Religion: I Preach Hatred

Three years ago, Boston’s Archbishop Richard J. Gushing suspended Father Leonard Feeney from all his functions as a Roman Catholic priest (TIME, May 2, 1949). His offense: taking literally the Catholic doctrine that “outside the church there is no salvation,” i.e., insisting that everyone who is not a good Catholic will go to hell.*

Father Feeney, a Jesuit teacher who was once associate editor of the magazine America, did not recant. Though he was also dismissed from the Jesuit order, he stayed at St. Benedict Center in Cambridge, a house of studies originally founded for the use of Catholic Harvard-men. A core of disciples gathered around him, most of them college students attracted by his magnetic personality and fanatic theology. Now under a hundred, they call themselves the “Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

A Shocked “Ooh.” The “slaves” look with scorn on other U.S. Catholics, whom they regard as heretics for associating with Protestants and Jews. Most of them lave left their families for a semi-monastic life of prayer and preaching in Cambridge. In isolation, their cult has grown narrower in its fanaticism—and angrier at the world of unbelievers outside. Early in September, Archbishop Gushing published a Vatican decree approving his condemnation of Feeney, and church authorities are now considering a formal ban of excommunication.

The threat of further church action has made the slaves angrier still. Last week, as is their custom, they marched out to hold their weekly meeting on Boson Common. There were 50 of them, almost all under 35, the men dressed in black suits and black ties, the women in black dresses and short-visored black caps. As a small crowd of spectators watched, they set up a portable platform with a painting of the Madonna and a crowned figure of the Infant Jesus.

After a few hymns, the speakers began. Shouted Dr. Fakhri Maluf, onetime Boston College philosophy teacher: “It is heresy to believe that there can be salvation for the Christ-hating and Mary-hating people . . . Archbishop Gushing stuck his head out in heresy against us . . . Our Lady, Scourge of Heretics, punish him!” Some orthodox Catholic spectators let out a shocked “ooh,” but the slaves clapped and applauded.

Some Holy Water. Then Father Feeney, a flashing-eyed man of 55, took over the platform. “Archbishop Gushing is a heretic,” he began. A heckler interrupted. Shouted Feeney: “I came here to preach the love of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I found nothing but filthy adulterous faces, who attacked her.” He pointed to a newspaperman making notes in the crowd. One of the girl slaves turned, scowling, and sprinkled some holy water in the reporter’s direction. “I preach hatred of those who hate Jesus,” Father Feeney continued. “Am I a hate-priest when I want a man to be a child of Mary? . . . Mother of God, I ask you to include those who hate me among your enemies.”

His speech over, Father Feeney and his young followers concluded the meeting with some prayers and a Latin blessing. Then the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary lined up and marched off the Common. As they passed the reporter, the scowling girl held up a bottle and shook some more holy water at him.

*Accepted church doctrine explains, in the words of Pope Pius IX, that no one should “arrogate to himself” the right to “put limits o the divine mercy, which is infinite.”