How the pope’s Jesuit roots affect his ministry

Pope Francis greets the faithful in St. Peter’s Square. His papacy reflects an Ignatian spirituality at every turn, allowing the church and the world to glimpse one tradition within the world of religious life.

Editor's note: Since publication, this article has been updated and revised. Errors and omissions in attributions have been corrected, and that version may be seen here. The following is the original version without revision.

SINCE MARCH 2013, few people in the world have not been touched or inspired by the Ignatian spirituality being offered daily by the current bishop of Rome, who happens to be a son of Ignatius. Francis is the first pope from the Society of Jesus—this religious congregation whose worldly, wise intellectuals are as famous as its missionaries and martyrs. It’s this all-encompassing personal and professional Jesuit identity and definition that the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought with him from Buenos Aires to Rome, and that continues to shape almost everything he does as Pope Francis. From his passion for social justice and his missionary zeal, to his focus on engaging the wider world and his preference for collaboration over immediate action without reflection, Pope Francis is a carJesuit through and through.

What kind of a Jesuit is Francis?

Jorge Mario Bergoglio had initially joined the Jesuits in the 1950s because he was attracted to its position on, to put it in military terms, the front lines of the church. But little did he know how serious the combat would become. As a Jesuit in Argentina, ordained in 1969, Bergoglio found himself in the midst of the tumult of the Argentine Dirty Wars which erupted one year later. The violence that overtook the country also threatened many priests—especially Jesuits—even as the regime co-opted much of the Argentine hierarchy. Bergoglio was made provincial superior of the Argentine Jesuits at the age of 36, thrown into a situation of internal and external chaos that would have tried even the most seasoned leaders. In a revealing interview in the fall of 2013, (published in America magazine), Francis spoke honestly about the situation that had engulfed his early priesthood: “That was crazy. I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions abruptly and by myself.” He acknowledged that his “authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative.”

Bergoglio fully embraced the Jesuits’ radical turn to championing the poor, and although he was seen as an enemy of liberation theology by many Jesuits, others in the order were devoted to him. He turned away from devotional traditionalism, but was viewed by others as still far too orthodox. Critics labeled him a collaborator with the Argentine military junta even though biographies now clearly show that he worked carefully and clandestinely to save many lives. None of that ended the intrigue against Bergoglio within the Jesuits, and in the early 1990s, he was effectively exiled from Buenos Aires to an outlying city, “a time of great interior crisis,” as he himself described it. As a good, obedient Jesuit, Bergoglio complied with the society’s demands and sought to find God’s will in it all. His virtual estrangement from the Jesuits encouraged then-Cardinal Antonio Quarracino of Buenos Aires to appoint Bergoglio as auxiliary bishop in 1992.

In 1998, Bergoglio succeeded Quarracino as Archbishop. In 2001, John Paul II made Bergoglio a cardinal, one of only two Jesuits in the 120-member College of Cardinals. The other Jesuit cardinal was Carlo Maria Martini of Milan. Bergoglio’s rise in the hierarchy, however, only seemed to solidify suspicions about him among his Jesuit foes. During his regular visits to Rome, Bergoglio never stayed at the Jesuit Curia on Borgo Santo Spirito but rather at a guest house for priests and prelates in central Rome—a place that became famous when, as the newly minted pope, Francis would return to the Domus Paulus VI the morning after the events in the Sistine Chapel to pay his own hotel bill!

I can assure you as one who lived through the conclave experience in a very intense way, and resided at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome during the entire Papal transition, that the initial response of Jesuits to Bergoglio’s election consisted of gasps, shock, bewilderment that has since been transformed into profound gratitude, exhilaration, pride and at times, incredible joy. How many times have these two scripture passages run through my mind as I watched Pope Francis move among his Jesuit confrères in different parts of the world over the past three and a half years: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone … a marvel in our eyes,” and another exclamation from Genesis 45: “... then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Please come closer to me. And they came closer. And he said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.’ ”

Today, the Holy Father is living his Jesuit vocation with a true missionary zeal, a love for community that is oriented for mission, and a discipline that does not waste anything, especially not time. To journalists aboard the return flight to Rome after his first World Youth Day in Brazil in 2013, the newly-elected Jesuit pope said: “I am a Jesuit in my spirituality, a spirituality involving the Exercises (of St. Ignatius).... And I think like a Jesuit,” he said, but smiled and quickly added, “but not in the sense of hypocrisy.” Francis’ Jesuit confrère, Father Tom Reese said it well: “He may act like a Franciscan, but he thinks like a Jesuit.” The question I want to look at is: How is Francis’ “Jesuitness” impacting his Petrine ministry and through that ministry, the entire church, including vocation directors and their religious communities?

