ROME – When it comes to the Christian life, too many seminaries teach students a rigid list of rules that make it difficult or impossible for them as priests to respond to the real-life situation of those who come to them seeking guidance, Pope Francis said.

Taking responsibility for a deeply painful history may be difficult, but it’s the Jesuit thing to do.

Jesuit novices in Guelph in 1918 expected to wake early to prayers and devotions, then Mass, then breakfast. They did not expect to be woken by military police.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Standing at the edge of the garden where six Jesuit priests were killed in 1989, Echol Nix is clear about the message he is taking home with him to the United States.

Kielburgers took lessons learned at Brebeuf to Free the Children

TORONTO - If you want to make people believe in something they’ve never seen and half the world says is impossible, start young. The Kielburger brothers learned that lesson from the Jesuits at Brebeuf College in Toronto.

ROME - Italian Jesuit Father Paolo Dall'Oglio was expelled from Syria in mid-June after he intensified his public calls for democratic change in the country.

"The blood on the ground must be respected and religious leaders must speak out," Dall'Oglio told Catholic News Service in Rome July 18.

Jesuit Father James (Jim) Martin is quickly becoming one of my favourite religious writers and orators. And the more I read of his works or watch his talks on TV and the Internet, the more impressed I become.

This American Jesuit thinks clearly, speaks and writes directly, and best of all, he is funny, although he has serious messages. (He is the official chaplain of Comedy Network’s The Colbert Report where he sometimes appears.) He is a populist who endeavours to make Catholicism ever more popular.

If you’re looking for summer reading, Fr. Martin has several best-selling books, including My Life With the Saints, A Jesuit Off-Broadway: Centre Stage with Jesus, Judas and Life’s Big Questions, and the Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything.

MONTREAL - It is rare to meet a real-life knight today. It is even rarer to meet someone knighted by the Pope. So it is truly extraordinary to meet a papal knight — who is also Jewish.

Canada can now boast of one Jewish papal knight. Montreal interfaith pioneer Victor Goldbloom was welcomed into the Vatican’s Order of St. Sylvester on May 10 at a reception organized by the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism.

TORONTO - Jesuits are taught to see God in all things. This makes Jesuit photography a little more intense than family snapshots.

This year four Canadian Jesuits will show their photographs as part of the 17th annual Contact festival. With more than 1,000 venues spread around Toronto and as many as 1.8 million sets of eyeballs taking in the work of an international lineup of photographers through the month of May, Contact is the largest photography event in the world.

TORONTO - Jesuit Father Fred Crowe’s long, happy and productive life came to a peaceful end Easter Sunday, April 8. He was 96 years old and had spent 76 years living the vows of a Jesuit.

“The last years of his life he just kept writing,” said Jesuit Father Gordon Rixon. “He was one of those Jesuits who was in the library by 5:30 in the morning.”

For most of the last 60 years, Fr. Crowe was in the library carefully collecting, editing, explaining and interpreting the work of his seminary professor, Fr. Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan was a Canadian Jesuit who became a towering figure in philosophy and theology.

April 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. On that date the four-city-blocks-long ship, deemed unsinkable, hit an iceberg and in less than 2 1/2 hours sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 2,208 passengers, only 712 were rescued. The others perished in the icy north Atlantic.

For many years after, as far as anyone knew, no photos survived of those first carefree days at sea. Then in 1985, a Jesuit priest came across an old trunk in the basement of the Irish Jesuit Provincial House in Dublin, Ireland. It contained a stunning collection of photographs of the Titanic’s tragic maiden voyage that were taken by a future Jesuit priest named Francis Browne.

Today, a special room at the remarkable Titanic Ship Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, has devoted an entire room to enlargements of Browne’s original pictures — the only surviving record of life aboard that iconic ship. The exhibit is unforgettable.

CONCORD, ONT. - The Jesuits want more — more faith, more work, more justice, more truth, more hope, more for the love of Christ. Celebrating 50 years as a Jesuit, Fr. Bert Foliot preached the Jesuit demands for more prior to the annual Jesuit Provincial's Dinner.

It was one of the last events in a year spent celebrating 400 years of Jesuit ministry in Canada. The April 11 evening was dedicated to the core Jesuit value of more — which in the traditional language of St. Ignatius of Loyola Jesuits call "the magis."

TORONTO - Canadian Jesuits, with help from some high school students, are preparing to poke a little fun at themselves through a dinner-theatre production.

Jesuits Served Right: A Jesuit Dinner Theatre will be performed at Toronto’s Brebeuf College School Feb. 25. The project is part of the Jesuits’ celebration of 400 years in Canada.

TORONTO - The parish of Our Lady of Lourdes faced the harshest command its faith can impose at the recent Sunday morning Masses. The Catholics of this diverse, downtown parish obeyed the biblical injunction to celebrate — all the while knowing that their leader, friend and pastor had died.

Jesuit Father Bill Addley died at St. Michael's Hospital just before 2 a.m. Jan. 21, surrounded by friends. The pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes for almost 13 years, a former provincial superior of the Jesuits in English Canada and one of the first Canadian Church leaders to face the sexual abuse scandal head-on, Fr. Addley died of complications from colon cancer  within two weeks of being diagnosed.

He went through an operation to resection his colon Jan. 13 and for a time seemed likely to recover. But the cancer had spread and he couldn't regain his energy.

PICKERING, ONT. - Believers in every religion and through every century of human history have done something they can’t quite describe, justify or do without. They pray.

They may meditate, contemplate, recite, babble or immerse themselves in silence. They may seek solitude or seek company to pray with others. They may follow the rules of a liturgy, improvise or seek a simple, direct encounter with God.

Prayer can be rote execution of routine, woven into the fabric of daily life. Or it can be a unique, creative leap into transcendence. Prayers may be led by a spiritual master, immersed in custom and culture or reach for an unconstrained, individual expression of the spiritual.