A friend once told me she’d love to be a fly on the wall at Jesuit community dinners. “I’d learn a ton,” she said, implying, I guess, that a tableful of overly educated guys with varied interests could surely produce some profitable conversation. My response was to assure her we spend most dinners arguing over the Patriots chances of winning the Super Bowl or whether Costco’s pumpkin pie is tastier than its pumpkin roll.
But this dinner was the exception: four American Jesuits of various ideological stripes debating Catholic moral teaching vis-à-vis the HHS contraception mandate. Specifically, we argued whether the old principle of Catholic moral theology, material cooperation, might be applicable to the mandate, and whether, in light of Pope Francis’ priorities, the American episcopacy ought to change its tone – if not its position – regarding its objections to the mandate.
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