Priest’s Book Tells Sad Tale of Jesuits’ Abortion Complicity in the USPART I
COMMENTARY: The late Jesuit Father Paul Mankowski knew how badly some of his brother priests and his superiors had betrayed the Society of Jesus.
Father Raymond J. de Souza
January 7, 2022
Need a prominent cleric to give cover to Catholic politicians who vote to preserve and expand abortion access? For more than 50 years, the Jesuits have had a man at the ready. It is a grave scandal in one of the Church’s most venerable orders.
Jesuit Father Pat Conroy, who served as chaplain of the House of Representatives from May 2011 to January 2021, gave an interview published this week in The Washington Post, in which he defended Catholic politicians who promote abortion access. He went so far as to cite St. Thomas Aquinas on conscience to defend his position, which is both embarrassing and beneath the dignity of a proper Jesuit formation.
For those with longer memories, the idea of a prominent Jesuit from the House of Representatives defending permissive abortion laws is not new. Father Conroy is a rather low-budget version of the late Jesuit Father Robert Drinan, but he remains a standard-bearer for what his brethren are wont to call “the Jesuit tradition.”
It was 15 years ago this week that Father Drinan was back in the spotlight. Recall the circumstances. In early 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, the capstone to a remarkable political career. That she is Speaker again 15 years later is further evidence of the formidable political force she remains.
Pelosi, cognizant of the milestone she had achieved in 2007, organized a four-day gala to mark her accession to the speakership. It began with a Mass “in recognition of House Speaker-Elect Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi,” at her alma mater Trinity University in Washington, D.C. The main celebrant and homilist was Father Drinan, then 86 years old. It was his last major public event. He died later that same month.
Therein lies a scandalous tale of Jesuit complicity in abortion in America, a tale more completely told in an important new book from the late Jesuit Father Paul Mankowski, who knew how badly some of his brother Jesuits and his superiors had betrayed the Society of Jesus.
Father Robert Drinan was prodigiously talented, even by the high standards for which the 1960s Jesuits were known. He was dean of the law school at Boston College at age 36, and led that school to new heights over 14 years. In 1970 he ran for Congress from Massachusetts and was elected five times as a Democrat, serving from 1971 to 1981.
In May 1980, Pope St. John Paul II ordered him not to run for re-election that November, and thus Father Drinan left Congress in January 1981. John Paul’s decision was issued as part of a wider prohibition on clerics holding political office. When definitive word came from the Pope, Father Drinan obeyed, saying that defiance was “unthinkable.” Defiance had been his modus operandi for a decade, in fact.
Father Drinan ran in 1970 on a strong anti-Vietnam War platform and was the first congressman to introduce articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, he defended the decision and was a reliable vote in favor of expanding the abortion license, including taxpayer funding, for the duration of his congressional service.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/priest-s-book-tells-sad-tale-of-jesuits-abortion-complicity-in-the-us