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A while back, the head of the Jesuits, their Superior General Fr. Arturo Sosa Ascobal, opined that we don't know what the Lord taught because no one had a tape recorder. HERE That wayward notion effectively empties Christianity of its content. He tried, unconvincingly in my opinion, to walk the statement back even while defending it.
From my point of view, evil forms part of the mystery of freedom. If the human being is free, he can choose between good and evil. Christians believe that we are made in the image and likeness of God, therefore God is free, but God always chooses to do good because he is all goodness. We have made symbolic figures, like the devil, to express evil. Social conditionings also represents that figure, since there are people who act this way because it is in an environment where it is very difficult to do the opposite.
So, the Superior General of the Jesuits does not believe that the Devil exists as a real, person being. The Devil, according to this Jesuit, is a symbolic construction of 'evil".
Lateran IV said that the Devil is an angel and affirms that angels are personal beings.
The Lord apparently didn't mean what He said about the Prince of this World.
Maybe the Lord Himself is also a "symbolic construct"!
I can see it now. The Jesuits will have to change all their stationary: The Society of Symbolic Construct.
No more SJ. Instead… SS? The Symbolists? The Constructors?
How about this…. The Jesuits themselves are really just a symbolic construct. They were, after all repressed once. A good days work by Pope Clement XIV, Papa Ganganelli.
Check out the piece at the UK's best Catholic weekly, the Catholic Herald. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was puzzled by the Superior of the Jesuits reducing the Devil to a mere "symbolic construct". That's, after all, what he did.
So, the Superior of the Jesuits hasn't answered the questions. Instead his spokesman made a couple of statements about believing what the Church believes.
How hard is it, if you believe what the Church believes, to stand up in public and say clearly what the Church believes?
The whom Christ calls "the Devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41)… is an angelic being. Angels are persons. The Devil is a personal being. Is this hard?
No, wait. This same Superior General of the Jesuits also called into question what we can believe that Christ said, since, as he put it, they didn't have tape recorders back then.
Medieval theologians understood this quite well. They had an expression in Latin: Nullus diabolus, nullus redemptor. No devil, no Redeemer. Without the devil, it's very hard to explain why Jesus needed to come into the world to suffer and die for us. What exactly did he redeem us from?
The devil, more than anyone, appreciates this irony, i.e., that we can't fully understand the mission of Jesus without him. And he exploits this to his full advantage. He knows that consigning him to myth inevitably sets in motion our same treatment of God.
This entry was posted in Liberals, You must be joking! and tagged Archbp. Chaput, Arturo Sosa Abascal, Clement XIV, Jesuits, The Devil. Bookmark the permalink.
It is long past time to acknowledge that the Society of Jesus is any longer Catholic. That ship sailed with Teilhard at the helm.
* 'no' longer. Yes, I'm agitated. Mea culpa.
*sigh* The Jesuits are badly in need of a good old-fashioned suppression.
Know your Transformers, Fr. Z!
They're Constructicons. They're part of the Decepticons, and they merge to form a mindless, destructive gestalt named Devastator.
Almost two decades ago I went to a Jesuit University. A chunk of the Intro to Theology course, taught by an ancient emeritus Jesuit, was devoted to how the Ascension of Jesus was a symbolic construct and not a historical event.
While there are good Jesuits, the idea that various tenants and historical events of Christianity are only constructs runs very deep with in the Society of Jesus. The Superior General is far from atypical in his thought.
I am beginning to understand that it is the Jesuits that are the "social construct".
Just getting in touch with my inner John Shelby Spong, you know.
Wow, a picture of the man in clerics!
like a better idea with every passing day.
Sure they are. All seven were.
Baptism: elevated to a sacrament due to Our Lord's participation in it. A sudden moment.
Eucharist: created a sacrament by Our Lord's Last Supper. One instant, the bread and wine are just that; the next, they are something much more!
Confession: in an instant, the Lord gave His priests the ability to wipe away sin through Him. It's like twenty words total in John's Gospel.
