FRANCIS THE FIRST
(…achieving a Jesuit apotheosis?)

Catholics have a new pope, and he has chosen to be named – Francis 1^st -.

It is an interesting and intriguing choice because, given his Jesuit background, his choice of that name may be more significant than what most people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, realize.

The founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) was an ex-military type named Ignatius Loyola, who had come to the conclusion that what religion needed was a better mouse-trap, at the time of rising religious divisions and turmoil from both Humanist and Reformation influences. Faced with all that, the papacy needed a strong right arm to be “God’s Soldiers”, so to speak, to counter those influences, and so this new order was launched. And one its earliest luminaries was that other –Saint Francis- , that is Francis Xavier, who became its leading apostle and missionary to East Asia (from Goa, in India, to China and Japan), and much venerated for his ministering and reaching out to the poorest and most downtrodden of those regions. So choosing – Francis- as his papal name may signal what the focus of his pontificate will be. That is, to guide the Church closer towards that saintly Jesuit’s ideals while he is pope.

Organized and structured along the military lines familiar to its founders, the order soon became a very powerful and influential one. So much so, that many of the world’s rulers and power elites, including the papacy, came to fear and resent it. And though many tried to eliminate it and drive it away from their lands, they often found it difficult to do because of the order’s dedicated, disciplined, and intense focus on – education- along with providing otherwise non-existent aid and support to the down-trodden and impoverished. But since many of those same rulers had benefitted from the Jesuit educational process, it was a very wrenching situation for them to then turn around and get rid of them. Still, many went ahead and did so anyway. In some respects, the Jesuits successes were the cause of such antipathies, much as had happened with the Templars in earlier medieval times.

The Jesuit standards of education have been renowned for centuries. Anyone who has ever experienced them knows that they are rigorous, to say the least. Some might even say, extreme. But the end result has always been aimed at producing clear-minded, logical, rationally thinking individuals, able to handle any conceivable human enterprise. Beginning with the fundamentals of primary education, that is, reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus a thorough grounding in classical Greek and Latin,  individuals were brought step by step to succeeding levels of knowledge and depths of understanding of whatever subject matter was involved.

And they have always been eager to mentor anyone showing any special affinity for any subject, regardless of their background, origins, or even marginal religious devotion. As to that, the Jesuit approach has generally been flexible, but not limp, preferring to draw in, and lead on, with skilled debate and rhetoric, to convince rather than to coerce anyone about religious doctrine, which is perhaps why it has been so successful with its conversion efforts in different parts of the world.

They have also never been shy about voicing uncompromising advocacy, or even engaging in militant political confrontation, in support of those at the bottom of the economic and social matrix of a society; thus, by such a combination of purpose Jesuit influence has remained strong and ubiquitous throughout the world to this day.

Of course, like any other human organization, it has had its share of failure, corruption, abuses, and devious manipulation of situations, for its own ends. Even so, in the course of its seven hundred year history, the order’s overall accomplishments outweigh most of those negatives. On balance it has been more of a benefit to mankind than otherwise.

 So, by choosing to be named Francis 1^st, this pope is perhaps signaling to the world that, after all that time, he is achieving a Jesuit apotheosis.

CENTURION