John Hardon - Priesthood

Priesthood

Having entered the Society of Jesus as a novice on September 1, 1936 Hardon took a special interest in theology and teaching while studying at at West Baden College in West Baden Springs, Indiana. During these studies he produced his first published article in 1941 concerning the study of Latin. Worrying that his love of theology might lead him to pursue it out of his own willfullness at the cost of obediance he "determined not to request further theological study; he would leave the determination of his future completely in the hands of the Holy Spirit." Hardon continued to study and obtained a master's degree in philosophy at Loyola University Chicago in 1941.

On June 18, 1947 (his 33rd birthday) he was ordained to the priesthood with his mother in attendance. The two Lutheran boarders of Hardon's childhood had remained close to the family and attended his first Mass. Within a year of seeing her son enter the priesthoood Hardon's mother died.

Hardon took it as a sign of divine favor when his superiors, with no prompting from him ordered him to attend the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome to continue his study of theology (from 1949 to 1951).

While studying at Rome, he was appointed director of the graduate library. At one point his superior ordered him to retrieve all of the volumes held on loan by other graduate students that were declared heretical by the Catholic Church. Hardon later recalled:

Before I had retrieved one-half of the heretical books, I had become the agent of orthodoxy and therefore the sworn enemy of the modernists, who were updating the Catholic faith to its modernist theology. I had doors slammed in my face. I lost friends whom I had considered believers.... taught me that the faith I had so casually learned could be preserved only by the price of a living martyrdom. This faith, I was to find out, is a precious treasure that cannot be preserved except at a heavy price. The price is nothing less than to confess what so many others either openly or covertly denied."

He received his Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from the Gregorian University after finishing his doctoral dissertation on St. Robert Bellarmine entitled A Comparative Study of Bellarmine’s Doctrine on the Relation of Sincere Non-Catholics to the Catholic Church. Later in his life, he stated, “I could not have chosen a better subject in preparation for a lifetime of teaching Catholic doctrine.” That same year, 1951, he received the Papal Medal.

Due to lifelong health problems, including asthma, Hardon was forced to return to America in 1951, where he joined the faculty of West Baden College teaching theology to Jesuit students. Hardon was denied his request to be a missionary to post-War Japan (at the newly opened Jesuit University in Tokyo) due to his health. Determined to be of some service for this endeavor, Hardon began to study comparative religion. During his studies of oriental religions he believed there were "not only areas that were compatible with Christianity but also sections of thought that were clearly influenced in a direct manner by contact with the Christian message." Hardon began using his extensive knowledge of Asian customs and religions to train missionaries for that region.

During this time Hardon pronounced his final vows on February 2, 1953 including the special Jesuit vow of unwavering fidelity to the pope.

In an effort to understand Protestantism he worked on a book released in 1956 entitled Protestant Churches in America, which was met with critical acclaim even among Protestant circles. While still teaching full-time at West Baden, Hardon became a visiting professor invited to teach Catholic theology at several Protestant seminaries and colleges including Bethany School of Theology, Lutheran School of Theology, and Seabury-Western Divinity School. Janaro writes:

In this work he saw an opportunity to share the fullness of the faith with those baptized in Christ who, because of the circumstances of history, time and place, or culture, had yet to receive a complete understanding and appreciation of the Christian faith and of the Church that extends the power and presence of Jesus Christ."

The novelty of the situation was not lost on his Protestant colleagues either, and upon his acceptance of a position at Seabury-Western Divinity school, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury sent a personal representative to mark the event - "the first time in history an Anglican/Episcopalian seminary had appointed a teacher who was a member of the once hated and feared Society of Jesus." Hardon also served as an advisor to the Second Vatican Council on discussions about liturgy.

Between 1962 and 1967 Fr. Hardon taught Roman Catholicism and Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University. He released his book Religions of the World in 1963. By 1967 he returned to teaching Jesuit scholastics at two Jesuit theological schools in Illinois while working as a visiting professor at St. Paul University in Ottawa, where he taught furloughed missionaries classes in missiology. At this time he also began work for the Congregations for Religious and the Clergy in Rome to implement the renewal laid out in the documents of Vatican II.

In 1969 Hardon assisted in the founding of a union of religious called the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis. In 1971 he helped found the Institute on Religious Life. That same year Hardon and nine other notable American Catholics were summoned by Camaldolese abbot Ugo Modotti acting on behalf of Pope Paul VI. The group was tasked to create a Catholic media organization and met three times a year for periods of two to three days. Hardon told an interviewer this was because "the Holy Father's mission was very clear: American Catholics must get some control of the media of social communication; otherwise, the pope feared for the survival of the Church in our country." A year later Modotti informed Hardon that the Pope had accepted his recommendation to replace him with Hardon should any thing befall the Abbot. Two weeks later Modotti was found dead in his bed and Hardon took over the mission.

In 1972, Hardon furthered his media apostolate by founding Mark Communications in Canada. Through his work with the papacy he was later asked by Paul VI to start Pontifical Catechetical Institutes in the United States to ensure the correct catechetical formation of religious educators. Hardon assisted and supported those establishing these organizations, especially Msgr. Eugene Kevane.

In 1974 Hardon became a professor at St. John's University in New York City at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Catholic Doctrine. At this time he worked with the Sisters of Notre Dame of Chardon, Ohio to make Christ Our Life, a series of religious textbooks for elementary students.