Fr Mankowski was silenced by the Jesuits. It was a kind of tribute
Catholic Herald, 29 September 2020
A tribute to the late Fr. Paul V. Mankowski, S.J..
The homilist at the funeral Mass for Fr Paul Mankowski remarked upon “three things that were important” to the late Jesuit – his family, the Society of Jesus and St John Fisher. This last, the preacher suggested, was a fitting devotion, for Mankowski, like the martyr bishop, “was extremely learned, especially in biblical languages and theology”. Cardinal Fisher experienced the loneliness of fidelity as all his brother bishops capitulated to Henry VIII. So too did Mankowski pay the price of fidelity amidst difficult years in the Society.
Watching the livestream, I permitted myself to wonder what Fr Mankowski himself might have said about the homily of Fr Kevin Flannery, his brother Jesuit and philosopher at the Gregorian University in Rome. With the repeated references to St John Fisher as the patron who exemplified the life that Fr Mankowski had lived, the deceased might have observed that he was never in danger of beheading because, whatever else his Jesuit superiors were wobbly on, they were implacably opposed to the death penalty.
Paul Mankowski was a very good Jesuit, the best of the Jesuit tradition. That he was considered a bad, or at least a troublesome, Jesuit by his superiors and the Society’s leadership for much his life was a rather sharp indictment of the Society which he intensely loved. Indeed, he loved the Society too much to leave it when not a few of his superiors wished that he would; he would have not lacked for opportunities given his preternatural talents.
He loved the Society too much to remain silent about its corruptions. Whether he spoke the truth in love was not always obvious; even his admirers concede that his compelling columns could be acerbic, even cutting.
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