Matrimony: probably the longest one, but Matthew's Gospel illustrates Jesus elevating this natural phenomenon to a sacrament over the course of about half a dozen verses.
Holy Orders: Laying on hands didn't take too long for the Twelve and it doesn't for us either.
Anointing: the Book of James knocks this one out in about two verses. Not the eternity that Fr. "Just Call Me Art" might envisage.
Lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum, et lumen semitis meis.
When you stand on a precipice the dark void below can be dizzying. You want to reach for something near at hand to steady yourself. Deconstructive Entmythologisierung has offered a shaky handrail for a century or so. Of course, the only real support is Faith: Deus in adiutorium meum intende; Domine ad adiuvandum me festina.
Why do men who think and believe as this man does become or remain Catholic priests?
He needs to be present at an intense exorcism where he will see and hear things that can't be dismissed as the result of a symbolic construct. Bet Father Amorth is rolling over in his grave.
When I am at the judgement seat I have my own sins to be accountable for and have to take whatever punishment is due, but I hope I am not standing behind this man in the line. Yikes!
Someone in the Vatican needs to have a serious talk with, Fr. Sosa.
I wonder, does the Pope know about Fr. Sosa's nonsense?
Sorry Jesuit Inferior General, I will stick with the perennial teaching of the Church and the testimony of the saints.
I wish Fr. Amorth were still alive. He could take Fr. Sosa along on an assignment for a little "on-the job" training.
I'd suggest Fr Arturo discuss the existence of the devil with his Jesuit confrere, Pope Francis, who spoke about satan quite often during his first year as the Pope!
Jeff Mirius writes: I have added the head of the Society of Jesus to my list of alleged persons who cannot possibly be real.
Father I am waiting for the public correction from Rome about this heresy, just like the correction they issued to his previous non sensical statement about not really knowing what Jesus taught…oh wait there wasn't one was there.
Disgusting demoralizing depressing I am so done with this group of traitors to the faith and I belong to a Jesuit run parish…God how long?
What gets to me is . . .not only is Fr. Sosa's statement heretical, it is naive, incredibly naive for a priest- as if a physician did not believe in germs.
You have to wonder, too, if he is not unintentionally paying himself a kind of left-handed compliment, for a man so innocent of this basic knowledge would almost have to have come to this great age as if straight from the baptismal fount, not only innocent of theology, but of life. You have to wonder. Is he also largely innocent of pastoral experience, a pastor recently descended from the ivory tower, an academic thrust into a position for which he is woefully unqualified in terms of fundamental spiritual street smarts?
Street people, on the other hand, who are usually anything but innocent typically believe in the reality of the devil. Ironic, no? That would mean that a street person recently converted from a bad life to life in Jesus Christ at a storefront church on skid row, may very well have more, far more, on the ball theologically than the head of the Jesuits! In all honestly, I would expect more theological and spiritual acumen and helpful advice from a pentecostal grandmother deep in the inner city than from the black pope of our day. Ironic beyond belief, and probably the very sort of thing that fully explains the sweep of evangelicals and pentecostals through Latin America. Could it actually be that such "uneducated" people have a far more vivid belief in and experience of the essential beliefs of the Catholic faith than do some of our own priests, that our priests are too often being mal-educated and in effect being systematically led out of the Catholic faith? My understanding is that the situation is improving, but meanwhile too many men are being promoted beyond their competence.
Not to worry! The pope's own vivid belief in the reality of the devil raises the possibility that Fr. Sosa may be summarily removed, a development devoutly to be wished. That is just the sort of "shot across the bow" that may wake the Jesuits up and precipitate self-reform, which is far, far preferable to suppression.
So, God is a construct too?
I know a number of fairly young (30-something) Jesuits, all of whom are very orthodox. And their higher-ups say stuff like this. It's a weird situation.
Souls being deceived. The heart of Jesus must break at this betrayal. Another reason to celebrate and support priests who are loyal to the teachings of Christ and the traditions of the Church. Thank you for your sacrifices that often go unacknowledged on earth.
