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Pope Francis is the first pontiff in history belonging to the Jesuit Order. Not only: Jorge Mario Bergoglio He is the first Jesuit Pope who has chosen the name of the Saint of Assisi. Which, both historically and doctrinally, may seem like a contradiction in terms. Until some time ago, the fact that a Jesuit ascended to the throne of Peter was considered impossible or almost impossible. The fact that a Jesuit, once he became Pope, decided to name himself after the founder of the Franciscans was considered even less likely. What has changed in the last decades? And why have Jesuits often been victims, even recently, of some kind of prejudice? An attitude that has affected both the ecclesiastical environment and the exterior. to the sacred rooms Without going too far back in time, it is enough to go back to the pontificate of Benedict XVI: even during that reign, someone felt the need to propose a commissioner for the Society of Jesus.
It seems that the former archbishop of Buenos Aires was decisive in avoiding that scenario: Bergoglio at that time was completely opposed to the commissioner’s hypothesis. But, why had the need arisen (another one more related to the Jesuits in the history of the Catholic Church) for a commissioner from above for the Order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola? According to the reconstructions of those phases, more than a few cardinals among the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the Holy See had perceived leaks forward on the doctrinal plane. It would not be the first or the last time. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who thus prevented the Jesuits from suffering another hard blow, is a name that was already circulating. If only because, according to the version of the well-known “secret diary” of a cardinal who participated in the conclave in which he was elected Joseph ratzinger – The progressives had tried to contrast the Argentine Jesuit himself with the “candidacy” of the “peaceful theologian” of Tübingen.
It seems useful to specify that, once again after the re-readings of that assembly of cardinals, it was Bergoglio who asked to withdraw his candidacy, thus allowing the majority to reach two useful thirds for the election of the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Benedict XVI is also said to have reasoned about Bergoglio as secretary of state. The role for which the Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was then entrusted. Not only that: despite the “opposition” of the Conclave, it seems that in Vatican I have thought of Bergoglio as a suggestion to give the Company for a new provost general. Furthermore, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires was perceived as an atypical Jesuit, a high ecclesiastic capable of ordering.
These elements exist, as well as a critical cultural trend toward the line of Jesus company. It is said that even Pope Luciani, in his brief pontificate, wanted to expose the inconsistencies of Jesuit progressivism, typical of certain North American circles. Where by “inconsistencies” we must understand adaptations to world news. Those who for conservatives have always represented a danger to the integrity of the faith. Then in 2013, a Jesuit considered different from many others was elected to Peter’s throne. But not everything has changed. In North America, for example, progressive doctrinal currents continue to overflow, and James Martin wants to build a “bridge” with the LGBT community. A sensibility in which the “traditional front” does not coincide.
The relations between Pope Francis and the Argentine Jesuits have been investigated many times during these seven and a half years, but the astonishment is not too justified: as we will see, the Order of the Jesuits also has currents within it, with various pastoral and different doctrinal priorities. Father Arturo Sosa, current Jesuit summit, thinks that the devil is only a “symbolic figure”, while the Pope of the Catholic Church can boast of having had a history of warnings about the devil in ecclesiastical history. Be that as it may, some recent analyzes have emphasized that Bergoglio has “enemies” mainly because he is a Jesuit, but is that so?
The Conservatives’ Reaction
Conservatives have never liked certain doctrinal currents of the Society of Jesus. Ratzinger, when the Jesuits elected Father Adolfo Nicolás, who later died, as Superior General, sent a letter in which he asked the followers of Saint Ignatius to pay special attention to these factors: “Relationship between Christ and religions, certain aspects of liberation theology and various points of sexual morality, especially with regard to the indissolubility of marriage and the pastoral care of homosexual people”. These days, by contrast, there has been a lot of discussion about Francis’ openness to civil unions. These are substantial differences, which even the theorists of “continuity” between the last two Popes cannot ignore. So do conservatives oppose Pope Bergoglio because of his membership in the Jesuit Order? Not quite.
To understand something more about this story, we wanted to hear the opinion of the Ticino Vatican expert Giuseppe Rusconi, who in the recent past had the opportunity to interview precisely father Artur Sosa, who on that occasion spoke words subject to criticism. For the interlocutor, the so-called anti-bergoglism does not move on the basis of the Jesuit root of Bergoglio: ” I do not think so – has declared – that “the reaction of the conservatives” depends on Bergoglio’s membership in the Order. There are other reasons, in any case preeminent. ” The problems posed by the “traditional front” would therefore be different. And that prejudice would have already been overcome: “Of course – added Rusconi – The image of the Jesuits remains in the background of not a few as a kind of intrigue, at the service of their own power and of others, but I would say that in concrete daily life this prejudice has lost force ”.
