CanadaNews’ Reporter Notes

In a world where there are progressive thought always pushing some agenda, one would never have guessed this would occur. 

The once mega-powerful Roman Catholic Church sect, the Jesuits, has an elected leader who was unofficially called the “black pope.”  This showed both their strength and their influence.  The order was called such due to their simple black cassocks. The Church has never allowed a Jesuit to be elected to the real papacy due to their fear of Jesuit power. 

On Saturday, Jan. 19, the Society of Jesus — the order’s formal name — elected a new “black pope.” Will he be able to help them regain the influence they’ve lost over the last few decades as their increasingly progressive reputation has clashed with recent traditionalist popes?

217 Jesuit leaders gathered in Rome to elected someone.  The order selected barely-known Father Adolfo Nicolas.  The 71 year old “Superior General” will be serving out a lifetime appointment.  The leader of the Jesuits has sway over a network of priests, universities, hospitals and other missionary institutions around the globe. Though there was no real white smoke to alert the world that they’d found a new leader, as there is in the conclave of Cardinals that elects the Pope, the vote is nonetheless a sacred and secret affair. An oath of loyalty is recited before the balloting, and tradition holds that all voting members remain closed in the hall after a decision is reached, while a single messenger brings the name of the new leader to the Pope, who must be the first non-Jesuit to get the news.

Once that happened Saturday morning, the Jesuits’ modern press operation quickly sent out a press release biography, and a rare photo of the bespectacled new leader.  I guess I feel lucky to be one of those guys to receive a press packet.  Father Nicolas was not on the shortlist of those experts trying to predict who would get the nod.  Since 1964, he has spent the majority of his life living in the Far East.  One Jesuit official at Georgetown University said, half-jokingly, after learning of the choice: “He doesn’t like Rome.”

There has apparently already been some papal concern about the Jesuit’s relatively liberal perspectives. In a letter last week to Kolvenbach, on the eve of the election of his successor and a month-long meeting of a congregation of Jesuit leaders, Benedict implored the order to hold firm in Catholic tradition on matters of morality and sexuality. “It could prove extremely useful that the general congregation reaffirm, in the spirit of St. Ignatius, its own total adhesion to Catholic doctrine, in particular on those neuralgic points which today are strongly attacked by secular culture,” the Pope said.