Fr. Robert J. Drinan, S.J. - Rest in Peace
The Cafeteria is Closed notes the passing of the man whose last public act was to celebrate Mass for Nancy Pelosi.
UPDATE
Regular Guy Paul minces no words about what he believes to be the eternal destination of Fr. Drinan's soul.
As I am in no position to make such a call, I will hope that Fr. Drinan had a conversion of heart at the end, and will pray for his soul.
UPDATE # 2
From Catholic World News:
Father Drinan, lawmaker who defied Rome, dead at 86(emphasis added)
Washington, DC, Jan. 29, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Father Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest and lawyer who defied directives from Rome to serve for a decade in the US Congress, died on Sunday, January 28, at the age of 86.
The combative Jesuit had been a lightning-rod for controversy throughout his political career. He came to Washington as an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam; later he became one of the most reliable votes in Congress in favor of unrestricted legal abortion.
His advocacy of legal abortion continued long after his tenure in Congress. In 1996 the priest-politician shocked many Catholics by praising President Bill Clinton for his veto of legislation banning partial-birth abortion.
A partisan Democratic legislator, Father Drinan filed the bill to impeach President Richard Nixon in 1973. Years later he would argue strenuously against the impeachment of President Clinton. After leaving Congress he became the president of the liberal political bloc, Americans for Democratic Action.
Father Drinan, who served as a Congressman from Massachusetts from 1971 to 1980, died of congestive heart failure at Sibley Hospital in Washington. He had lived in Washington, teaching at Georgetown and continuing his active involvement in liberal political causes, after relinquishing his seat in Congress.
In 1970 Father Drinan made his first run for Congress despite the explicit disapproval of Father Pedro Arrupe, then the head of the Jesuit order. With the help of local Jesuit leadership in Massachusetts he was able to forestall public reprimands from his superiors in Rome, or from the bishops in the Massachusetts dioceses covered by his Congressional district, until finally bowing to a papal directive in 1978 that barred priests from serving in elected public posts.
See also "The Strange Political Career of Father Drinan"
Labels: Dissident Catholics, Jesuits
posted by Pro Ecclesia 9:08 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
He typified the problem currently in American Catholic Church. The problem in the American Catholic Church is that Americans’ think they are above God, God’s Laws, and the past means nothing. This man believed that the killing of the unborn was acceptable.
Oh what times we live in.
As always, thanks for the link; but there's no evidence that Fr. Drinan repented on his deathbed; I find it downright unlikely.
As for "making the call" regarding his final disposition, I follow the teachings of the Church as to what consitutes mortal sin and its consequences, and the example of Dante, who peopled his Inferno with numerous figures from his own day, as well as history and even mythology.
Included among those Dante encountered in hell was the most recently-deceased pope, who, when Dante spoke to him, asked if Dante wasn't his successor, the current pope at the time.
The Church doesn't teach who is in Hell. But it teaches that there are people in Hell. I expect that Fr. Drinan is among them.
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