Bergoglio, an “atypical” Jesuit
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not a Jesuit tout court. Among the conflicts with Argentine superiors and cultural references not always in accordance with those of his brothers, the Pope of Catholic Church he also experienced, as he himself admitted, some difficult moments. Rusconi photographs the problem: “Certainly a very convulsive relationship (that of Bergoglio and the Jesuits, ed), as evidenced by his Argentine years (in which he also ran into a very serious internal crisis). Bergoglio, with a difficult character and sometimes contradictory behavior, was much discussed within the Company already in Argentina ”. A land, the homeland of origin, to which the Holy Father would never return, at least until now. Some examples of these confrontations between Bergoglio and the Company? “When the then Superior General, Father Kolvenbach, was asked to express his opinion on the episcopal promotion of Bergoglio, his opinion, as it emerged, was substantially negative, also for reasons of character.”
And how did the middle layers of the Jesuit Order perceive the Argentine? “Other illustrious Jesuits – Rusconi continued – shared this opinion. ” Having established this, it is worth dwelling on today: “Today the Jesuit Pope’s relations with the leaders of his Order are very cordial (just think that the ‘Black Pope’ is a Venezuelan, from an upper-middle class family, but imbued with the same ‘Peronist’ air). In contrast, at the ‘base’ of the Order there is no shortage of dissenters. As they have never been lacking in its history ”. Anonymous sources have even told us that some Italian Jesuits, when the Pope’s name was mentioned on television after the last conclave, decided to withdraw in prayer, without making public judgments. Maybe they too, according to the assumption “peronism“They thought of a possible drift of” ecclesiastical law “within the Church, but then it was not. In fact, according to ecclesiastical law, we would be witnessing a triumph of the progressives and their ambitions. But why Rusconi between? Are the Jesuits all these currents? “Among the Jesuits we find a variety of positions (history and even the news show it) that other orders and congregations are unaware of in this dimension. In the Order are Father Martín and Father Spadaro (the ‘pasdaran’ of ‘progressivism’), but also others more moderate such as Father Lombardi (former director of the Vatican Press Office), nephew of another Jesuit father Lombardi, Riccardo, known as the ‘microphone of God’, who contributed greatly with Luigi Gedda to the victory of the DC in 1948 against the ‘reds’ of the Popular Front ”. Ultimately, the history of the Society of Jesus is also very complex.
The question of the “mythical people”
This is the Pope of the economic-existential peripheries, that is, of those realities in which globalization has produced impoverished effects. In Sandro Magister’s analyzes, the identification of a specific “people” that Francesco looks at can be traced back to precise cultural and political interlocutions. Bergoglio – Magister wrote in a report posted on the website of Magna Charta – “… he was among the writers of the ‘Modelo nacional’, the political testament that Perón wanted to leave after his death. And for all this he attracted the fierce hostility of a good half of the Argentine Jesuits, more to the left of him, especially after he sold the University of El Salvador, put up for sale to liquidate the balances of the Society of Jesus, precisely to his followers of the Iron Guard. Paradoxically, the future pontiff received opposition from his brothers at the time because he was considered too far to the right.
And this story of the “mythical people”, for which Bergoglio is even labeled as a populist, but within the South American tradition, and therefore that of left-wing populism, it derives, also according to Rusconi, from the Peronist past: “Jorge Mario Bergoglio breathed the air of the Perón years – said the Vatican expert Ticino – (He sympathized with the Iron Guard, young right-wing Peronists) and it can well be said that this aria was metabolized by a South American Jesuit in the Argentine version, cultivating the image of a mythical people, pure, but at risk of being corrupted. from West “. Unlike Ratzinger, therefore, the reigning Holy Father would look with some suspicion on the West and Westernism. What could be the real root of the criticisms of the “conservatives”. It would not be so much the fact of being a Jesuit, however atypical, that has fueled all the grievances that we have witnessed in these seven and a half years of pontificate.
Conclusions
Although a negative conception of the Society of Jesus persists in some traditionalist circles, we can affirm that the criticisms directed at Francis from the right do not depend on that belonging. In short: yes, the successor of Benedict XVI has belonged to the Order since 1958. But the arguments of the “anti-Bergoglians” rest on other bases, starting from the doctrinal “slippery slope” that this pontificate would be supporting, passing through the alleged abandonment that would have been reserved for the Old Continent, yesterday the only or almost the only seat of Christian-Catholic spirituality, and therefore Jesuitism is not a reason for internal opposition.
The personal, political and cultural life of the Holy Father, then, departs from that of other Jesuits. Bergoglio, for example, was not part of that group of Jesuits well disposed to the riots of 1968, to name one. However, one characteristic of this pontificate seems to be closely related to the Jesuit tradition: that of diplomatic multilateralism with which this Pope is tracing the trajectories of the Vatican in international relations. The “dialogue” as a constitutive paradigm of these seven and a half years is no coincidence, nor are other slogans that the Bishop of Rome introduced in the Curia and outside the walls. Seen more closely, this is also an aspect that conservatives continually criticize, sure as I am that dialectics at all costs can undermine the foundations of Catholicism.
