The Presidential Priest

"Almighty, everlasting God, I, John McLaughlin . . . moved with a desire of serving You, vow before the most sacred Virgin Mary, and the whole court of heaven, to Your divine majesty, perpetual poverty, chastity and obedience in the Society of Jesus,"

When Nixon Aide John McLaughlin became a Jesuit in 1947, that traditional vow was strictly interpreted. Moreover, Jesuits lived in community in their own houses, wore only black, and worked mostly in missionary or teaching assignments. In recent years all that has been changing. Some members of the Society of Jesus rent their own apartments, wear business suits or blue jeans, and work at various professions, including politics.

Plastic Piece. McLaughlin, now 47, has become one of this new breed. Once an editor on America magazine and a popular lecturer on sex ("Intimacy Before Marriage," "Intimacy Outside Marriage"), McLaughlin turned to politics in 1970. He became a Republican, ran for the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island (John Pastore retained the seat), and then in 1971 went to work as a speechwriter on the White House staff at a salary of about $30,000. To distinguish between his sacerdotal and political roles, he abandoned the Roman collar ("a one-inch piece of plastic") except for church events. Last week McLaughlin's superior, the Very Rev. Richard Cleary, Jesuit provincial of New England, issued a statement dissociating the Society of Jesus from McLaughlin's views and summoned him to report to Boston for prayer and reflection.

Why the sudden application of discipline? Father Cleary is a new provincial who took office in February, and he has been under pressure from his fellow New England Jesuits to do something about McLaughlin. Publicity about Father McLaughlin has been building up in recent weeks, especially since his CBS-TV appearance in May, when he said that historians would regard Richard Nixon as "the greatest moral leader of the last third of this century." Later McLaughlin told a press conference that in the matter of the tape transcripts the President had "acquitted himself with honor." Not that McLaughlin wants a saint in the Oval Office. "If we had a saint as President of this country, it would lead to chaos and catastrophe," he maintains.

McLaughlin also adjudged Nixon's profanity a valuable form of emotional release with "no moral meaning." In a press conference, Cleary said that he could not endorse that view: "I would be standing up against Moses if I did ... 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.' "

McLaughlin has made clear that he feels he is being discriminated against because of his political views. Boston, he notes, is at "the geopolitical center of liberal thinking," and he points out that another Jesuit, Democratic Congressman Robert Drinan of Massachusetts (with whom he attended seminary), has made controversial public statements without being reprimanded. Other Jesuits maintain that it is not politics that is at issue but the vows of poverty and obedience. Drinan, they note, lives in a Jesuit house at Georgetown University, while McLaughlin rents an expensive apartment in the Watergate complex. ("Physical poverty," McLaughlin says, "does more spiritual harm than spiritual good. I do not see poverty as a vow of economy but as a vow of dependency, and I am dependent on the order.") Then, too, Drinan sought political office with the permission of his superior, while there is some question about the authorization for McLaughlin's present job. Cleary believes that McLaughlin had no specific permission to do what he is doing; McLaughlin cites a letter from deary's predecessor commenting favorably on White House work.

Should McLaughlin now flatly refuse to obey deary's orders to see him and, possibly, keep silent about politics or quit the White House, he could, after formal proceedings, be expelled from the Jesuits. At week's end, the President's priest had not answered either yes or no about the trip to Boston. Nor did White House Communications Director Ken W. Clawson want to discuss the matter. Said he: "Nothing in the world would make me get in the middle of an argument between two Jesuits."

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