Francis the First - A Jesuit Pope

 

I wrote here earlier that the Catholic Church needed a moderate and evangelical pope.  I think that is what the Catholic Church got.  He was a Jesuit priest.  This has great significance.  The members of the Society of Jesus are teachers and missionaries who give up the possibility of being a bishop when they become members of their community.  To become a bishop they must leave the order, but they never really leave in their hearts.  They are intellectuals who are known in popular culture as "God's marines."  Bishop John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States began his priestly life as a Jesuit trained in Belgium.

The name choice is significant.  This man rode the bus back to the clerical hotel last night.  He rode the bus with his former colleagues and let his limo follow along behind.  Once at the hotel, he went to his room, collected his things and went down to the front desk to pay his bill in person.  When reminded that he was now the proprietor and need not pay the bill, he said that he wanted to make sure that they all pay their bills.  It will be interesting to see how he has the papal apartments decorated or if he lives there at all.  Vatican City is a big place, he could live anywhere within it.

The possibilities for this man to lead by example on isues of poverty and the spread of the Good News of the gospels is virtually unlimited.  pl 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/14/pope-francis-day-one-job/1986853/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

PL! Myunderstanding is that so-called "Liberation Theology" impacted the Catholic Church in Central and S. America post WWII and wondering how, when, or where the Jesuits were involved? My understanding is that Priests associate with Liberation Theology were out of favor with both right wing political elements and the POPEs. Note I am largely speaking out of ignorance.

I do know that the Catholic Church seems to have outlasted the Castro Brothers. I see Cuba as a key policy issue forthe US in the next several decades, both as a domestic and foreign policy problem. Perhaps am wrong.

[turcopolier]

WRC

There were both Jesuit and Maryknoll clergy prominent in the movement. I used to meet them often when on missions in Latin America in intelligence and/or SF. This man is in that spirit. he is going to shale up the system.pl

[Pirouz]

Our family is pleasantly surprised, as well. Mom's side of the family is hispanicized Native American (some of use the term Chicano) and we were hoping for a Pope from Latin America.

I had a Jesuit trained college instructor during a summer session many decades ago. He was really something.

Pope Francis sure has his work cut out for him. I'd sure like to see our local archbishop canned but I realize that ain't gonna happen.

[Ael]

The last firebrand elected pope was John Paul I.

I wonder how long this one will last.

[The beaver]

According to one of the Canadian cardinals, that's where he was staying before the conclave (he also mentioned the fact that he went back to pay his bills this morning before heading to St Maria Major Basilica for prayers)

http://www.residenzapaolovi.com/en
Auberge Paul VI

[b]

The Vatican spokesperson said the pope's name is just "Francis", not "Francis the first". Only after there is a second Francis the distinguishing attribute comes into play.

[Mike]

There may be some dirty secrets lurking in the new Pope's past. Accusations have been made of his connivance with the Navy in the arrest and torture of two priests during the "Dirty War" back in the 70s. It is suggested that the most senior clerics in the Catholoc Church in Argentina may be irremediably tainted by their co-operation with and support for the brutal military dictatorship that had siezed power in 1976 and which fell after the end of the Falklands/Malvinas war. The newly elected Pope Francis I is among those who may be guilty of tolerating or actually actively sypporting a reginme that slaughtered thousands, sometines dropping innocent men and women from airplanes over the River Plate and selling off their orphan children. Among the well documented crimes of the Generals was the murder of two bishops and a number of priests. Yet the most senior clerics masde no protest about the persecution of more liberal elements in the church. When the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights visited Argentina, it is claimed that Jorge Bergoglio, now Francis I, gave free access to the Argentine Navy to his holiday home on an isalnd in the River Plate where they hid a number of political prisoners until the Commission had departed the country.

On matters such as homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia, Francis I has been very much a traditionalist in the Church.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks PL! Some wit once stated that you find out a man's real character when he has power! Worth watching closely I suspect.

[CK]

It is truly difficult to imagine any reason(s) for Cuba to be or to remain a "key" policy issue.
Domestically Cuba is not even important to the current generation of Miamians. Were the old USSR to become relevant again, maybe Cuba could regain its old position as Moscow's Turkey in the Caribbean. Even Myer Lansky and the IRS have written the old mob investments off.
The church is immortal, the Castro family lacks that talent.

[turcopolier]

mike

you are an evil minded, spiteful man. pl

[Mike]

"You are Peter, and on this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail....." He who is to be the successor to Peter must surely be one who has himself set his face against the powers of Hell. One must hope that Francis I is such a man - but to be aware that there are suspicions that he has not been in the past is neither spiteful nor evil minded. Expect a deluge of "spite" and "evil mindedness" in the next few months fom many people who are in fact very concerned that the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church be led and inspired by a man against whom the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.

[Tyler]

Typical lefty crying crocodile tears about what might have maybe happened in a "right wing" but silent on the abbatoir of horrors in communist countries.

Give me a break with this "when you do it ts tragedy but when we do it its just a statistic" bullshit.

[Norbert M. Salamon]

I look forward to Pope Francis' sermons and encyclicals. The difference in language used by a Jesuit when speaking to a very educated crowd [my father's Funeral Mass where most guests were his previous students at University of Sopron at U of British Columbia, many with advanced degrees 1/2 with PhD-s in Science] in contract with the Pope's experience in Argentina, speaking to the poor and poorly educated will exemplify a very complex person.
I pray that he will be able to address the different cohorts[from Curia to the poor and deprived of Africa, A. and Central America etc] in a language appropriate to each.

