A news story about an international meeting of the Jesuits, [ Cardinal Rode Exhorts Jesuits to Love Church], includes these paragraphs:
[Cardinal Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life at the Vatican] also mentioned the “feeling of ever growing separation between faith and culture, a separation which constitutes a great impediment for evangelization,” saying this is another phenomenon that worries him.
“A culture immersed with a true Christian spirit is an instrument which fosters the spreading of the Gospel, faith in God the creator of the heavens and of the earth,” he said. “The tradition of the Society [of Jesus — the Jesuits], from the first beginnings of the Collegio Romano always placed itself at the crossroads between Church and society, between faith and culture, between religion and secularism.
“Recover these avant-garde positions which are so necessary to transmit the eternal truth to today’s world, in today’s language. Do not abandon this challenge. We know the task is difficult, uncomfortable and risky, and at times little appreciated and even misunderstood, but it is a necessary task for the Church.”
With all due respect, why would anyone expect creative thinkers to appear inside of an ossified human institution of any sort? The various cultural groups and other groups of the modern West are suffering the sort of rigidity that is incapable of true creativity. The best that members of these groups can manage is either mindless conformity to rigid understandings of tradition or a simple lack of respect for what’s good and noble.
When the members of a culture can no longer recognize good, creative thinking, they can always rely on the sorts of credentials that show well on a resume. On the whole, Jesuits have shown no ability to deal with the problems facing Christian thinkers in this age, but they have plenty of degrees and awards. As a consequence, it’s natural for the leaders of a troubled Catholic Church to look to them to do something creative in an age where Christianity desperately needs good creative works.
But, again: why would anyone expect such over-educated denizens of a textbook world to be good, creative thinkers? At the risk of sounding egotistical, those looking for a creative thinker working in those important and dangerous positions, at “the crossroads between Church and society, between faith and culture, between religion and secularism” should read my books and my blogs and not worry about Jesuits until they begin to respond to my efforts or those of other truly creative thinkers. History would indicate that the creative thought we need in this age will come from outsiders and lone-wolves and not from men formed to institutional standards and having minds formed to textbook standards. Once upon a time, Jesuits managed to be scouts and pioneers even as they were members of a vast army of scholarly priests. That time seems to have passed and the current members of the Society don’t seem to be the ones who could make that time come again.