In his death, Jesuits are claiming Pope Francis as one of their own, despite a complicated history with the religious order that formed him.

Canadian Provincial Fr. Jeffrey Burwell wrote on April 21 that Pope Francis “remained a Jesuit of vision and hope until his very last day.”

High-profile fellow Jesuit Fr. James Martin wrote in America magazine that “Francis entered the papacy as a Jesuit, governed as one and died as one.”

Jorge Mario Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus in 1958, was ordained a priest in 1969 and took his final vows as a Jesuit in 1973.

Though much was made of the fact that Pope Francis was the first Jesuit pope, a deep rift had developed between Bergoglio and his religious community following his 1973-1979 tenure as provincial superior of Argentina.

Those years overlapped the country’s Dirty War when the ruling military junta was responsible for the disappearance and death of an estimated 22,000 to 30,000 political dissidents. At the time, Bergoglio was perceived as aligning with the Argentine bishops who chose non-intervention and silence as the best course of action.

“During these years, the Argentinian province did not march in unison with the rest of the Society of Jesus in Latin America,” wrote Jesuit historian Jeffrey Klaiber.

Contrary to his papal reputation as theologically progressive, Bergoglio was perceived as doctrinally rigid and rejected the Liberation Theology then popular among Jesuits. 

The intervening years saw little repair to the division. Bergoglio was made Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992. As Jesuits are relieved of their vow of obedience to the superior general when they are made bishops, further distance was allowed to develop between the order and the controversial bishop. It was noted that Bergoglio never stayed at the Jesuit residence when he traveled to Rome but always arranged his own accommodation.

Even when he emerged as papabile in 2005, Bergoglio remained deeply unpopular among Jesuits. Martin recounts how, when in Rome for the papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, he saw an unfamiliar Jesuit listed as one of the cardinal electors. Martin asked a fellow Jesuit about Bergoglio. His face, according to Martin, “darkened and he said, ‘Oh, he would be terrible.’ ”

Bergoglio was “so divisive that he had virtually split the Argentine Province into two camps: pro-Bergoglio and anti-Bergoglio.”

When Pope Francis was elected Pope in 2013, both he and the Jesuit order were eager to reestablish a working relationship. Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Nicholas wrote to the members of the order, instructing them to not be “swept away by distractions of the past.” Francis chose a papal coat of arms with the Jesuit emblem at the centre and the détente was sealed by a well-publicized meeting between Nicholas and the Pope.

In the intervening years, as Pope Francis established mercy as the leitmotif of his pontificate, prominent Jesuits like Martin and Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny would embrace the Pope as the embodiment and model of a modern Jesuit.

His emphasis upon the global threat of climate change found in the encyclical Laudato Si’, the focus upon the plight of the migrants and the poor and the establishment of synodality as the new working order of the Church, all resonate deeply with Jesuit thinking and practice.

Jesuit Refugee Services International wrote, “with the death of Pope Francis, refugees have lost an unwavering and passionate defender.”

“From the start of his papacy, he urged and challenged each one of us to take responsibility, to care about the suffering of refugees, to cry over their untimely deaths at our borders and to have the courage to welcome them.

“Soon after being elected, he met refugees at the JRS soup kitchen in Rome. He urged religious congregations and institutes to open their doors to welcome refugees, saying: ‘We need communities with solidarity that really put love into practice.’ ”

Canadian Jesuits International (CJI) called Pope Francis the “beloved champion of the poor and oppressed.”

Burwell wrote that he had been “shaped by Pope Francis and his call for a poor Church for the poor. I came to see justice and reconciliation not as an idea but as an encounter; not as a task to be completed but as a way of being.”

Martin wrote that Pope Francis’s language, love for the poor and use of the Ignatian spiritual discipline of “discernment” all marked him as a Jesuit.

“To understand him was to remember that he was a Jesuit. And to misunderstand him was to forget he was one.”