[Cal]

Well I am thrilled about Pope Francis and the fact he was a Jesuit,..first time in a while I've been actually thrilled about something!
I wish my Jesuit uncle was still alive to see this.
Stay strong Francis.

[Cal]

Most of this press is being pushed by Horacio Verbitsky, a Jewish centric and guerilla leftist in Argentina, based on a book he wrote called ‘The Silence’...the same old axe grind about Nazi Popes. But the gays,progressives, birth control pill and right to abortion wing et al have joined in Fascist accusations also with tweet attacks.

Pope Francis: questions remain over his role during Argentina’s dictatorship

by News Sources on March 14, 2013

The Guardian reports: As head of the Jesuit order from 1973 to 1979, Jorge Bergoglio – as the new pope was known until yesterday – was a member of the hierarchy during the period when the wider Catholic church backed the military government and called for their followers to be patriotic.

Bergoglio twice refused to testify in court about his role as head of the Jesuit order. When he eventually appeared in front of a judge in 2010, he was accused by lawyers of being evasive.

The main charge against Bergoglio involves the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orland Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were taken by Navy officers in May 1976 and held under inhumane conditions for the missionary work they conducted in the country’s slums, a politically risky activity at the time.

His chief accuser is journalist Horacio Verbitsky, the author of a book on the church called “El Silencio” (“The Silence”), which claims that Bergoglio withdrew his order’s protection from the two priests, effectively giving the military a green light for their abduction.

Verbitsky claims are based on conversations with Jalics, who was released after his ordeal and later moved to a German monastery.

Bergoglio has called the allegations “slander” and holds that, on the contrary, he moved behind the scenes to save the lives of the two priests and others that he secretly hid from the death squads. In one case, he claims he even gave his identity papers to one dissident who looked like him so that he could flee the country.’’

All the stuff about every Pope being a Nazis or fascist piece of crap is getting old. I seriously doubt he gave any fellow Jesuits over to the junta. However it is totally in keeping for the church, particularly the Jesuit wing , to act as a quasi- neutral political body to maintain some influence and entrée with whatever government in order to make deals or operate behind the scenes in the Church’s and it’s members own interest or to help the population. A scenario I can imagine is that he may have made some deal after the 2 Jesuits were picked up whereby they be kept 'safe' in jail and not killed to keep the government off the others there...I can also imagine that the 2 Jesuits could have been doing some 'leftist resistance' errands along with their ministering to the poor....so likely a deal was made that kept them from being executed and they eventually were released. If Francis handled that I call it being smart, not fascist.

[Babak Makkinejad]

His allegations against the Pope's role in the :Dirty War" in Argentina is most likely suppositions but not his broader point about the Church in Argentina (and Chile) are probably correct.

The Church "Lost It" in those 2 countries - unlike El Salvador where the Church redeemed itself through the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero.

[Fred]

"...it is claimed..." As the old song says, talk is cheap when the story is good. I read the same thing by some lefty professor in California. Apparently repeating an accusation by some other professor who wrote a thesis about dictatorships is all that is needed for proof of guilt, because hey, the guy making the actual acquisition got a phd.

[Fred]

Apparently there are plenty of acolytes of the secular left waiting for Diogenes to point out who they are supposed to follow. "St." Barack hasn't turned out quite so well for them and they sure as heck aren't holding his feet to the fire.

[J]

I say God bless him in all of his endeavours.

[tpceltus]

Agreed. So tired of seemingly decent people not even being given a chance in our current gotcha culture. The conduct of war and diplomacy is at best an opaque enterprise that a newspaper subscription or access to a blog cannot illuminate. Living in a country of despots, and managing to survive with integrity, is a feat I can only poorly imagine. To expect that a person would be elevated to the Papacy advocating positions in direct contradiction to current Church teachings is absurd.

I think that we have the best Pope that the conclave could currently have elevated. Let's give the guy a chance and judge him later on his intentions and actions.

[confusedponderer]

"The newly elected Pope Francis I is among those who may be guilty ..."

He may be, or not. Do you care?

[Mike]

Evil has no political orientation to left or right. Satan is indifferent to political labels. Thge movement to overthrow the evils of communism in Europe was inspired by numbers of clerics, Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox. Cardinal Wojtyla and Cardinal Mindszenty set their faces against the evils of tyrannical regimes in Poland and Hungary. Wojtyla, as John Paul II became a worthy successor to Peter and an inspiration in the fight against left wing dictatorships. They are golden examples to all clerics who are proclaiming Christian values in lands that have suffered the injustices and cruelties of dictatorship. Is it "lefty" to hope that the accusations that Francis I connived at, or failed to oppose, the brutalities of the Generals' regime turn out to be false.

[Bobby Murray]

This "typical lefty" is excited, hopeful and heartened about Pope Francis the First, Tyler. :)

Kindest Regards,
Bobby Murray

[Charles I]

I have just heard that very kind of speculation in the media upon the revelation that Pope Francis I only has, at age 76, one lung.

[Charles I]

the Curia. . .were I Pope the reformer my first acts, well maybe 3rd or 4th, would be to move Benedict Emeritus Pope out of the Vatican completely decapitate the Curia.