Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is the religious order that Brendan Cronin joins after his ordination and the institution within which his crisis of faith becomes both a personal struggle and a matter of professional consequence. It gives him a path from advanced religious education to service in Rome and parish ministry, but its procedures for seeking psychological help also make clear that care may bring prolonged institutional scrutiny.

Formation and vocation

Brendan’s Catholic education culminates at the North American College in Rome, where he is selected to complete his studies. After ordination, he enters the Society of Jesus and spends two years at the Vatican as assistant to Monsignor Giuseppe Orbella, the Pope’s chief speechwriter and doctrinal adviser. The sequence places Brendan close to the Church’s intellectual and institutional center before he chooses a less prominent form of service.

A position on the staff of the Cardinal of the Chicago Archdiocese could have followed his Vatican work. Instead, Brendan requests a curacy at a small or medium-sized parish, like that of a young priest beginning ordinary pastoral work. At St. Bernadette’s, he takes pleasure in the daily duties of a curate and does not regret choosing them. His vocation is presented not as a pursuit of status but as a commitment to the routine life of parish service.

Support and disciplinary oversight

When Brendan’s faith collapses, Father Stefan Wycazik suggests that the cause may lie in Brendan’s subconscious rather than in an intellectual failure. He explains that Lee Kellog, the Illinois Provincial of the Society of Jesus, oversees two psychiatrists, both Jesuits, who work with priests facing mental and emotional problems. A referral could make analysis available to Brendan, offering a possible way to investigate the roots of his distress.

The proposed help is not institutionally neutral. Stefan cautions that beginning analysis would bring Brendan’s name to the province’s Prefect of Discipline, who would examine his conduct over the previous year for possible breaches of his vows. Even if treatment resolved the problem, Stefan says, the Prefect could continue scrutinizing Brendan for years to guard against future unpriestly conduct, limiting his prospects. He reassures Brendan that he knows him to be innocent of wrongdoing, but emphasizes that suspicion is part of the Prefect’s role. The order’s care for troubled priests thus appears alongside a mechanism that can attach lasting professional consequences to seeking help.

Brendan’s crisis and the order’s significance

Brendan’s spiritual collapse threatens an identity that had once seemed secure. Before the crisis, he had never doubted his commitment to the Church; at St. Bernadette’s, even ordinary priestly chores had brought him pleasure. Now he longs for the faith that sustained him and cannot tell whether its absence is temporary or permanent. His distress therefore reaches beyond doctrine: it unsettles the vocation through which he has organized his education, work, and hopes for a future in the priesthood.

The Society of Jesus is also the institutional setting in which Brendan’s unusual experiences are interpreted. Father Stefan later links Brendan to events he regards as miraculous, including the healing of Emmy Halbourg and the recovery of Winton Tolk, and asks how a good but non-saintly priest could have healed him. That question does not settle whether Brendan’s abilities are religious, human, or otherwise; it shows instead how the events press against established explanations. In the novel, the order provides Brendan’s formation and a possible route to psychological care, while his crisis and apparent healing challenge the categories through which his vocation has been understood.