Liberal reporters just can’t seem to grasp the idea that making Christianity more "user-friendly" – that is, more liberal and "relevant" and free of conservative "dogma" that opposes divorce, abortion, and homosexuality – doesn’t end up attracting users. Just like liberal "mainline" Protestant churches are in decline, inside Catholicism, the Jesuit order is shrinking in America. On Easter Sunday, Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein never found anyone to notify her that it’s exactly the "user-friendly" liberalism that’s shrinking it.
Jesuit theology, which tends to be open and positive, is well suited to American spirituality in 2011, said the Rev. James Martin, a corporate executive turned priest and writer. He calls his order "user-friendly" and wrote "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything" last year, aimed at a non-Catholic audience.
"The message that God meets you where you are is very appealing, because we are a very experiential crowd today," Martin said. "Seekers want real-life experiences of God; they don’t want just dogma."
Indeed, the stereotype of Jesuits stands in contrast to that of the Catholic Church hierarchy, which many U.S. Catholics consider remote and doctrinaire.
How can Boorstein, who as a reporter who’s supposed to be a keen observer, missing that it’s hard for Martin to claim his approach is "very appealing" as they cannot attract new priests? Can she explore the fact that the priests are signing up for what liberals call the "remote and doctrinaire" church instead? But of course, the Post cannot call Jesuits "liberals," they’re just activists:
Jesuits are often seen as rebels, and the Vatican shut down the order for several decades in the late 1700s because of the perception that its members were meddling in Colonial politics. In recent decades, Jesuits have been associated with high-profile activism, such as in Latin America and, earlier, the protests against the Vietnam War.
Because Jesuits tend to work within the culture — in schools, research and cultural institutions — they sometimes are seen as less wary of contemporary Western life than Catholic Church officialdom.
"It’s a very positive view of the world, of culture, this idea that God desires to be found wherever people are. It’s a very different mentality than what has characterized Catholic mentality — a siege mentality, that the world is bad, the material world is bad, we need to defend ourselves," said the Rev. Mark Horak, pastor at Holy Trinity, which recently hired someone to "form" lay people in Jesuit spirituality.
If Boorstein’s story had any notion of journalistic balance, another Catholic priest might differ from Horak and suggest that the "siege mentality" is written into the Bible, that worldliness or appeals to the worldly can water down the Good Book’s message.
Boorstein might recall that at Georgetown University, the Jesuits have struggled with removing crucifixes from the classrooms, or covering up overtly Christian messages when President Obama comes to call. It would be "remote and doctrinaire" for Georgetown to retain its religious character. Instead, Boorstein allows an ongoing parade of happy talk (or denial):
The lack of new priests, they say, must be part of God's vision for lay people. So rather than mourn, the Jesuits have been busy building an elaborate system for passing along their beliefs and unique meditative rituals, imaginative prayer known as the "spiritual exercises"...
But with the average age of Jesuits in the West approaching 70, the order recognizes that its future rests with lay people.
The push to empower people who aren’t priests is more than just a result of the numbers crunch, Jesuits say. It has been slowly building since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which emphasized that lay people have key roles to play in the Church.
Which is why Jesuits can seem oddly upbeat about their endangered status.
"Some people outside will see this as a crisis, but we inside don’t see it that way. We see it as an invitation to share our tradition with lay men and women," said the Rev. Kevin O’Brien, executive director of campus ministry at Georgetown University. "It’s no better, no worse; it’s just different."
The "no crisis here" boilerplate tends to remind the reader of the George Carlin joke about the Indians -- just because they started up in Manhattan and ended up defending San Diego doesn't mean they were bad fighters...