Here are some key moments and words that reveal the infiltration of Ignatian spirituality or as one cardinal called it: the ‘“Jesuit virus” on the universal church. In October 2016 Pope Francis went with a message to the General Chapter of the Jesuits, taking place in Rome. His address was characterized by an openness to what lies ahead, a call to go further, a support for caminar, the way of journeying that allows Jesuits to go toward others and to walk with them on their journey.

 Francis began his address to his Jesuit confrères quoting St. Ignatius, reminding them that a Jesuit is called to converse and thereby to bring life to birth “in every part of the world where a greater service of God and help for souls is expected.” Precisely for this reason, the Jesuits must go forward, taking advantage of the situations in which they find themselves, always to serve more and better. This implies a way of doing things that aims for harmony in the context of tension that is normal in a world with diverse persons and missions. The pope mentioned explicitly the tensions between contemplation and action, between faith and justice, between charism and institution, between community and mission.

The Holy Father detailed three areas of the Society’s path, yet these areas are not only for his religious family, but for the universal church. The first is to “ask insistently for consolation.” It is proper to the Society of Jesus to know how to console, to bring consolation and real joy; Jesuits must put themselves at the service of joy, for the Good News cannot be announced in sadness. Then, departing from his text, he insisted that joy “must always be accompanied by humor,” and with a big smile on his face, he remarked, “as I see it, the human attitude that is closest to divine grace is a sense of humor.”

 Next, Francis invited the Society to “allow yourselves to be moved by the Lord on the cross.” The Jesuits must get close to the vast majority of men and women who suffer, and, in this context, it must offer various services of mercy in different forms. The pope underlined certain elements that he already had occasion to present throughout the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Those who have been touched by mercy must feel themselves sent to present this same mercy in an effective way.

 Finally the Holy Father invited the Society to go forward under the influence of the “good spirit.” This implies always discerning how to act in communion with the church. The Jesuits must be not “clerical” but “ecclesial.” They are “men for others” who live in the midst of all peoples, trying to touch the heart of each person, contributing in this way to establishing a church in which all have their place, in which the Gospel is inculturated, and in which each culture is evangelized.

These three key words of the pope’s address are graces for which each Jesuit and the whole Society must always ask: consolation, compassion, and discernment. But Francis has not only reminded his own religious family of these three important gifts that are at the core of Jesuit spirituality, he has also offered them to the universal church, especially through the Synods of Bishops on the Family.

Pope Francis is clearly a man of a certain temperament. Whether it is living in Santa Marta guesthouse, turning the Papal apartment of Castel Gandolfo into a museum, or traveling in simple vehicles, he knows what he wants. Beginning with his refusal to wear the red mozzetta, or cape, for his introduction to the world from St. Peter’s loggia, Francis showed he was in charge. In doing so he also showed his freedom from pressures that have made previous popes prisoners of the Vatican.

Francis manifests to the world a deep, interior, joyful freedom. What is the source of such freedom? I think it comes from Francis’ appropriation of the Ignatian value of “indifference.” This classic, philosophical term, borrowed from the Stoics, means a freedom from distracting and degrading attachments, so as to be free to do what is more conducive to the good of souls. As Pope Francis goes about his daily work, and slowly implements the reform his brother cardinals commissioned him to do, it has become clear that his aim is to make the church of Jesus Christ welcoming to all and appealing and attractive because it shows its care for all people.

