Black Robes

by Jim Bemis

In Bruce Beresford's fine 1991 film, Black Robe, Jesuit priest Father Laforgue is captured by the Iroquois and forced to run a gauntlet. Indian braves beat the priest with sticks, bats and rocks as he runs by, repeatedly knocking him down. Each time he arises, only to be hammered again until he finishes the course, bruised and bloodied. The savages then take Fr. Laforgue away to inflict even more barbaric forms of torture.

Today's orthodox Jesuit priests also run a gauntlet, only nowadays the savages wielding sticks and bats are their superiors. Take Father Joseph Fessio, for example. Fessio, one of Catholicism's most esteemed and influential voices, is the founder of Ignatius Press and the University of San Francisco's St. Ignatius Institute, a widely-respected great books program within USF once known for its faithfulness to Catholic teachings. However, last year USF's new president fired SII's long-time administrators and "reformed" it to be more politically correct, like the rest of the university.

For his orthodoxy, Fr. Fessio was exiled by Fr. Tom Smolich, his Jesuit superior, to an assistant chaplain's job at tiny southern California hospital. In a recent interview, Fessio said his dismissal from San Francisco resulted from his long-running criticism of USF and his plans to establish Campion College, an independent college intended to replace SII. "What I was trying to do with Campion College was offensive," he said. "They probably saw it as an indictment of them."

Further, Fessio was vehemently opposed to the university allowing the sex play The Vagina Monologues to be performed during Lent. As Fessio said, "A Catholic University doing that during Lent, the holy season, that's not a Catholic thing to do." Among other unedifying things, Vagina Monologues features the homosexual seduction of a minor. Just what the Catholic Church needs to be promoting on its campuses right now, don't you think?

In other Jesuit news, the Los Angeles Times reported that Fr. Smolich has housed a number of Jesuit registered sex offenders at his residence, including a Father Angel Mariano, who was caught by police in 1998 in a sex act with a 17-year-old boy. At the time, Fr. Mariano was wearing lipstick and rouge. Mariano was removed without explanation as associate pastor at San Jose's Most Holy Trinity Church. Asked why parishioners were not made aware of the reasons for Mariano's departure, Smolich said, "Why should they? This is an Internet cruising thing. This is anonymous sex. This doesn't involve people at the parish."

Nice. Is this the same order for which Saint Isaac Jogues and other North American Martyrs suffered?

James Bemis is an editorial board member, weekly columnist and film critic for California Political Review. He is also a columnist for the Internet website Catholic Exchange and served for years as a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. He is a frequent contributor to The Wanderer, the oldest weekly national Catholic newspaper. Mr. Bemis' work has appeared in National Catholic Register, Catholic Faith & Family, Catholic Digest, Thomas Aquinas College Newsletter, The Wanderer Forum Focus, the Los Angeles Times, the Ventura County Star, and the Simi Valley Enterprise. His five-part series, "Through the Eyes of the Church," on the Vatican's list of the 45 Most Important Films in the Century of Cinema, was published in The Wanderer. Mr. Bemis is currently writing a book on Catholic art, literature and film.