Wednesday, January 10, 2018

My kind of Jesuit …

… Francis Canavan: A Jesuit for the Confused and Distressed | William Doino Jr. | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Lest anyone think Canavan wrote only about culture-war issues, this collection shows him defending the Sermon on the Mount and the Church’s social teachings on behalf of the poor. He does so with aplomb, drawing on his knowledge of history, law, theology, and politics—and without resorting to invective or over-heated polemics. Canavan had a rare ability to refute error, and expose deception, with charity and wit. This quip is an example: “Our contemporary culture, officially at least, does not care what kind of sexual activity you engage in so long as you don’t smoke cigarettes doing it.” More examples appear in his column “Losing the Faith,” in which Canavan explains why he has lost all belief—not in God or Holy Scripture, but in the skeptics.

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