Discernment

Pope Francis has also stressed that quintessential quality of Ignatius of Loyola: discernment. Discernment is a constant effort to be open to the Word of God that can illuminate the concrete reality of everyday life. It was eminently clear to me and many who took part in the recent Synods of Bishops on the Family that this Jesuit spirit of discernment was a guiding principle throughout the synodal process. One concept that re-emerged at the 2015 Synod of Bishops was the proper formation of conscience. The Synod’s apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) states:

We have long thought that simply by stressing doctrinal, bioethical and moral issues, without encouraging openness to grace, we were providing sufficient support to families, strengthening the marriage bond and giving meaning to marital life. We find it difficult to present marriage more as a dynamic path to personal development and fulfillment than as a lifelong burden. We also find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them (37).

The church does not exist to take over people’s consciences but to stand in humility before faithful men and women who have discerned prayerfully and often painfully before God the reality of their lives and situations. Discernment and the formation of conscience can never be separated from the Gospel demands of truth and the search for charity and truth and the church’s tradition.

In keeping with his own Jesuit formation, Pope Francis is a man of discernment, and, at times, that discernment results in freeing him from the confinement of doing something in a certain way because it was ever thus. In paragraph 33 of his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel) Francis writes:

Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: “We have always done it this way.” I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective communities. A proposal of goals without an adequate communal search for the means of achieving them will inevitably prove illusory.

Tantum quantum

As he pointed out to his brother Jesuits gathered in October 2016, a maxim from the Spiritual Exercises, tantum quantum, summarizes the principle for using all created things: Use them insofar as they contribute to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Discard and reject them when they lead away from that goal. Francis has done much to further the supervision and reform of the Vatican bank, but he has also made it clear that the Holy See may not need its own bank. His basic choices follow the rule of tantum quantum. If there is a genuine apostolic purpose for running a bank, and it is run in accord with that purpose and does not distract from the church’s evangelizing mission, then it has a place. If not, then it is wholly dispensable.

The first Jesuits were “a holiness movement,” inviting everyone to lead a holy life. Francis of Assisi was committed to a literal imitation of the poor Christ. Ignatius was inspired by that poverty and originally planned that the Jesuits would follow the same route. But as the historian Father John O’Malley, S.J. has indicated, just as Ignatius learned to set aside his early austerities to make himself more approachable, he later moderated the Society’s poverty to make it possible to evangelize more people, especially through educational institutions. Even evangelical poverty was a relative value in relation to the good of souls and their progress in holiness. That same apostolic reasoning is found in Pope Francis’ instructions to priests around the world about their ministries.

An inclusive, listening church

The spirit of openness is foundational to the Jesuit way of proceeding. Jesuit parishes are known for their inclusiveness and Jesuit confessors for their understanding and compassion. At a time of religious controversy Ignatius Loyola urged retreatants to listen attentively to others, to give a positive interpretation to their statements, and when there was apparent error, to question them closely, and only when the interlocutors were steadfast in their error to regard them as heretics. At the time of the Reformation, that was a remarkable point of departure for retreatants preparing to make life decisions. Early in his pontificate, when Pope Francis made his controversial statement about even atheists having a chance to get into heaven, he was following the teaching of Vatican II, but he was also following a very Ignatian approach toward the good of souls.

In keeping with the Jesuit emphasis on attention to those in greatest need, Pope Francis has emphasized the call to justice and service  to the poor. Pictured here are youth from the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan doing home repairs for the needy.

Care of those most in need

Ignatius of Loyola’s recommended style of ministry anticipates the positive pastoral approach Pope Francis has taken to evangelization. Pope Francis’ attention to refugees, the abandoned elderly, and to unemployed youth exhibit the same concern as the first Jesuits for the lowliest and most needy people in society. Ignatius’ twin criteria for choosing a ministry were serving those in greatest need and advancing the more universal good. The Jesuit Refugee Service and creative Jesuit projects in education, like the Nativity and Cristo Rey schools, are contemporary embodiments of the same spirit of evangelical care for the neediest. These apostolates are part of the post-conciliar renewal of the Society of Jesus, but they have deep, formative roots in Jesuit history and spirituality as well. In the mind and heart of Pope Francis, even elite Jesuit institutions can combine the intellectual apostolate with service to the poor in the spirit of Ignatius.