I have lately noticed that whenever I am gobsmacked by theological error emanating from a priest, (mercifully rare occasions), he is a Jesuit. On the other hand, Father Mitch Pacwa is a Jesuit…so there's that!
Last month I attended a funeral rite with a Jesuit presider. He practically canonized the deceased, whom he had never met. He invited all to approach for communion, and as we did so, to give particular thought to our dearly departed Fred, whose presence we encounter in the Eucharist.
My extended lapsed family found it a lovely celebration.
It's exactly backwards — God has Free Will and we are made in His image, which is how and why we have Free Will too.
This notion that the Christian Religion is essentially a mental and/or social/psychological construct really ought to be explicitly and formally condemned as a heresy, given the shocking number of modern priests and laity who are confused in their thinking about the proper relationships between God, the Revelation, (genuine) Christian Spirituality, and human thought.
It effectively empties most of human history of its content.
Father Z, I am as appalled by Fr. Sosa's doctrinal comments as you are, and I hope that the CDF will bring him up short soon. But I don't think we should take Pope Clement XIV as our hero. He is certainly one of our less distinguished Popes, a compromise figure like many of the 18th-century Popes who were elected because they were plain vanilla, not especially competent, and unlikely to offend the Majesties of Spain, Portugal, France, the Holy (?) Roman (?) Empire (?) or any other Catholic monarch, all of whom were stirring the pot at the Conclave of 1769. His suppression of the Jesuits was nothing but appeasement to the Catholic monarchs, especially Louis XV. His successor, Pius VI, was a very worldly man but at least died a martyr after his kidnap by forces of the French Revolution. His successor, Pius VII, suffered greatly under Napoleon, helped put the pieces of Europe back together after Napoleon, and restored Papal authority at the Congress of Vienna. I want a coffee mug with his picture on it.
Sosa is drowning in double speak. He adheres to post-Christian Allegorical Catholicism. They can say whatever they want, have it mean whatever they want, and change it at any given moment. Tickles the ears of its adherents. Comforts the disoriented. Provides credence in academic and ecumenical circles.
What more could you ask for in life but to have your fraudulence supported by the dime of the Church. And he has that, for sure.
You can't appreciate the Good News unless you know the Bad News. Which is why frequently hearing about the Four Last Things in homilies is so important. You can't have Easter without the Cross.
So then, is the Holy Spirit a "social construct?" Are the Protestants be right about the Eucharist? If the Church is a social construct, then women priests.
The compelling argument against the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood is that a Catholic priest is a living icon of Jesus Christ, and that a woman cannot be a living icon of a man, any more than a man can give birth to a new person made in the image and likeness of God.
I had first seen this story elsewhere, and had been waiting for the Father Z treatment. I realize now I missed Father Z's first pass – I was working an extra shift that day.
Anyway… When I first read this I was amazed at the point of view and how the Superior could speak it. Then I walked out to my car and a certain Gershwin track came on the satellite Broadway channel which was a brilliant and ironic companion to the news.
Another reason against the ordination of women is that it has never been done before, and thus cannot ever be done. Orthodoxy is that which was believed everywhere, always, by all.
Break communion with the Church Triumphant at the peril of your soul.
Recently my grandmother's house was exorcised for certain reasons I will not speak of, and what happened a few hours afterwards was not the work of a disgruntled symbolic construct by any stretch of the imagination. Curtains falling down and doors slamming without any wind? A perfectly functioning light refusing to switch on? "Symbolic construct" my podex.
I second buckeye pastor's comments above. Regardless of what one thinks about the Jesuits today, their suppression in the eighteenth century was a catastrophe for the Church. How to distribute responsibility for the bull of suppression – was it a freely made decision by a pope who miscalculated the situation and its effects, or a decision mainly forced on the Church by the craven absolutist monarchs of Europe – is something to be argued about. But the victors in 1773 were forces of secularization that rolled on in their brutal persecution of the Church and could count the French Revolution and Napoleonic tyrannies as further successes.