A Gentleman and A Scholar

Much has been written in the weeks after the new pope's election, about the removal of Father Thomas Reese as editor-in-chief of America magazine, a weekly publication of the American Jesuits. Actually, he resigned voluntarily, after consultation with the superior general of the order. This followed several years of conflict with the Holy See over various content in the magazine, which appeared to place dissenting positions on equal footing with established Catholic teaching and practice. In leaving voluntarily, Reese intended to act for the greater good. And besides, six years is the longest most Jesuits serve in a position, and he had been there for seven.

His farewell column was most gracious, more so than the scores of editors from the progressive wing of the Catholic press, who fear an impending reign of terror, and impediments to freedom of expression.

I knew Father Reese when I was a sacristan at Holy Trinity parish in Georgetown in the early 1990s, and he was a fellow at Woodstock Theological Center, located nearby on the Georgetown campus. He was a frequent celebrant-homilist for the Sunday evening Mass, predominated by college students and young adults. He was a charming and approachable man, quite popular with all of them. For me personally, it was at the height of my separation and divorce. I got to know all the priests there, and Reese was not above a listening ear, nor likening my challenges to "the way of the Cross." (His words, not mine.)

Reese was also a popular speaker for the parish's adult education program. Whatever balance he attempted to achieve when later appointed to America, he did not have the burden of a level playing field at the time. His periodic dissention from Church teaching would go unchallenged. But even at America, the difficulty was not so much that he presented challenges side-by-side with the Church's position (including a piece by the former Cardinal Ratzinger himself), as implying that they were of equal weight -- which, for a Catholic, they are not.

Now, America is not Commonweal; it is not the National Catholic Reporter. It is not independent; it is run by a religious order, one with a special vow of loyalty to the Holy See, and whose members benefit from the renumeration of the Church. It would seem less than completely honest not to act upon that vow, whatever the merits of one's position.

Reese's desire to provide a forum for "thinking Catholics" would lead one to wonder what exactly it was that he was thinking. One example was reported to have occured during an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) the day after Cardinal O'Connor died. The interviewer posed a few scenarios. One involved a single mother with two chldren now pregnant with a third. Reese allowed for the prospect of an abortion, given the hardship of an additional child under such circumstances.

What of the child? Does the requirement of academic detachment extend to life itself? Doesn't this go beyond detachment, to simply being callous? Where is the "thinking" here?

Reese is a nice guy, "a gentleman and a scholar." But he is most assuredly not a martyr. He is a man who knew exactly what he was doing, and exactly what the stakes were. I wish him the best in his new assignment (with the full knowledge that one was waiting for him upon his departure from America). I wish he were here in Washington again. I miss his homilies.

Most of them.