Famed movie director Martin Scorsese is to make a film based on the Jesuit Catholic mission to Japan in the 17th century. The film will be based on “Silence” by Japanese author Shusako Endo. It is based on the story of Tome Ferreira (1580-1650), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, who renounced the Christian faith under torture Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Jesuits’
Faith and life in Brazil
Tuesday, June 17th, 2014
It’s official: the deep Amazonas is more remote than Siberia. In all of the visits I have made to provinces of the Congregation of Jesus (CJ) all over the world, never have I been without a signal for my BlackBerry… until I visited one of our sisters living and working in a community along the Read more
Substance behind Pope’s style
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014
It’s clear that Pope Francis has a style and approach to his job that contrasts sharply with those of his predecessors over the last 50 years. The frequently asked question is whether there is substance behind the style and if so, what does it look like? Traces of what he draws on are there to Read more
Jesuit theologian from India under doctrinal scrutiny by Vatican
Friday, May 16th, 2014
The Vatican is investigating a Jesuit theologian from India for allegedly espousing unorthodox beliefs. Censure has reportedly been threatened against Fr Michael Amaladoss, whose best-known book is “The Asian Jesus”. But the Jesuit provincial of Fr Amaladoss’s Indian province said there had been no condemnation or censure. Rather, there has been an ongoing dialogue that has Read more
The Way of Holy Week
Tuesday, April 15th, 2014
We are people of the Way, an ancient term for the first Christians which is found in the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus showed us that way throughout his whole life on earth, but this way becomes particularly clear and calls to us most profoundly in the events of Holy Week, not only by Jesus’s Read more
New versions of martyrdom
Friday, April 11th, 2014
As I have mentioned in a previous posting, there are many different sorts of martyrdom–in the broad sense of bearing witness, at a high or ultimate cost, to an awkward truth or passionately embraced cause. Independence movements, environmental campaigns, investigative journalism, humanitarian missions to war zones. They all draw inspiration from sons and daughters who perished in Read more
Ukraine: A spiritual journey in political guise
Tuesday, March 18th, 2014
The recent events in Ukraine are not what many news sources, even respected ones, imagine them to be. First, Ukraine was not a battleground where Russia and the West were hammering it out. Indeed, 99% of what was taking place on ‘the maidan’, the central square in Kyiv, was based on issues internal to Ukraine. Read more
We Christians live in fear in Syria
Tuesday, March 18th, 2014
Lent will see churches crowded across the globe. But here in Syria, where St Paul found his faith, many churches stand empty, targets for bombardment and desecration. Aleppo, where I have been bishop for 25 years, is devastated. We have become accustomed to the daily dose of death and destruction, but living in such uncertainty Read more
The beauty of breastfeeding
Tuesday, February 25th, 2014
“Do you mind if I feed Jonathan?” my sister-in-law asked me as she threw an oversized blanket over her shoulder – but the question she was posing to me wasn’t really “if,” it was “where.” My sister-in-law was gauging whether or not I was comfortable with her breastfeeding my 3-month-old nephew around me in her Read more
When theology trumps psychology
Tuesday, February 18th, 2014
In the late 1960s, our theology schools were abuzz with the Second Vatican Council, but that had not yet impinged on confessional practice. Among other things, we had “mock confessions”, in which (in front of everyone else) the ordinands took turns at being confessor while our professor, the redoubtable Paul Brassell, took the role of Read more