Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-15-2018
Abstract
This paper examines the history of Lacouturisme, a retreat movement founded by the Jesuit retreat leader Onésime Lacouture (d.1951), in Québec and the United States. Based on a redaction of the Ignatian Exercises, Lacouture’s ascetic theology was especially popular among Canadien seminarians, until it was subject to formal censure—based both on questions of orthodoxy and its apologists’ pugilistic iconoclasm. “The retreat” migrated southward, largely under the stewardship of Pittsburgh diocesan priest John Hugo (1911–85), and became deeply critical in the spiritual formation of Dorothy Day. Lacouturisme signaled an upswell of enduring Christian debates, such as the relationship between nature and grace, the boundaries of orthodoxy, and the call to moral perfection. Although the retreat’s theology counselled a measure of social withdrawal, it became spiritual fodder for the Catholic Worker Movement’s radical personalism.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00504004
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Downey, Jack Lee, "In coelestibus: The Spiritual Combat of Onésime Lacouture, S.J." (2018). Religion Faculty work. 3.
https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/religion_faculty/3
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Comments
This article is the authors' final published version in Journal of Jesuit Studies, Volume 5, Issue 4, November 15, 2018, Pages 549-566.
The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00504004. Copyright © Jack Lee Downey