This presupposes, on the part of the teachers, submission and obedience. The Jesuit teachers are told by their rules to obey the Prefect of Studies in all things pertaining to studies and school discipline. It is well known that St. Ignatius insisted on nothing so much as on obedience.[1] The obedience demanded by the Society has frequently been censured by men who do not as much as know what this obedience really means. In an army, or in any department of government, a similar obedience is exacted as being wholly necessary for the maintenance of right order; why not much more so in a religious community whose members profess obedience to their superiors in whom they see the representatives of God? M. De Ladevèze said recently: "Military obedience has had none but vigorous apologists, obedience in religious Orders, other than the Society of Jesus, has had but rare and indulgent critics, whilst the obedience of the Jesuits has ever been the butt for attacks as numerous as – my readers would not allow me to say impartial."[2] Does
- ↑ "The Society of Jesus," says Cardinal Newman, "has been more distinguished than any before it for the rule of obedience. ... With the Jesuits, as well as with the religious Communities which are their juniors, usefulness, secular and religious, literature, education, the confessional, preaching, the oversight of the poor, missions, the care of the sick, have been their chief object of attention; bodily austerities and the ceremonial of devotion have been made of but secondary importance. Yet it may fairly be questioned, whether in an intellectual age, when freedom both of thought and of action is so dearly prized, a greater penance can be devised for the soldier of Christ than the absolute surrender of judgment and will to the command of another." In Development of Christian Doctrine, ch. VIII.
- ↑ The Open Court, Jan. 1902, p. 14.
