jesuits printed with the prior scrutiny and authorization of the Vatican secretaiat of state, a review has been published that signals the end of a taboo. The taboo is the one that has obliterated from public discussion, for decades, the thought of the most authoritative and erudite representative of criticism of the twentieth century Church in the name of the great Tradition: the Swiss philologist and philosopher Romano Amerio (in the photo), who died in Lugano in 1997, at the age of 92. Amerio, although he...

St. Louis University, a Jesuit school proud of its Catholic heritage, celebrated a legal victory last week that affirmed it is not controlled by the Catholic church or by its Catholic beliefs.The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the school in handing down a decision that the city of St. Louis did not violate state and federal constitutions by granting the university $8 million in tax increment financing for its new arena.Opponents of the $80 million arena sued the school in 2004, halting construction. The Missouri Constitution prohibits public funding to support any "… college, university, or other institution of learning...

The framers of the United States Constitution believed that people of African descent “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” and that “the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit…. [to be] bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it.” With reference to the words “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence: “It is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race was not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people...

The Vatican office that safeguards doctrinal correctness is examining a Spanish Jesuit who is a prominent champion of liberation theology, a Vatican official said Monday.Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi declined to give any details about the probe by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into the work of the Rev. Jon Sobrino, a renowned theologian.He said the congregation would report its conclusions soon, and this would lay out the case.Spanish daily El Mundo reported last week that Sobrino would be banned from teaching in Catholic institutions and would not be allowed to publish. The newspaper said the...

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Robert Drinan, a Jesuit who — over the objections of his superiors — was the only Roman Catholic priest elected as a voting member of Congress, died Sunday. Drinan, 86, had suffered from pneumonia and congestive heart failure during the previous 10 days, according to a statement by Georgetown University which said he died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. "His death was peaceful, and he was surrounded by his family," said the Rev. John Langan, rector of the Georgetown University Jesuit Community where Drinan lived. An internationally known human-rights advocate, Drinan was elected on an...

L.A. Catholic's latest post on a The Tidings article reports on the "Missa Gaia"The print edition of the October 27 issue of The Tidings (the online edition is not posted on that paper's site, but you can click on this post's title tomorrow and presumably it will be) carries an article, "LMU Forum draws prominent environmentalists."The article is about this year's Bellarmine Forum, Oct. 29-Nov. 3, at Loyola Marymount U. in L.A. The theme is, "Earth to You: Do Something Now." The invitees include Bobby Kennedy Jr., Jean-Michel Cousteau and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), for whom the...

SEATTLE, Wash. (CNS) – Jesuit Father Anton T. Harris resigned Oct. 12 as Seattle University's vice president for mission and ministry after local news media reported that he was accused of sexually harassing a 25-year-old Jesuit seminarian in the mid-1990s.Both Jesuit universities in Washington state – Seattle University in Seattle and Gonzaga University in Spokane – have recently been in the news because of claims of sexual abuse of minors that occurred in those institutions decades ago. Father Harris has not been accused of any misconduct with a minor, but he resigned after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a front-page report...

"This would make it much more difficult for people to engage in full conscious and active participation, which was the goal of the Council," says Rev. James Martin, an editor at the Jesuit magazine America. He's talking to Time magazine, in a story about the rumored papal indult allowing broader use of the Tridentine rite. But it's not entirely clear what worried Fr. Martin. Even if we grant his major premise, for the sake of the argument, it's still not easy to see how my attendance at a Latin Mass would prevent your "conscious and active participation" at the...

ROME, August 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Jesuit priest-astronomer who vocally opposed the Catholic understanding of God-directed creation, has been removed from his post as head of the Vatican observatory. Fr. George Coyne has been head of the Vatican observatory for 25 years is an expert in astrophysics with an interest in the interstellar medium, stars with extended atmospheres and Seyfert galaxies. He also appointed himself as an expert in evolutionary biology and theology last summer in an article for the UK’s liberal Catholic magazine, The Tablet. Fr. Coyne was writing against Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, a principal author of the...

Walter Ciszek (1904-1984) Before there was an Armistice Day, Walter Ciszek was born on November 11, 1904, and lived through a crucified century. Death came gracefully in 1984 on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In boyhood he was a bully in a gang on the gritty streets of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, and Ciszek’s Polish immigrant father dragged him to the police station, hoping to put him into a reform school. Everyone thought he was joking when the eighth grader announced that he would enter the Polish minor seminary. The seminarian swam in an icy lake and rose before dawn...

