February 11, 1915 - December 13, 1942
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.1205/pub_detail.aspSomething very interesting considering that Ledochowski is considered one of the "greatest" Black Popes within the context of being so during some of this world's most turbulent/bloody times, who gave the Jesuit Order the firmest stamp and clearest definition since the Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
(excerpt)
It's a safe bet that no Jesuit provincial in the U.S. has appreciatively quoted Wladimir Ledochowski for rather a long time. That, and the unsparing honesty of Father Levensï's address, suggests that something interesting, and just possibly hopeful, is afoot.
About Weigel:
http://www.eppc.org/scholars/scholarID.14/scholar.asp
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America's leading public intellectuals.
Professional Experience
A native of Baltimore, he was educated at St. Mary's Seminary College in his native city, and at the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto. In 1975, Weigel moved to Seattle where he was Assistant Professor of Theology and Assistant (later Acting) Dean of Studies at the St. Thomas Seminary School of Theology in Kenmore. In 1977, Weigel became Scholar-in-Residence at the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle, a position he held until 1984. In 1984-85 Weigel was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. There, he wrote Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (Oxford University Press, 1987).Weigel is the author or editor of nineteen other books, including The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism (Oxford, 1992); The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored (HarperCollins, 2001); The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church (Basic Books, 2002); Letters to a Young Catholic (Basic, 2004); The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God (Basic, 2005); God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church (HarperCollins, 2005); Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism (Doubleday, 2007); and Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace (Crossroad, 2008). Weigel has written essays, op-ed columns, and reviews for the major opinion journals and newspapers in the United States, and is a contributor to Newsweek. A frequent guest on television and radio, he is also Vatican analyst for NBC News. His weekly column, "The Catholic Difference," is syndicated to sixty newspapers around the United States. His scholarly work and his journalism are regularly translated into the major European languages.
From 1989 through June 1996, Weigel was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he led a wide-ranging, ecumenical and inter-religious program of research and publication on foreign and domestic policy issues. From June 1996, as a Senior Fellow of the Center, Weigel prepared a major study of the life, thought, and action of Pope John Paul II. Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II was published to international acclaim in the Fall of 1999, in English, French, Italian, and Spanish editions. Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Czech, and Slovenian editions were published in 2000. A Russian edition was published in 2001, and a German edition in 2002; Chinese and Romanian editions are in preparation. A documentary film based on the book was released in the fall of 2001 and has won numerous prizes.Weigel has been awarded ten honorary doctorates, the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal by the Republic of Poland. He serves on the boards of directors of several organizations dedicated to human rights and the cause of religious freedom and is a member of the editorial board of First Things.
George Weigel and his wife, Joan, have three children and one grandchild, and live in North Bethesda, Maryland.
Education
B.A., St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore
M.A., University of St. Michael's College, TorontoRSS Feed
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No, wait, after two and more years they remembered him. As they are scared to death they probably are building a presentable truth on him, I heard for exmple that the bulky archive of the personal correspondence-mails of Pacelli needs 5 (five) years to be analyzed in order to demonstrate his innocence respect the Holocaust involvement (from a radio program months ago).
ReplyDeletehttp://goodjesuitbadjesuit.blogspot.com/2010/07/superior-general-vladimir-ledochowski.html
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Superior General Vladimir Ledochowski, S.J., Pope Pius XI And "The Hidden Encyclical"
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The death of (pictured) Rev. Vladimir Ledochowski, the "Black Pope," on December 13 somberly marked a period of tremendous growth for the Society of Jesus, whose general he had been since 1915. Monuments to his service included new buildings for the Curia Generalis on Borgo Santo Spirito and the Gregorian University on the Piazza Pilotta, along with the Oriental Institute, the Russian College, and the Biblicum. His uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop of Gniezno, had been deposed one month after taking office in the Kulturkampf of April 1874, imprisoned for two years, and lived from then on in Roman exile. One of Father Ledochowski's sisters would be beatified by Pope Paul VI, and another canonized by Pope John Paul II.
The Father General was small in stature and frail in appearance: "In later years, his face had a certain ageless transparent look; and he walked with a noticeable limp."
ReplyDeleteFather Ledochowski had supervised the Latin translation of Pope Pius XI's encyclical Humani Generis Unitas, which Eugene Cardinal Tisserant attested was on the pope's desk the day he died on February 10, 1939. Under Father Ledochowski's guidance, three Jesuits had drafted the document in Paris: the American Rev. John LaFarge, Rev. Gustav Gundlach, and Rev. Gustave Desbuquois.
While the encyclical began with a general condemnation of modernist assumptions, it moved into a specific attack on racism. Father LaFarge's hand was evident in the condemnation of American racial segregation, but the burden was anti-Semitism and Nazi eugenics. As it was never published, it has been called "The Hidden Encyclical,"
with the implication that Pope Pius XII found it too strong. Now we know that Pius XII, in his own inaugural encyclical Summi Pontificatus, took up the theme of race mythology but excised the glaringly anti-Jewish commentary that accompanied the broad condemnations of genocide in the text Father Ledochowski had presented to Pius XI. Like Harry Truman, who had not been informed of the Yalta texts, Pius XII apparently had not previously seen the text of Humani Generis Unitas.
Contrary to the claims of some later historians, Pius XII preserved the essential critique of anti-Semitism, while excising stereotypical descriptions of Jews that would have been exploited by the Nazis:
"Blinded by a vision of material domination and gain," and "this unhappy people, destroyers of their own nation."
Link (here) to read Fr. George W. Rutler's full article entitled, 1942: The Coming of Emmanuel at Inside Catholic
Posted by Joseph Fromm at 1:02 AM
Labels: Jesuit History, Jesuits and the Holy Father, Superior General