At one point in their history, the Jesuits were known as “the Pope’s shock troopers.” That was long, long ago, however. The 1960s did for the Jesuits what it did for so much of Western society: insinuated a cancerous element of self-loathing masquerading as liberation.
One regular side-effect of this pathology is a susceptibility to co-optation: various extreme ideologies, like opportunistic infections, feed on the self-loathing and flatter the fantasies of self-righteousness.
The latest example to come to my notice is from the Georgetown University Hospital. Now Georgetown is a Jesuit Institution. That used to imply that it had a recognizably Roman Catholic identity. No longer. These days Georgetown is proudly latitudinarian: they call “ecumenical.” What it means in practice is that, like the Unitarians of yore, the institution professes a belief “in one God at most.”
The result? Well, according to a story in Belief.net, one result is that this supposedly Catholic Institution has decided to put Muslim prayer rugs at the back wall of its supposedly Catholic Chapel. Not only that: they also removed the Stations of the Cross facing Mecca. You can’t be too careful about offending Muslim sensibilities, you know, and a total repudiation of your own religious practice is obviously a small price to pay to avoid “Islamophobia.” I’d say it was incredible but you would have to be awfully credulous not to credit it.
I’m not surprised, nor should you be, Roger. When the healthy fear of crazy, revanchist people, to which all of us who remain sane are heir, combines with fashion, any sort of craven, arse-covering behavior can be expected from the minor intelligentia,* accompanied by justifications taken from Moral Philosophy 101 at a weak community college.
*Among “intellectuals,” Academic and scholarly Jesuits were once nothing like “minor,” but that was long ago.
Sad but not surprising. I worked with the American Jesuits on the Dominican – Haitian border (medical team) in the late Seventies and the Jesuits were totally smitten by Liberation Theology at the time. God as Marx and Christ as Che. Smug? You bet! Anybody who had opposing opinions were treated politely but condescendingly like the crazy aunt who lived in the attic. To compare Unitarians with the Jesuits is more accurate than you know. BTW, they all found John Paul II a Neanderthal throwback for his attempts to correct the influence of Marxism and liberation theology in the Church. What do the Jesuits stand for anymore? I sincerely do not know. How sad.
it’s nice that christians, jews, hindus, and other non-muslims are afforded the same courtesies and considerations throughout the islamic world.
What part of “Jesuitical” do you not understand?
And in truth, most so-called Catholic Hospitals aren’t Catholic. No diocese or order could afford to run a medical institution, today. Many Catholic diocese can’t even run churches, today.
GUH is a Medstar Health facility, a massive corporate-style system. They would change the “meditation rooms” into coffee bars, if they could get away with it.
You can’t have a one-world government without a one-world religion. If you think that’s nonsense then check out the UN’s so-called “meditation” room and see if you think there are any similarities to what you’re reporting on here.
The “long March” has been through the Church, too.
“UTRAQUE UNUM” (Both Into One)
[Georgetown U’s Motto)
[which both? Christian and Moslem?]
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There’s so much to say on this subject, I barely know where to begin. Worse, I can hardly conceive of where it might end. Nevertheless………
Let me begin by starting with where I was going to end and that is to say this:
There’s something very peculiar to this story. There’s absolutely no way a Moslem would enter a “chapel” and be restricted to a “back wall” section to pray. No way.
(It’s not the “back wall” that’s the problem, it’s the enclosure – entering the “chapel” itself that would be totally repugnant to a Moslem).
In addition, before the actual prayer ritual begins, Moslems are required to perform “ablution”, or washing oneself, which includes washing the feet.
Where is that going to take place? In the public restroom down the hall?
Would an illustrious MD on the hospital staff entering the WC to relieve himself put up with a Moslem washing his feet in the sink? (they actually LIFT their haunches up to the sink so as to wash their feet in them, assuming there are no “foot washing” facilities around…and there won’t be – these facilities are unknown outside the Islamic world).
How long do you think that little scenario would be allowed?
(I hate to be cruel, but what the hell: unsophisticated “Easterners” coming to the West for the first time, have been known to enter public WCs and assumed that the pissoirs were, in fact, foot washing facilities…..I’ll leave it to your imaginations as to what happened next….)
There are additional prayer-related problematical minutiae which I won’t go into here, but somehow, there’s something odd or lacking to this story (although I believe it).
Let me end by saying this: GU features one of the “outstanding” Arabo/Islamic studies programs in the country. In particular, its Arabic language materials are widely used throughout US campuses as the preferred texts by beginning students (although I have major reservations and critiques about them in general).
It also hosts a well-funded “Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding” which you can examine yourself at http://cmcu.georgetown.edu and draw your own conclusions (but I warn you, especially if you’re female…..don that scarf before entering !)
All of this, naturally is funded by “foreign” donations and such.
Does all this foretell the Islamification of America? I’d say it could – in the very long run (which, of course, is all that counts in the end).
But right now, we’re not at that stage yet. Right now, we’re at the Mother Goose or Hans Christian Andersen level…..presenting Islam as almost a fairy tale replete with flying carpets and rich, Oriental aromas.
The truth, of course, is catastrophically different from that – a totally alien entity bent on the final slavery of mankind.
While does the political class, the Progressives, both Republican and Democrat, bend over backward, or just bend over, for Muslims? What am I missing?
Why does the political class . . .
Both Islam and Christianity have an embedded desire to convert people to their own belief, i.e. missionary zeal. However, if one goes back through history, whenever you see compromise or defection, money is typically the reason – this was also evident during the Arab conquest of Persia.
More mindless trendy relativism. The differences between the religions
is massive. To get some idea imagine Christ mounted at the head
of armies..forcing conversions not by love..but at sword point and by threat of death. Because that is Islam. And its never changed.
History, reality. Try some.
Gone are the days of Cestus Dei, the Brass Knuckles of God, I guess. But I think it’s mainly the creeping enervation of academic cowardice that’s to blame here. The Church, far from monolithic, has an awful lot of room under the tent for political disagreement, but this kind of sheer surrender to an implacable enemy is similar (to me) to the surrender to Communism in South America by “liberation” theologists. It takes an intellectual to be this stupid.
What would Ignatius Loyola the tough old Spanish infantryman who swang
a sword against Islam say? He never apologized for defending the Cross
and was never confused about how different Christianity is to Islam..or
how superior.