The monument is sponsored by Les Jésuites de Sudbury.'' No service of faith without promotion of justice. No promotion of justice without dialogue with other traditions.'' (34th General Congregation 1995, Society of Jesus)''From the beginning to the end WORKING TOGETHER FOR PEACE'' ALPHA AND OMEGA Peace represented by a dove, a Christian Cross and the symbols in each of the letters A(lpha) and O(mega) represents the 12 current religions. You can visit the monument of peace on the right hand side of the alter where Mass is celebrated on the Grotto Mountain.

At Boston College, David Hollenbach, S. J., remains a Big Man on Campus even after his unsuccessful effort to block the awarding of an honorary degree to the Secretary of State, but the family that endowed his chair is now saying what protesters put on placards during Condoleeza Rice’s speech: Not in my name. “Well, the commencement was today, and too bad the Flatley Professor [David Hollenbach, S.J.] did not also quit,” Dan Flatley wrote to us on Monday. “If he had any integrity he would, and you can quote me on that.” “Let the public know that the Flatley...

Pope Benedict XVI is one of the “most prepared” popes in the last two or three centuries, but he’s “not sexy,” says veteran author and journalist John Allen in an interview in a Spanish newspaper. “Culturally he (Benedict) is very prepared to be pope, perhaps the best so in the last two or three centuries. But from the journalistic point of view he’s not very ‘sexy’,” said Allen, according to the Spanish El Pais newspaper. “Without a doubt, John Paul II is the most ‘sexy’ of the modern popes. Whatever he said, it ended up on the front pages of...

"There are people," says Jesuit Father John Foley, with a hint of a smile, "who have complained that we wrecked the whole tradition of church music." "We" meaning the St. Louis Jesuits, whose collaborative composing efforts remain arguably the single greatest influence on contemporary liturgical music of the post-Vatican II era. Writing Scripture-based music (itself a revolution of sorts) in a style of music that was more in keeping with that of the secular world and thus more familiar to many ears (itself not just revolutionary but heretical, in the minds of some --- and nothing less than musical manna,...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, MAY 2, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The recent riots related to the publication of anti-Muslim cartoons in Western newspapers were widely viewed as a popular religious reaction to offensive depictions of the prophet Mohammed. But according to one expert on Islam, the riots were incited by governments to manipulate both the West and the Muslim world for political purposes. Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa is a theologian, Middle East scholar and co-contributor to the "Islam and Christianity" DVD series. He spoke with ZENIT about how the cartoon riots are part of radical Islam's attempt to seize control of the Muslim world...

The Diocese of Allentown is asking the Vatican to canonize a Shenandoah priest who survived more than two decades of imprisonment in the Soviet Union. The diocese sent three crates of materials concerning the Rev. Walter Ciszek’s life to Rome two weeks ago. The crates included six cardboard boxes that contained things such as sworn testimony from 45 witnesses and thousands of typed pages of his writings and meditations. The documents reportedly took 16 years to compile. The Vatican is slated to review them beginning Tuesday. “They arrived last week,” Sister Albertine of the Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League in...

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Fans of No. 5 Gonzaga have been asked to stop yelling "Brokeback Mountain" at opposing players. The reference to the recent movie about homosexual cowboys was chanted by some fans during Monday's game against Saint Mary's, and is apparently intended to suggest an opposing player is gay. The chants were the subject of several classroom discussions over the past week, and the faculty advisers for the Kennel Club booster group urged students this week to avoid "inappropriate chants" during the Bulldogs' Saturday game against Stanford, which was nationally televised on ESPN. "We implore the students of the...

Word has just come through that the Father General has called General Congregation 35 to be held starting on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, January 5, 2008.That means Pope Benedict has given his “placet� to the Jesuit summit.The juridical reason given for convening the 35th GC is not that pertaining to the election of a General.The GC has   been convened on the grounds of treating “weighty issues� facing the Society.  GC 34 was convened on these same grounds.  This, however,  does not preclude the possibility that the GC can become one of election.Nevertheless, Jesuit sources say that...