Jesuit Saint

Jesuit Father Paul Mankowski was a legend to those who knew him. There were stories that floated around: He never owned more than he could put into a medium-sized box; he blessed the meal at the arrival of cocktails; he had once been the sparring partner of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. All of those things were true.

In an article written for First Things in 2023, Father Jerry Pokorsky described Father Mankowski’s writing as “outbursts of sanity.” That title hits home for me, as I spent many years telling anyone who would listen that my Jesuit friend was “keeping me sane.” Indeed, I have him to thank for the fact that my faith is rock solid in the midst of the mind-numbing confusion that is present-day Catholicism.

Anyone who ever met Father Mankowski realized that he was a once-in-a-lifetime individual. No one was as brilliant, clever, devoted to God and to Holy Mother Church, as utterly delightful to be around, or even as humble. All of those characteristics (and more) made him a treasure to everyone who knew him.

Sadly, however, not many people actually knew him. As a consequence of the actions of his Jesuit superiors, the most frequent response I got when I told people that I was writing a book about him was, “I’ve never heard of him.” The Jesuits made sure of that, and thereby robbed the world of the mighty voice of Father Mankowski — a gift to us from God for these chaotic times.

The Jesuits also realized what an exceptional person he was. For them, this was not good news. On top of all else, Father Mankowski was ardently orthodox and faithfully devoted to the teaching magisterium of the Catholic Church, and he had no desire to keep quiet about it. He felt a strong call to inform Catholics who were being led astray by the siren song of modernism. Before he was silenced, Father Mankowski had published powerful articles with titles like “What Went Wrong?” (for Catholic World Report, a commentary on the state of the Church) and “The Do-It-Yourself Catholic Kiddiekism” (for First Things, a parody that includes a mention of “God’s pronouns” — written in 1991!)

The story of how Father Mankowski came to be silenced is too complicated for the scope of this article, but you can read about it in greater detail in my book, The Sound of Silence: The Life and Cancelling of a Heroic Jesuit Priest. The short version is that he spoke out against a fellow Jesuit priest who defied St. Ignatius’ admonition against members of their congregation holding public office and ran for Congress in 1970 and ended up serving four terms.

In an article for the National Catholic Register, Father Raymond J. de Souza sums up the Father Robert Drinan affair succinctly:

“The Jesuit priest (Drinan) was the godfather of the Democrats becoming the party of abortion. … No Catholic priest ever did more to promote abortion law than Father Drinan.”

Go here to read the rest.

I am sure Father Mankowski would have agreed with this observation of Churchill:

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