Arrupe on the prairie

In which a young Lou Twomey encounters the future Jesuit Superior General—in Kansas

Father Louis J. Twomey, SJ, with Society of Jesus Superior General Pedro Arrupe, SJ, at the Jesuit Curia in Rome, circa September 1967. Courtesy of the Jesuit Archives & Research Center. This photo previously appeared in my America magazine article on Father Twomey.

Happy New Year, dear Matters Twomey subscribers! The year has started on a rough note for me, as a moment I had feared would come has come: my landlord has placed my apartment (a condo) on the market, and I will have to move once it is sold. So my efforts to focus on completing A Priest in Good Trouble, the biography of Father Louis J. Twomey, SJ, that I am writing for the University of Notre Dame Press, are presently hampered by a search for new quarters.

I hope to remain in my current neighborhood of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, although I am also looking at places elsewhere in the District. Your prayers for this intention through the intercession of St. Joseph the Worker (so dear to Father Twomey) are much appreciated!

Now for some good news: despite housing-related distractions, I have managed to complete more than 32,000 words of A Priest in Good Trouble. That puts me into chapter five, with the book more than a third completed. I am now projecting to put the finishing touches on A Priest in Good Trouble by the end of June at the latest, although it is possible that it might be completed as soon as the end of April.

If you backed my Kickstarter, you may be wondering how I will manage to make it financially until the end of June, since I had initially projected to complete the biography by the end of January. Right now, I am stretching my savings with the help of funds from supporters who missed my Kickstarter deadline and from various other sources, mainly freelance writing, canon-law consulting, and the odd royalty check for Father Ed or My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. (I also enjoy receiving about $100 a year in airplay royalties for my two co-written songs that were hits on Little Steven’s Underground Garage: “Alone with You” and “Times on the Thames.”) Matters Twomey paid subscriptions are an important source of support for me as well. I am deeply grateful to all of you who support my writing, whether through funding or through prayer.

My hope is that 2025 will be the year I return to full-time work as a professor or writer/editor. In the meantime, I am thankful that this year, in addition to finishing A Priest in Good Trouble, I’ll have a new book out: The Sacred Heart: A Love for All Times, which is due from Loyola Press in March.

Today I am excited to share with paying subscribers a section from my most recently completed chapter. Chapter four describes a crucial stage in Twomey’s intellectual and personal development: his discovery of the Church’s teachings on social justice, particularly Leo XIII’s and Pius XI’s encyclicals on the topic, and his developing a longing to found a Catholic labor school.

The section that follows, which takes place during Lou’s first year of theological studies (1936 to 1937), begins with an account of how Lou learned about the patristic roots of Catholic teaching on care for the poor. It includes a brief mention of liturgical pioneer Father Gerald Ellard, SJ, and editor/publisher Father Joseph Husslein, SJ, who himself did much to promote the social-justice encyclicals. I then explore whether he might have assisted his fellow St. Mary’s College student Father “Peter” Arrupe, SJ, in writing an article for Commonweal. (I beg your pardon for omitting the footnotes, as it takes some effort to put them into Substack’s format. What you are seeing here is a stripped-down sneak preview.)

If you see any typos in the following excerpt, or if you have any advice for polishing my wording, please leave a comment and let me know. And please likewise let me know if you are enjoying these excerpts! Thank you and God bless you.