Writing in The Observer, the student newspaper of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame junior Sarah Morris offers a defense of the Jesuits:
The tendency to distinguish “real” Catholics from Jesuits often goes hand in hand with what New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has dubbed a possible “schism” between “adherent” and “progressive” Catholics that is brewing on the horizon. As Douthat and Fr. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit scholar and author, discuss in an excellent dialogue recently published in America Magazine, the labels of left-right/liberal-conservative can often be reductive when discussing varying ideologies within the Catholic faith. However, most would agree that it is fair to place Jesuits on the progressive side of things. This leads to the unsurprising conclusion that the large number of conservative-leaning Catholics at this University may find significant discrepancies between their idea of Catholicism and the Jesuit “brand.” Yet, it must be recognized that such discrepancies are not dogmatically based but rather matters of focus.
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