Martin Meenagh blog

Those clever Jesuits

That's how the Holy Father looks on a trip down to a 7-11 via the pub.

Following hard on the heels of the election of the new 'Black Pope' a few weeks ago, the Jesuits have been busy working on Islam. The expected focus of the Order was and is on Asia. Asia starts at Turkey, though (as my Cyprus reader will know) my computer informs me that its borders are somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Jesuit efforts to accommodate Islamic scholars of note and sensitivity to the modern world, and to give a voice to the moderate part of its billion adherents seem to have borne some fruit.

Here is a link to a story detailing Jesuit efforts to develop a higher and less literalist interpretation of Islam. There is a more detailed story on the Daily Telegraph Holy Smoke Blog.

When I was young at school, prig that I was, I had a few intellectual run-ins with some of the Jesuits who seemed to have forgotten their mental discipline in the South American jungles; Lord knows what they had seen that made them that way. It is nice to see their courage and brains being deployed again to higher purpose.

The Western Confucian describes it as 'tomfoolery', but I am not so sure. Of course, it sounds big to attribute the effort to the Order as a whole, though each of its members is very dedicated; it may well be an individual effort on the part of Father Felix Koerner. If so, well done.

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