Jesuitry


Also found in: Thesaurus.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.Jesuitry - the theology or the practices of the Jesuits (often considered to be casuistic)
Christian theology - the teachings of Christian churches
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
Therefore he took Father Brown up sharply whenever that proud pontiff tried to explain anything; and told him to answer yes or no, and tell the plain facts without any jesuitry. When Father Brown began, in his simplicity, to say who he thought the man in the passage was, the barrister told him that he did not want his theories.
Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers found themselves in an anomalous position: during the agitation on the Catholic Question many had given up the "Pioneer"--which had a motto from Charles James Fox and was in the van of progress-- because it had taken Peel's side about the Papists, and had thus blotted its Liberalism with a toleration of Jesuitry and Baal; but they were ill-satisfied with the "Trumpet," which--since its blasts against Rome, and in the general flaccidity of the public mind (nobody knowing who would support whom)--had become feeble in its blowing.
Responding to the recurring question about the moral dangers of working in a studio, the actress Maya claimed: "This is nothing but journalistic Jesuitry. I have not heard about studio atmosphere being immoral." (26) Such statements by actresses were increasingly aired in the very journals and magazines that spread the morality discourse, impelled no doubt by a need to defend the female film professional's status and right to work.
In Richter's case, that piece of swank jesuitry (in which, by the way, we all believe) carries the day, when perhaps a dash of doubt would not have been out of order.