Pope Francis, a restoration?

We do not yet have the complete transcript of Pope Francis’s meeting with the Jesuits of Singapore, but we know—from a Vatican News report that includes a testimony by Fr. Antonio Spadaro SJ—the Pope spoke of two Jesuits: Pedro Arrupe, who led the Society of Jesus in the turbulent years after the II Vatican Council; and, the late 16th and early 17th century missionary to China, Matteo Ricci. Both figures are much-beloved and still highly controversial. Pope Francis voiced his hope to see Fr. Arrupe’s beatification process proceed quickly.

The Jesuit general’s beatification process was opened in 2018. Arrupe’s tenure as “Black Pope”—the unofficial monicker given to the head of the Jesuits, officially styled Father General—was turbulent and polarizing. John Paul II briefly put the Jesuits into a sort of ecclesiastical receivership when Arrupe was still nominally head of the order.

As General, Arrupe also worried Paul VI about the progressive drifts towards which he had led the Society of Jesus.

There are two schools of thought regarding the relationship between Pope Francis and Fr. Arrupe.

The first one says that Pope Francis realized he was Pope only when he decided, at the beginning of his pontificate, to pay homage to the tomb of Father Arrupe. Because Arrupe did not like the then-provincial of the Jesuits, and Bergoglio did not like Arrupe. After all, Bergoglio, after his mandate as provincial, was exiled to Cordoba, then sent to study for a doctorate in Germany that he never completed, and then was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires not on the Jesuit ticket but on the proposal of Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, an ultra-conservative deeply opposed to Arrupe’s line.

The second school of thought instead says that Father Pedro Arrupe was the proper mentor and teacher of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. It was in developing the idea of the theology of the people as a more orthodox alternative to liberation theology; it was in the choice of themes to address; it was in the 32nd General Congregation—the highest governing body of the Society of Jesus—which Pope Francis has often cited, referring to the 1974 speech of Paul VI to the Fathers of the 32nd General Congregation.

That Congregation established the beginning of a new chapter in Jesuit history. The approved decrees speak of immigration, social justice, new family pastoral care, dialogue with atheists, breaking down all barriers with other religions, inculturation, and care for the environment.

These are all themes that Pope Francis has made his own and which are today at the center of his pontificate. This leads one to think that Francis—who was among the 237 delegates of that Congregation—is actually inspired to the core by Arrupe’s example and leadership.

After all, when Arrupe lost the ability to speak and was forced to resign the leadership of the Society, he would not see his designated successor, Fr. Vincent O’Keefe SJ, take power.

John Paul II instead appointed Fr. Paolo Dezza SJ as interim commissioner, who guided the Society of Jesus toward the election of a new general in Peter Hans Kolvenbach SJ, who was more moderate. Also, O’Keefe had irritated even John Paul I with an interview in which he asked for a new doctrine, for example, on contraceptives and homosexual acts. We know that John Paul I had prepared a speech to read to the Jesuits, never pronounced because John Paul I died two days before he was scheduled to deliver the remarks, in which there were very harsh words on the need to avoid distancing oneself from true doctrine for the sake of study and discussion.

With this history in mind, one may see the Francis pontificate as a return to the debates of the 1970s and 1980s.

The debate between progressives and conservatives that dominated those decades received resolution under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in part by opposition and in part by assumption.

John Paul II was a fearless thinker and a philosophical genius who made both popular piety and “creative orthodoxy” the hallmarks of a thinking pontificate that found the way to harness the energies unleashed by the Council and direct them to orthodox channels. Benedict XVI—who had more to do with keeping John Paul II’s official pronouncements within the bounds of established teaching than he ever let on—was also the first to be called “The Green Pope” for his ecological commitment, and centered all his work on truth and the unity of the Church.

After Benedict XVI’s pontificate, the idea was that we had to go back. Events such as the “Pact of the Catacombs” of the Second Vatican Council resurfaced, the reception of the II Vatican Council became a crucial issue again, and even the openings towards the more traditional world were erased or neutered.

Is Pope Francis’s pontificate therefore one of restoration?

If one considers the details, one must ask the question: From the look to the past with the will to rewrite history, from the points of reference all anchored in the Church of the ’70s, and from the presence of “remediation cardinals” in practically every Consistory convened so far—an attempt by the Pope to recover past history or to apologize for alleged exclusions for political reasons.

The point is not, in the end, whether Pope Francis looks at Arrupe as a friend or an enemy, whether he is part of the Jesuits’ recent history or outside of it. The point is that he has us looking back, hence unable to see the challenges before us today, which are reduced to whispers—neighborhood gossip—behind our back.

Who knows if Pope Francis will make all of Fr. Arrupe’s texts and debates his own?

The fact is that the Pope is truly alone. That isolation can ultimately be good if it opens space to really examine the facts.