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"Recognise the signs of your times." Hmm. Totally fired up reading this... but it sort of petered out for me around 3/4ths through the book. Anyhow - there is nothing harmless about a "little" compromise... especially in terms of absolutes. ( )

Politics is often more than the "art of compromise" that Plato called it. It represents the struggle for domination of ideas and power. Any organization that deals with wealth or ideas will inherently be subject to competing forces in the drive for control. The Catholic Church is no exception, and Malachi Martin has written a riveting history of the "war" between the Papacy and the Society of Jesus, known to the rest of the world as the Jesuits.

The effects of the battles have been profound and may affect millions. The conflict has two defining issues: authority, i.e., who creates doctrine and moral law; and purpose, i.e., what is to be the role of the Church in the modem world.

Arthur McGovern, SJ. wrote a book entitled [b:Marxism, an American Christian Perspective|867601|Marxism, an American Christian Perspective|Arthur F. McGovern|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|852997] that suggested Jesus was a paragon of revolution, a Marxist, if you will, who proclaimed, "I have come to preach good news to the poor, to set the downtrodden free, to redeem the captives." Elemental Marx also declared this class struggle. (Pat Robertson must be getting a hickey over this.) One faction of the Jesuits adopted this point of view. The Pope, vigorously antiCommunist, and the antisocial gospel adherents formed the lines on the, other, side of the debate.

Martin clearly sides with the Pope, arguing it is specious to throwaway 1500 years of moral and spiritual proclamation merely because Karl Rahner, SJ. and others theorize the hierarchy is wrong and the social gospel correct. This is ironic because the Jesuits had become over the centuries the Pope's men, the one organization that the Pope could always count on for unswerving loyalty.

Inigo de Loyola was born in 1491, a time when the European Christian world was being turned on its head. The Byzantine Christians had been overrun by the Turks, sending art and literature artifacts westward; the Moors were finally being pushed out of Grenada, their final stronghold in Spain; and Columbus returned from his historic voyage in 1493. Little Europe was no longer the center of the world and the powers recognized there were millions of souls in the world that needed Christianizing.

Inigo started off badly. He was worse than the proverbial typical teenager and was arrested for malicious behavior on several occasions. The turning point was the convalescence period following his severe injuries in the war. A cannonball passed between his legs, shattering one. The French doctors did not set it well, and back in Spain it needed to be broken once more and reset. This required a long period in bed during which time he read the lives of the saints, gradually becoming more and more mystically oriented. A pilgrimage to Jerusalem clinched his change in masters: he would now serve Jesus rather than the temporal Spanish king (actually it was the queen he had been most infatuated with).

He began a period of intense study at the University of Paris. He was thirty-four. Paris was seething with the heady rebellious thinking of the Renaissance, and Inigo (he changed his name to the more Latin Ignatius about this time) was examined by the Inquisition three times, but acquitted - although he spent some time in prison. After becoming a priest and receiving his degree, he presented a plan to the Pope that was bold in its simplicity. He would create an army, beholden to no one but the Pope which would not be tied to any particular discipline or way of life, but would acquire whatever skills were needed in the battle against the great evil one, Lucifer. As the
Pope was Christ's personal representative on earth, devotion to the Pope was to be paramount.

The structure of the organization was to reflect that of God's ordained hierarchical edifice, i.e. subordination to the superior, all elements bound together in recognition of higher authority, simple in design, much like a pyramid. The bonds of authority and obedience became the glue that held the sQciety together. Order was paramount. "Sin and Lucifer had violated that order of created things. The great enterprise of Christ was to restore that order."If the links were altered in anyway; so too would the Society of Jesus be fundamentally changed.

Martin blames "Modernism" for the changes in the Jesuits and the Church. George Tyrell, a late 19th century Jesuit, believed the structure of the Church, the hierarchy, was a medieval anachronism that was a passing phase in Christ's development of the institution. This view struck at the heart of the Pope's authority, transferring it to the community of believers. Martin argues this democratic concept leads to faith in the world rather than faith in the church. Liberation theology, Martin's bete noire, was a natural result of this world view.

This is a truly a fascinating book. Martin is obviously a dedicated conservative who staunchly believes in the rightness of a patriarchal, fascistic hierarchical structure for his church . ( )

A fascinating book about the Jesuits and the fight within the order over orthodox versus liberation theology viewpoints. Martin, a former Jesuit, published the book after leaving the order. While Jesuits began as the most committed and orthodox of the orders, the warriors of God, Martin points out that recently there are those in the order who question the primacy of Papal leadership. They freely combined Marxist and Catholic ideologies in ways decidedly not sanctioned by The Vatican. As a non Catholic I found parts of the book confusing, but overall appreciated its candor and the author's courage. Whether it's all true is a question for someone who knows a lot more than I do about the topic, but it is apparent that Martin's description of the split within the order has some basis in fact. ( )