Humility and clerical reform

Pope Francis’ humility has impressed people around the world. His style has truly become substance. It is the most radically evangelical aspect of his spiritual reform of the papacy, and he has invited all Catholics, but especially the clergy, to reject success, wealth, and power. Ignatius insisted that a Jesuit is never to have an anti-ecclesial spirit, but always be open to how the spirit of God is working. The Jesuit commitment not to seek ecclesiastical office, even in the Society, is an outgrowth of that experience. What is surprising is that Francis has so interiorized those values that without hesitation he applies it to clerical and curial reform today. He has told cardinals and priests not to behave as princes, counseled priests to abandon their expensive cars for smaller, more economical ones, and he has given them personal examples.

Humility is a central virtue in the Spiritual Exercises. One of its key meditations focuses on the “three degrees of humility.” In Ignatius’ eyes, humility is the virtue that brings us closest to Christ, and Pope Francis appears to be guiding the church and educating the clergy in that fundamental truth. Reform through spiritual renewal begins with the rejection of wealth, honors, and power, and it reaches its summit in the willingness to suffer humiliation with Christ. Humility is the most difficult part of the Ignatian papal reform, but it is essential for the church’s purification from clericalism, the source of so many ills in the contemporary church. Undoubtedly, it is here that Francis’ reform is receiving the most resistance from practitioners of the millennial-old system of clerical entitlement and a distorted ecclesiology that stems from bygone days of the church triumphant! Francis is teaching us that precisely this humility is essential to make the New Evangelization real and effective both within the church and in her encounter with the world.

Francis’ Ignatian style of leadership

Ignatius did not use the word “leadership” as we commonly do today. Someone whose style of leadership is inspired by the Ignatian tradition will particularly emphasize certain habits or priorities. One of these is the importance of formation—not just learning to do technical tasks like strategic planning but also commitment to lifelong self-development. Another Ignatian priority is deep self-awareness, of coming to know oneself, for example, as happens in the Spiritual Exercises. The Jesuits also emphasize becoming a skilled decision-maker, as happens through the discernment tools of the Exercises, and committing oneself to purposes bigger than self, to a mission of ultimate meaning. Jesuits often refer to this commitment by the expression of “magis. ” Then, too, Ignatian spirituality emphasizes a deep respect for others, “finding God in all things.”

The difference between the worldly style of leadership and that traced by Ignatius is that the Jesuit style of leadership always points to God, the ultimate source of meaning. Great Jesuit figures like Peter Faber, Francis Xavier, Matteo Ricci or Alberto Hurtado were able to accomplish their feats not simply because they had some good leadership skills but because they were inspired by love of God. I cannot tell you how many times these very ideas have surfaced in Pope Francis’ addresses to the cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, religious, lay leaders, catechists, and young people around the world. These leadership qualities are distinctly Ignatian!

St. Ignatius once wrote that sometimes we have to go in through the other person’s door in order to come out through our own. That is a very powerful idea for us and it is completely relevant to the church in the 21st century. We live in a secularized society, and young adults in particular are showing little interest in the church. What are we going to do for young adults, our target audiences as vocation directors? We are being challenged daily to find ways to “enter the other’s door,” to offer them some of the riches of our traditions in ways that will better their lives and that might invite their deeper thought, that might draw them toward the essence of Christianity.

Contrary to some voices in the church today, we are not being called by Christ, St. John Paul II or Pope Francis to bring about a smaller church for the perfect, the holy, those who think like us. St. John Paul II did not write his final apostolic letter at the close of the Great Jubilee with the title “Stay close to the shore and don’t risk.” He filled that hopeful document with the mantra: Duc in altum, put out to the deep! Francis has said to us: “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” Our goal is not to form a smaller church where we all end up sitting around in small circles talking to each other and bemoaning what we have lost!

