Those of you who have been following the depressing case of Donald McGuire, SJ, convicted last year of molesting two high-schoolers, will be interested to know that U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys just released Maguire on a $50K bond. McGuire was recently picked up by feds and charged with traveling internationally to have sex with a minor. Amazingly, McGuire's lawyer pleaded with the judge not to deny him bail because he's lived in the Chicagoland area for all of his seventy-seven years--"I don't know how much closer ties you can have to the community," the lawyer said. His victims do.

Chicago Jesuit Provincial Ed Schmidt asked the judge not to release McGuire, because the private security he hired to monitor McGuire at his private (non-Jesuit) residence was no guarantee that he wouldn't abuse again--and McGuire has a history of violating his superiors' orders. And yesterday, Jesuit Superior General Peter Hans Kolvenbach informed the Chicago SJs that McGuire's official status with the Jesuits is "in receipt of a dismissal decree." Dismissing a Jesuit who has taken final vows, as I presume McGuire has, is not easy, and the convicted molestor can appeal the decision, just as he plans to appeal the Wisconsin conviction. But the CDF can fast-track this one, if it so desires. I imagine Cardinal George, if not Kolvenbach, has some pull in certain Vatican quarters.