Boston Law’s “Gang of 22”
[Guest post by DRJ]
Driver reveals that the Boston College Law School faculty or, as she calls them, the “Gang of 22”, have joined in a letter that ‘disinvites’ Michael Mukasey to be the law school’s commencement speaker. Quoting from the Wall Street Journal:
“Neither the faculty nor the students were consulted” before the invitation was issued, the letter advises. And though the professors realize that Mr. Mukasey’s job has “complex professional difficulties,” his role as a symbol for waterboarding conflicts with “the ideals of Boston College Law School and [its] Jesuit principles.”
This is not the way I pictured Jesuits in those Tom Clancy novels.
— DRJ
tom clancy novels are fiction.
assistant devil's advocate (d7b895) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:27 pmHeh. So maybe truth is stranger than fiction.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/25/2008 @ 2:59 pmAnother faculty that is irony-deficient.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:04 pmNothing like a whiff of academic cowardice in the morning!
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:06 pmNo profiles in courage here.
Move along now, nothing here to see.
If the faculty was actually interested in Jesuit principles, they would be out fighting Protestantism in the name of Counter-Reformation.
To quote its founder, Ignatius Loyola: “”I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.”
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:12 pmRacist, or Jesuist !!!
JD (5f0e11) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:18 pmJesuits in Clancy? Are you sure you’re not thinking of Brown (DaVinci Code) which certainly has enough villainous priests?
More relevantly, the Jesuits have had a reputation for being political leftist, even radical, for most of the last century. Driner was a Jesuit.
And also they have a heritage of being the victims of torture themselves
kishnevi (a730c4) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:48 pmSo maybe they’re a little sensitive on the subject.
As I recall, Jack Ryan was raised a Catholic, educated at Boston College, and his mentor was a Jesuit. In Clancyland, they were the good guys.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:53 pmSome of my favorite priests that I have met in my life are Jesuits, but it is alas the order that seems to attract the academicians, so there is more than a fair share of intellectual pomposity and pretense among that group.
JVW (00943f) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:53 pmI know someone who teaches at another Jesuit U, liberal to the core.
The Catholic “pink mafia” has taken over Catholic higher ed.
martin (86a2e8) — 3/25/2008 @ 3:58 pmI suspect those pompous BC faculty members are ignorant of the parallel discussion that went on about why Kerry, a Yale grad, had no better option than a crappy law school like BC. I saw some recent discussion that his less-than-honorable discharge doomed his Harvard Law School application back when Harvard cared about things like that. What does the Bible say, “Humble yourself and you shall be exalted ” ? You’d think Jesuits would have read that part.
Mike K (b9ce3e) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:00 pmThe Jesuits have always been the intellectuals and liberals of the Church. It’s the Dominicanes (The Lord’s Dogs) who are the Inquisitors. 😉 I graduated Loyola in 1982 and my Constitutional Law professor was a regional director of the ACLU. My Civil Procedure professor was a civil rights activist in the South in the ’50s.
nk (34c5da) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:11 pmI think you’re all right about the liberal Jesuits. It’s been a long time since I read a Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan book but, in those days, I was sort-of liberal, too.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/25/2008 @ 4:48 pmyes, jesuits can be liberal (as i recall, the berrigan brothers were jesuit). they have a reputation for being aggressive in expanding the reach of their faith, argumentative in the same sense as talmudic scholars, hair-splitting and somewhat devious. then there’s the black pope, whom some conspiratorialists see as more powerful than the better known “vicar of christ”. the most intriguing part of the foregoing wikipedia link is the assertion that when the pope, that is, the real pope, sins, the “black pope”, aka the superior general of the jesuits, performs “reconciliation” for him. inquiring minds want to know more about papal sins. when was the last time one was acknowledged? are these just minor peccadillos like coveting your neighbor’s hot wife, or are they more substantial, like wild monkeysex with your neighbor’s hot wife? i’ve heard about the borgias and medicis, i’d like to hear about john paul and benedict.
assistant devil's advocate (2d7259) — 3/25/2008 @ 7:03 pmI bet it’s more like dreaming of coming to Oregon to bitch-slap some pagan hermit, ada.
nk (34c5da) — 3/25/2008 @ 7:31 pmnk, if it’s anything like the erotic spanking session i had years and years ago with two young nuns about to take their final vows, i’d say bring it on.
assistant devil's advocate (2d7259) — 3/25/2008 @ 10:10 pmI attended Loyola Law School of Los Angeles and used to get my giggles quoting Ignatius Loyola.
SPQR (26be8b) — 3/26/2008 @ 7:07 amRE #12
Please don’t use the term “intellectual” and liberal in the same sentence.
These days, intellectuals seem to be mostly self-described as such, and are really just liberal morons who like to prognosticate about things that they don’t understand, usually to audiences that agree with them, and in ways that frustrate any sort of verification or validation.
I have worked with numerous actual geniuses, all of them in science and technology, and not one would accept the title “intellectual”. I don’t think that there are too many people with M.A.’s or Ph.D’s in liberal arts that qualify for the title.
martin (d3fe32) — 3/26/2008 @ 8:01 amConsider this from the excerpted section:
Does that mean if (let’s say, for argument’s sake) that the Papacy’s role as a symbol for Holocaust abetment were formost in Boston College’s collective mind, that the Jesuits would have to remove themselves from the campus? This, from supposedly edumacated legal scholars?
JSinAZ (c12bca) — 3/26/2008 @ 11:02 am