Compass Vol. 13 #5, Letters

Letters, Volume 13 #5

CREATURES OF IRON
It was with a sigh of relief that I read the critical comments of various Jesuits on Boston College's (now aborted) decision to plant an Ignatian Medal on the Iron Lady (Compass, May/June 1995). They reinforced the consolation I had already experienced when I read the documents of the 34th General Congregation. I think we Jesuits, on the whole, are a sane bunch of fellows.

But we would do well to reexamine the discernment process that led two prestigious Jesuit institutions (Boston College and Georgetown University) to think of honouring an avowed enemy of the poor. However sane we Jesuits are on the whole, and saturated with the Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises (God alone matters; all else only in so far as it leads to Her glory), our university system depends heavily on Mammon or at least on Mammon-worshippers, so that in the last analysis our Principle and Foundation is that all creatures (including things made of iron) are to be used tantum quantum--in so far as it is necessary for raising funds and increasing prestige.

There is an iron logic behind this: our education system is inevitably expensive and we Jesuits are inevitably involved in it. This logic justifies a revision of Luke 19 as follows: "On seeing Zacchaeus on the sycamore tree, Jesus climbed up to him and begged him to come down for dinner. Honoured by Jesus' invitation, Zacchaeus donated a good part of his stolen money for Jesus' Cause, thus sparing him the cost of Gethsemane and Calvary."

The time has come to reconstruct our university apostolate, that is to say, to invent one that does not turn the Gospel upside down--a truly Ignatian sytem of education that liberates the rich from their riches and the poor from their poverty, something that Maggie would not give us a medal for. I think this is what Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria tried to do with the University of Central America in El Salvador. It is an experiment worth failing.

Aloysius Pieris SJ
Gonawala-Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

FAR-OFF GERMANY
I enjoyed the fiction in this year's July/August issue, especially Ann Copeland's "My Vision." Its cute, carefree tone, revealing an undercurrent of deep, childlike faith, brought back memories of a similar nature.

But I was slightly disturbed when the nuns relocated Teresa Neumann to "far-off Italy." It seems they (or Ann Copeland) did not want to admit that even Nazi Germany had "holy people."

Teresa Neumann was born and spent her life in Konnersreuth, a small village in Bavaria. She came from a very poor family and worked as a domestic servant on local farms. Teresa became stigmatized at age twenty-eight and bore the stigmata for thirty-two years.

She was also clairvoyant and, according to biographer Josef Steiner, did not eat or drink anything, except for daily Holy Communion, for the last thirty-five years of her life. Teresa was under gruesome medical surveillance for years when the Nazis desperately but unsuccessfully tried to expose her as a fraud. She died in 1962 at the age of sixty-four.

But she never made it to Italy.

Ed Billet
Thorold, Ont.