Jean Daniélou

The Jesuit Cardinal, Jean Daniélou died of a heart attack in the house of a Parisian prostitute in 1974, the press and the "left" had a field day.

Daniélou had been regarded, until then, as one of the greatest modern theologians, the circumstances of his death led to him  and his theology being discredited. His insistence on a return to sources both of the Fathers and of the Vatican Council had already led to his being distanced from the Jesuits.

Sandro Magister gives an an extract of an interview with him on the "renewal" of religious life and suggests that his death was more innocent than those who sought to discredit him.

I think that there is now a very grave crisis of religious life, and that one should not speak of renewal, but rather of decadence. I think that this crisis is hitting the Atlantic area above all. Eastern Europe and the countries of Africa and Asia present in this regard a better state of spiritual health. This crisis is manifesting itself in all areas. The evangelical counsels are no longer considered as consecrations to God, but are seen in a sociological and psychological perspective. We are concerned about not presenting a bourgeois facade, but on the individual level poverty is not practiced. The group dynamic replaces religious obedience; with the pretext of reacting against formalism, all regularity of the life of prayer is abandoned and the first consequence of this state of confusion is the disappearance of vocations, because young people require a serious formation. And moreover there are the numerous and scandalous desertions of religious who renege on the pact that bound them to the Christian people.