One thing I will say for a George Weigel’s syndicated columns. They always help me to turn to the Gospels, though not in the way Mr. Weigel may intend. The verse that comes to mind when reading Weigel’s sneering condemnation of those who do not correspond to his own definitions of orthodoxy is Luke 18:11, “I thank thee Lord that I am not like other men.” This week, in a column first published in Denver’s archdiocesan newspaper, Mr. Weigel turned his censorious gaze at the Society of Jesus, posing a series of questions to the newly elected General, Father Adolfo Nicholas. His full article can be found here:“Denver Catholic Register” The poor man has only been in his office for a couple of weeks, but Weigel is already clamoring for an accounting. The individual charges that Weigel lays at the feet of the Society do not really merit a response. What is telling is the manner of his accusations. Weigel uses a broad brush to smear the entire Society for what he perceives as the faults of a few of its members. Not once does he balance his charges with any commendation for other members of the Society. The Jesuits, like the Church in general, have a wide variety of opinions, characters, dispositions, and attitudes within their ranks. But, in Weigel’s view, if one Jesuit fails his standards, then the whole order is suspect. Weigel showers special venom upon the person of Father Robert Drinan, S.J., whom he charges with doing “more than anyone else to convince Catholic legislators that the settled teaching of the Church on the grave immorality of abortion had no bearing on their legislative work.” I recently had occasion to read Father Drinan’s writings on abortion from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drinan believed that the gravest danger was permitting the government to establish categories of those who would live or die, and believed sincerely that leaving such decisions to doctors, men and women committed to preserving life, was preferable. Drinan’s position was, I believe, naïve: he did not foresee that some doctors would soon be in the employ of abortion clinics and would be disinclined to counsel women against the procedure that had become their livelihood. But Weigel’s charge against Drinan suggests he desired the abortion-on-demand regimen we have today. He did not. The other curious thing about Weigel’s column, and about his writings in the past few years, is his obsession with homosexuality among the clergy. He rehashes his and Father Richard John Neuhaus’s specious interpretation of the sexual abuse crisis as essentially a gay phenomenon. In what Weigel terms the “Long Lent of 2002” he and others sought to turn gays into scapegoats and send them out of the church carrying the sins of us all. The pastors of the Church, thank God, recognized their own responsibility for the crisis and consequently felt no need of a scapegoat. Weigel’s attack on the Jesuits resembles nothing so much as his earlier attack on Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C. “The Tidings” Innuendo and guilt-by-association characterized that blast as well. What struck me then, and struck me reading Weigel’s attack on the Society this week, was not merely the lack of Christian charity. What is truly alarming is Weigel’s disregard for the actual authority of the Church. Cardinal McCarrick was his bishop when he attacked him. Father Nicholas’s election as superior general of the Society of Jesus was confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI, who evidently did not share Weigel’s concerns. Michael Sean Winters