Raised by Jesuits: Reason, Conscience, and Complexity in the Modern World

House Speaker Mike Johnson recently stated that Pope Leo's criticism of the Iran war was unfounded, and that Pope Leo should examine St. Augustine's Just War Theory. This is ridiculous on its face, since Pope Leo spent 12 years as the head of the Augustinian order, so would of course be well-versed on Just War theory. But let's examine what the Just War theory is and how it applies today, because this is the deeper problem: Augustine is routinely invoked not as a moral constraint, but as a permission slip. “St. Augustine of Hippo Receiving the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,” by Phillipe de Champaigne, 1602-1674, French. (Wikimedia Commons) St. Augustine did not write a tidy doctrine called “just war theory.” What he gave us instead was a set of moral guardrails rooted in a tragic realism about human nature. War, for Augustine, is always a sign of disorder. It may sometimes be necessary, but it is never clean, never righteous in the sense politicians like to imply, and neve...

Going to church can be a good thing and still be misunderstood. It’s easy to assume that regular church attendance places us on higher moral ground than those who don’t show up. We may never articulate it, but it lingers in our unconscious, reinforced by habit and familiarity. Jesuit spirituality has always pushed back against this instinct, not by dismissing religious practice, but by asking what it actually does to us. In essence: if churchgoing doesn’t make us more honest, more tolerant, and more aware of our own limits, then it hasn’t done its work. Ignatius Cared About Movement, Not Marks Ignatius of Loyola was far less concerned with outward conformity than with interior movement. The point was never to perform faith correctly, but to be changed by it. The Spiritual Exercises don’t reward us with certainty; they leave us aware of how often we mistake comfort for grace and routine for conversion. That awareness makes it difficult to look down on anyone else without first confr...

My childhood didn’t have many examples of healthy, open conflict. When conflict did surface, it came with drama. Raised voices. Hurt feelings. The sense that something had gone wrong and might not be repaired. What I did not see was disagreement handled calmly. So I grew up associating disagreement with failure. Moral failure. Relational failure. If people disagreed, someone must be wrong in a deeper way. Someone must be at fault. It took years to learn that disagreement is not a moral failing. The Presumption of Good Faith Jesuit formation helped clarify that, though not always directly. One of the quieter assumptions in Ignatian spirituality is what’s often called the Presupposition. Ignatius of Loyola writes that we ought to be “more ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement than to condemn it.” In practice, that means assuming sincerity before malice. Thought before corruption. Humanity before threat. That assumption alone changes the shape of disagreement. If the p...

Religion and political power have always had a complicated relationship. This reflection revisits familiar Gospel stories to see what they might say about today’s questions around nationalism and identity. The goal is not to discourage patriotism or civic involvement. Rather, it comes from a desire to understand what it means to follow a teacher who chose peace, humility, and service instead of domination. May this reflection encourage empathy and thoughtful engagement as people of faith seek the good of all. In the Gospel of John, chapter 18, verse 36, Jesus makes a profound declaration during his trial before Pontius Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” This statement has echoed through centuries of Christian theology, presenting a vision of spiritual sovereignty distinct from worldly power structures. Today, this teac...

Why God Isn’t Impressed by Ritual Alone In my first post on Raised by Jesuits , I wrote about the gap between professed faith and lived action: What happens when religion becomes performance, when belief floats unmoored from behavior. I’ve been sitting with that tension again lately, especially in light of a provocative truth found in the Hebrew Bible: God doesn’t reject people because they worship incorrectly. God rejects worship because people are living unjustly. That reversal matters. We often imagine that God demands reverence, obedience, religious observance, and if we get the liturgy right, say the right prayers, sing with the right amount of sincerity, then we’re aligned with the divine. But the prophets of the Hebrew Bible paint a much harsher, more urgent picture. Over and over again, we hear God refusing worship. Not because the music is off-key or the sacrifices impure but because injustice is being ignored. “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no deligh...

When Don Miguel Ruiz published The Four Agreements , he drew on ancient Toltec wisdom , a tradition that sees words as magic, capable of casting spells of freedom or harm. His first and most foundational agreement, Be Impeccable with Your Word , asks us to speak with integrity, avoid gossip, and use language to create truth and love. I can’t help but hear an Ignatian echo in this teaching. Jesuit spirituality treats words as sacred tools, to be used with discernment, humility, and purpose. Both traditions remind us that every word we speak shapes the world. Truth + Discernment Jesuit teaching goes further than Ruiz’s invitation to personal integrity. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, encouraged discernment: asking not just Is this true? but Should I say it? How should I say it? When? Being impeccable isn’t just blurting out truth; it’s aligning our speech with love, humility, and timing. The Jesuit practice of the Examen even includes reflecting on words: Where d...