For decades, the Society of Jesus has faced the same struggles to find priests that have plagued the wider Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Chuck Frederico, one of the priests who evaluate Jesuit applicants, says he usually heard from five a week, or fewer.
Then, last month, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica — the first Jesuit to be elected pope.
The number of queries jumped to four or five each day.
“Some guys who made contact in the past weeks are serious candidates,” said Frederico, vocations director for the region from Maine to Georgia. “This election of the Holy Father has given them reason to examine this more fully.”
Jesuits have only started absorbing the novelty of one of their own leading the church. Most were so shocked, they Googled to confirm the connection before they dared to celebrate. Robert Wassmann, an instructor at Washington Jesuit Academy, a middle school, told the Archdiocese of Washington newspaper he ran down the hall shouting: “He’s a Jesuit! He’s a Jesuit!”
But members of the order have also started thinking ahead, to the potential impact of this pontificate on their many ministries, colleges and overall future. Pope Francis could inspire new recruits and wider regard for the society. But he could also feel compelled to intervene in the inner workings of the order, which has had sometimes tense relations with the Vatican over the centuries.
“In the context of young men and women considering a religious vocation and calling, it has to have an impact,” said the Rev. Thomas Gaunt, a Jesuit and analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. “And that impact will be at least a blip on the screen and could be more.”
Bergoglio was more than a rank-and-file member of the Society of Jesus. He held the order’s most trusted positions in Argentina.
Soon after he was ordained, he was appointed novice master, in charge of training the newest recruits. He went on to become provincial, or national leader, before joining the church hierarchy as a bishop in Buenos Aires. Francis has chosen a papal coat of arms featuring the Jesuit seal: a sunburst containing a red cross and the “HIS” abbreviation for Jesus Christ.
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