Fathers Dowling and Ford and substance abuse

"Father Edward Dowling (1898-1960), the oldest of five born to a devout Irish Catholic family from Saint Louis, became a beloved Jesuit priest.  Though not himself an alcoholic, he was a close friend and spiritual advisor to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous....Noting the similarity of AA principles — surrender to a Higher Power, rigorous honesty, a daily examination of conscience to Ignatian spirituality, he applied them to the sacrament of marriage and founded what would come to be known as Cana Conferences.  His tone was matter-of-fact and friendly.  He helped found Recovery Inc....He applied the AA principles to his own compulsive tendencies to overeat and smoke" (Magnificat, November 2016).

"Another important, though somewhat later, Catholic influence on AA was Fr. John C. Ford, S.J., one of Catholicism's most eminent moral theologians. In the early forties, Ford himself recovered from alcoholism with AA's help. He became one of the earliest Catholic proponents of addressing alcoholism as a problem having spiritual, physiological, and psychological, dimensions.  Ford said that alcohol addiction is a pathology which is not consciously chosen, but he rejected the deterministic idea that alcoholism is solely a disease without any moral component....Wilson, impressed by Ford's insight, asked him to edit Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (with the Big Book, this is the basic text of 12-step recovery) and Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age....In so many ways, Ford's approach to addiction and recovery remains a model of spiritual discernment for our own time. (This Rock, October 1996)

Morrisville's Williamson Park, 8/26/17

In at least two other areas, Father Ford showed incredible courage of conviction, going against popular thought among many Catholics and standing for Truth:

• "In 1944 he [Father Ford] published a forty-nine page article cogently arguing that the rights of the innocent were being violated by the obliteration bombing which the United States and the United Kingdom were even then conducting. In 1945, having mentioned in 'Notes on Moral Theology' the atrocities committed by the Soviets, Nazis, and Japanese, Ford spoke bluntly of 'the greatest and most extensive single atrocity in the history of all this period, our atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki'" (http://www.twotlj.org/Ford.html).

• In the light of scandalous rejection of Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, Father Ford and Dr. Germain Grisez are credited with being instrumental in defense of the Church's teaching on marriage/family/sexuality.  As they wrote in 1978, "the history of the way in which the Church has proposed the teaching on contraception clearly shows that the criteria for infallibility have been met"

Who said, "We believe and know that death and hatred are not the last words pronounced in the parable of human existence. To be Christians implies a new perspective: a look full of hope"?