As the first Jesuit Pope, Francis now seems to enjoy cordial relations with his confrères in Rome. But this was not always so. After many interviews with the order in Argentina, a new papal biographer believes he has uncovered the story behind the tensions
On the morning after Francis appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr Adolfo Nicolás, dispatched an effusively warm letter assuring the new Pope of the Jesuits’ loyalty. In all the years that Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ had been coming to Rome, as bishop, archbishop and cardinal, he had never stayed at, nor even visited, the Jesuit curia on the Borgo Santo Spirito, as Jesuit bishops usually do; nor, since the painful events of 20 years earlier, had he ever spoken to
27 November 2014, The Tablet
Deeply divided Society
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User Comments (1)
This tantalising overview of the tensions within the Argentinian Jesuits is in marked contrast to the only near contemporary account I have read in English. In the book “The Jesuit Factor” by Lord Rawlinson where he surveyed the state of the Jesuit Order world-wide in the late 1980s, Rawlinson observed:
“From the start, the Jesuits of Argentina proved mild, orthodox, rather jolly – and remarkably bland.”
However, revealing as the above account is, it does not broach what seems to me to be the most fascinating point about Fr Bergoglio's roles prior to his current one of Bishop of Rome and Pope.
Quite how did a still rookie Jesuit priest, who only made his final 4th Jesuit vow of Papal Obedience, apparently a sine-qua-non of being made a Jesuit provincial, on April 22nd 1973, come to be Provincial of Argentina by 31st July that year?