Cardinal, "Maybe It Will Take A Jesuit To Fix The Jesuits!"

I asked John Allen, Jr., America’s most authoritative vaticanista, what more he could tell us about Francis’ thinking and scholarly capacity, especially since the new Holy Father has published comparatively little, apparently preferring to spend time on the street with the poor and suffering than theorizing about how to best serve them.

“My read is that being a man of the people and being a thinker are not mutually exclusive,” Allen said. Allen thinks that because Francis is a Jesuit—an order that requires its aspiring priests to study twice as long as diocesan priests—his intelligence will be on bright display as pope: “Whatever else you want to say about Jesuits, they’re typically not dim bulbs!”

John Allen, "He tried to hold the line against liberation theology"

We have already heard several clever quips from the new pope. He told journalists at his first press conference that he considered taking the name Clement XV, to avenge himself on Clement XIV, who suppressed the Jesuit order in 1773. After alluding to a book by German Cardinal Walter Kasper during his first Angelus address, he added, “Don’t think that I’m publicizing the books of my cardinals, that is not the case!” John Allen says that, theologically speaking, Francis “profiles as the typical bishop from the developing world…very conservative on matters of sexual morality, fairly progressive on economic justice, armed conflict, [and] the environment.” 

Under his episcopal leadership in Buenos Aires, as provincial of his order, and as a two-term president of the Argentinean Bishops Conference, Francis was known to oppose fiercely not only dissenting intellectuals and political leaders, but also his fellow clerics.“As far as the Jesuits go, he tried to hold the line against liberation theology in the 1970s, insisting that his priests should be pastors and spiritual guides, not politicians,” Allen said. “It made him unpopular in the order. Actually, one cardinal said to me after the conclave: ‘Maybe it will take a Jesuit to fix the Jesuits!’” 

Link (here) to The Catholic World Report