The Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola, confronts a Jesuit homilist with the temptation to ramble on and on about one of the most fascinating men in history along with the need to be reasonably brief. We are blessed with good documentation about Ignatius and his life. The short autobiography that Ignatius reluctantly dictated covers eighteen years of his life. It begins with the leg wound suffered at the Battle of Pamplona that precipitated his religious conversion from arrogant soldier and bon vivant to founder of a religious order of men. The autobiography ends in 1539, the year before the official foundation of the Society of Jesus.
One can learn much about Ignatius: man, mystic, and founder of a religious order, from the slim autobiography. One learns even more from his 7000 or so letters. They remain relevant.
It is fortunate Ignatius died 1555. He would not have survived today's politically correct scythe that cuts down both the good wheat and the weeds only to toss both into the flame, or, in worst case scenarios, keeping the weeds and destroying the wheat.
We are living in a time when the perceived sins of one's youth, or even last week, are enthusiastically unearthed and held against many men and women as evidence of their unfitness to exist. The situation is analogous to a social abortion. In what has come to be called "Cancellation Culture" we are seeing the destruction of statues, demands for public mea culpas, with the renaming of buildings, parks, and, even football teams.
Recently the great American Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor was the victim of cancellation culture when Loyola University of Baltimore removed her name from a dormitory because of absurd and illegitimate charges of "racism." Loyola "cancelled" O'Connor because, according to the university president, “Information coming forward recently. . . has revealed that some of her personal writings reflected a racist perspective.” He went on, a “residence hall must be a home and a haven for those who live there, and its name should reflect Loyola’s Jesuit values.” (Note: O'Connor's collected letters were published in 1988. No one would call any supposed revelations from her letter recent thirty-two years after the fact. I've read the collection twice. It was a great consolation to learn that she couldn't spell and was aware of it. The editor did not correct the sometimes hilarious spelling errors. James Agee was another wretched speller.)
Whether a dangerous miasma seeps into a hall because of its name and affects the students who live there is another homily. However, I can't shake the sense that Loyola is frightened of criticism from those who are driving this "cancellation culture" a culture that frighteningly resembles the Russian gulag or China's red guard. Loyola of Baltimore caved in most cowardly fashion.
Ignatius had this to say about acting out of fear for one's safety in a letter "On Confessors" to one of his men who felt it was unseemly and unsafe for him to be the confessor to the king (Letter shortened and edited without change of meaning). "If all we looked for . . . was to walk safely, (placing) the good of souls second to keeping far from danger, we would have no business living and dealing with our neighbor. But it is our vocation to have dealings with all people. . . . If we proceed with a pure and upright intention, not seeking our own interests but those of Jesus Christ, he himself . . . will protect us. Indeed, unless his mighty hand (holds) our profession fast, no avoidance of . . dangers would (help) to keep us from falling into them and worse." (Letter to Diego Miró 1 Feb 1533)
It is always dangerous to sell one's soul to the highest bidder, in this case the howling mobs demanding the disappearance of those deemed--correctly or incorrectly--racist, sexist, or, God-forbid, not in-line with the agenda of those who scream the loudest, who, if they don't get what they want, destroy indiscriminately.
In its desperation to appear 'woke' a university has placed itself in grave danger.
Ignatius would not have approved.
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