The Jesuit Pope, Part II

Remember how I said that Jesuits like to lob intellectual grenades into the mix to see what happens?  Pope Francis just pulled the pin. 

I will probably have a couple of posts about this amazing interview, but I have a couple of immediate reactions.  First, particularly if one reads the entire interview, you see the Jesuit-ness of Pope Francis come right to the forefront.  He has a long discussion of how Ignatian spirituality (the ideas of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits) influences his way of leading and thinking.  So, the take away for me is that he is more or less like all of the Jesuits I've met. 

Second, I will be fascinated to see the reaction from the right-wing Catholic blogosphere and conservative Catholic media (EWTN et al.).  The meme that "Francis is speaking off the cuff and is not serious," seems to be unsupportable by even those in the deepest of denial (Update: or perhaps not).  It seems like they are going to have to face facts that the agenda has changed and their favorite issues will be de-emphasized.  Will they go into full freak-out like the Latin Mass folks? (interesting note--Rorate-Caeli, probably the most hard-core of the American Traditionalist blogs that is actually still Catholic, has shut down the comment function on the website).  Will they go to the go for the revisionist history move--"sure, we've always thought that it was time for more balance"?  It will be interesting.

Finally, I noticed that he went out of his way to talk about the importance of greater rapprochement with the Eastern Orthodox Churches.  Selfishly, because I have close Orthodox friends, I was very pleased to hear this.  I was also encouraged by the recognition that such a move would require significant re-thinking of Church organization on both sides, rather than as a program that one side would just accept.

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