At the end of their General Congregation, the Holy Father gently pressed the issues upon which Jesuits have not exactly been conspicuous for their obedience, issues called elsewhere by the Holy Father, “those neuralgic points of doctrine under heavy attack today from secular culture.”
Today, noted the Pope, “the obstacles challenging those who announce the Gospel are no longer seas and vast distances, rather they are the boundaries of a superficial vision of God and of man, which place obstacles in the way of faith and human knowledge, faith and science, faith and the commitment to justice”. Faced with these boundaries, continued Pope Benedict, Jesuits must “witness and help create the understanding that there is instead true harmony between faith and reason”, a harmony that must be translated into the defence of those “central issues which today are increasingly under attack from secular culture”. In short marriage and the family, sexual morality and the question of mankind’s salvation in Christ:
Here the Pope invited the Jesuits to renewed reflection on the meaning of their characteristic “fourth vow” of obedience to the St Peter’s Successor, which he said “does not only imply readiness to be sent on mission to far off lands, but also in true Ignation spirit – to feel themselves “with the Church and in the Church” – to love and serve the Christ’s Vicar as precious and irreplaceable collaborators at the service of the Universal Church”.
See also “weigel on the jesuits” for something less gentle.
