Thread by @JamesMartinSJ

With opposition to Pope Francis among some priests (and even bishops), it's worth remembering how some priests who found themselves at odds with their superiors reacted in the past. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, former superior general of the Society of Jesus, after suffering a stroke...

...was removed from his post in 1981 by St. John Paul II. His "vicar," or assistant, Fr. Vincent O'Keefe, SJ, an American Jesuit widely seen as Arrupe's choice for successor as superior general, was also removed from his position....

Arrupe's response? Even in his weakened state, Father Arrupe publicly declared his obedience to the Holy Father, instructed every Jesuit to be obedient and pointedly sent around this photo to every Jesuit house in the world. (It hung in my novitiate near the front door.)

I later heard from many in the Vatican and the Society that St. John Paul II eventually concluded that he had been misled by some people, and was surprised not only by Father Arrupe's obedience, but by that of the Society, and the two later enjoyed a warm relationship...

@ThomasReeseSJ when fired as editor in chief of @americamag, at the behest of Cardinal Ratzinger, packed his bags and moved to his next assignment; Robert Drinan, SJ (with whom I disagreed with on some topics), when instructed not to run for public office again, also assented...

John Courtney Murray, SJ, when told not to write any longer on matters of church and state, quietly returned his books to the library, as one of his Jesuit contemporaries told me. On a less exalted level, I've also been asked to do things out of obedience and did them...

It pains me to see so many priests (and even bishops) fomenting opposition to Pope Francis. And I know that there are other examples of Jesuits not being obedient (or silent). Also, I could just as easily hold up members of other religious orders. (The Jesuit examples are..

...obviously foremost in my mind.) Thomas Merton, for example, was censored by his Trappist superiors in the 1960s, and told not to write publicly about the Cold War, and he also assented. The message for me is that when you pronounce a vow of obedience in a religious order...

...or make the promise of obedience as a priest to your ordinary, or as a bishop promise obedience to the Holy Father, and you disagree with something, instead of digging in your heels, attacking your superior and fomenting public opposition, there are...

...other options, as demonstrated by most priests, religious and bishops, who live out their vows and promises quietly and without fanfare. Merton's words after his silencing have always helped me in this regard. God is using his vows, he believed, as I do...

..."to attain ends which I myself cannot at the moment see or comprehend."