The devil

Pope Francis seems obsessed with the devil. His tweets and homilies about the devil, Satan, the Accuser, the Evil One, the Father of Lies, the Ancient Serpent, the Tempter, the Seducer, the Great Dragon, the Enemy and just plain “demon” are now legion. For Francis, the devil is not a myth, but a real person. Many modern people may greet the pope’s insistence on the devil with indifference or, at best, indulgent curiosity. Francis, however, is drawing on a fundamental insight of St. Ignatius of Loyola! In his first major address to the cardinals who elected him, the Argentine pontiff reminded them: “Let us never yield to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day.”

The pope has stressed that we must not be naive: “The demon is shrewd: he is never cast out forever, this will only happen on the last day.” Francis has also issued calls to arms in his homilies: “The devil also exists in the 21st century, and we need to learn from the Gospel how to battle against him.” Acknowledging the devil’s shrewdness, Francis once preached: “The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together.”

In a rally with thousands of young people during his visit to Paraguay, the pope offered the job description of the devil in these words:

Friends: the devil is a con artist. He makes promise after promise, but he never delivers. He’ll never really do anything he says. He doesn’t make good on his promises. He makes you want things which he can’t give, whether you get them or not. He makes you put your hopes in things which will never make you happy.... He is a con artist because he tells us that we have to abandon our friends, and never to stand by anyone. Everything is based on appearances. He makes you think that your worth depends on how much you possess.

In all these references to the devil and his many disguises, Pope Francis wishes to call everyone back to reality. The devil is frequently active in our lives and in the church, drawing us into negativity, cynicism, despair, meanness of spirit, sadness, and nostalgia. We must react to the devil, Francis says, as did Jesus, who replied with the Word of God. The temptations Francis speaks about so often are the realistic flip side to the heart of the Argentine Jesuit pope’s message about the world that is charged with the grandeur, mercy, presence, and fidelity of God. Those powers are far greater than the devil’s antics.

The field hospital

There is also another image from Pope Francis that has captivated the minds and hearts of millions: the powerful image of the “field hospital” which he uses often and is drawn from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. When Francis speaks of the church as a “field hospital after a battle” he appeals to the Jesuit founder’s understanding of the role of the church in light of God’s gaze upon the world: “So many people ask us to be close; they ask us for what they were asking of Jesus: closeness, nearness.” In his 2013 interview, published in America magazine, he said:

The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start from the ground up.

A field hospital image is contrary to an image of a fortress under siege. From the image of the church as a field hospital we can derive an understanding of the church’s mission as both healing and salvific.

What a Jesuit pope means for the church

We’ve looked at some critical Ignatian principles, styles, concepts, and images that make Pope Francis who he is. Let us now turn to how some of his deeply Jesuit approaches might affect the church. The whole concept of setting up committees, consulting widely, and convening smart people around you is how Jesuit superiors usually function. They do these things, then they make the decision. This sort of discernment—listening to all and contemplating everything before acting—is a cardinal virtue of the Ignatian spirituality that is at the core of Francis’ being and his commitment to a conversion of the papacy as well as the entire church.

It’s hard to predict what will come next. Francis is shrewd, and he has repeatedly praised the Jesuit trait of “holy cunning”—that Christians should be “wise as serpents but innocent as doves,” as Jesus put it. However, the pope’s openness also means that not even he is sure where the Spirit will lead. He has said: “I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. I always think of new questions, and there are always new questions coming forward.”

Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture. Pope Francis has brought to the Petrine office a Jesuit intellectualism. By choosing the name Francis, he is also affirming the power of humility and simplicity. Pope Francis, the Argentine Jesuit, is not simply attesting to the complementarity of the Ignatian and Franciscan paths. He is pointing each day to how the mind and heart meet in the love of God and the love of neighbor. And most of all he reminds us each day how much we need Jesus, and how much we need one another along the journey.

Father Thomas Rosica, C.S.B. is a priest of the Congregation of St. Basil. After working in campus ministry and overseeing the 2002 World Youth Day in Toronto, in 2003 he became the founding chief executive officer of Salt + Light Catholic Media Foundation, based in Toronto. He also serves as the English language attaché to the Holy See Press Office and as  procurator general of his congregation. This article is a condensed version of his presentation to the 2016 convocation of the National Religious Vocation Conference.

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