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This Insights eNewsletter was sent to subscribers on September 30, 2014.

eNewsletter Subject: On Bishops and Jesuits, Saints and Angels

It is good to see Pope Francis continue the policy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, by which I mean proactive Apostolic Visitations. This is an excellent way to foster renewal in religious communities and dioceses throughout the world.

The latest example, and one that I confess causes me a bit of pain, is the current Apostolic Visitation of the American diocese of Bishop Robert Finn. I comment, as honestly as possible, in Bishop Finn in Kansas City: Not quite up to date?

I wish it were possible to do Apostolic Visitations of our alleged Catholic universities, but they are not nowadays sufficiently linked to the Church. I also wish Rome thought it would be effective to investigate the Jesuits just as US women religious were investigated, but Pope Francis is taking another tack with his own order.

Thus Francis' remarkable address on the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Society reads, at least to me, like a cautionary tale coupled with sound advice on how the Jesuits today should act: Jesuits 'Brave and Expert Rowers' in the Barque of Peter. Or at least the text says that this is what they must be....

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