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Jesuit Popes: A Historical Might-Have-Been
News: Commentary
Some were eligible, yet the option seldom arose
Many people are saying nowadays that Pope Francis provides the best demonstration of why there has never before been a Jesuit pope.
This sentiment is an example of a widespread opinion that the Society of Jesus has always been a pernicious element in the Church, a view that is understandable in the light of the order's performance in the last half-century, but which was not unknown even in earlier times.
The assertion is often advanced with an air of specific knowledge of papal conclaves, with their supposed bar against Jesuit candidates, but in fact, nobody ever seems to have attempted such a study, and the sketch given here will do something to test the presumption.
The first thing to be said is that there was never a Jesuit pope because of the small number of Jesuit cardinals. The statutes of the Society of Jesus forbid its members to seek ecclesiastical honors, and in the past, only a few exceptional figures ever reached the Sacred College. This tradition has weakened in the last 60 years, when Jesuit cardinals have reached almost a plethora (so that the election of one of them as pope becomes less surprising); but if we look at the first three centuries of the Society, we find only about 20 cardinals, and they can easily be examined individually.
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For the reason mentioned, the few Jesuits who did reach the cardinalate in the past tended to be unusually distinguished members not only of their order but also of the Sacred College itself, with the result that the Society's list of potential papabili proves to be an impressive one. Of the score of Jesuit cardinals before the 1950s, some, such as the illustrious Cdl. Péter Pázmány, never attended a conclave and were therefore not available for election.
The list of those who might have worn the tiara is headed, in every sense, by St. Robert Bellarmine, who could have been pope from 1605–1621. Many people would be prepared to concede that he would have been better than Paul V, who reigned during those years.
A similar judgment might be made on Cdl. Juan de Lugo, who was rated by St. Alphonsus Liguori as the best theologian of the Church since St. Thomas Aquinas. He could have been pope from 1644–1660, and, again, few would dispute that he would have been better than the nasty Innocent X, who is well known from Velasquez's damning portrait. But at that period it was out of the question that a subject of the king of Spain should be elected pope.
One could cite other figures, such as the learned Giovanni Battista Tolomei, who could have been pope from 1721–1726, but such examples of a short or otherwise insignificant pontificate are of less interest.
The 40-year suppression of the Society (1773–1814) resulted in there being no Jesuit cardinal at all in the two conclaves that took place during its suppression or the four after its restoration. There was one each in the next two conclaves (1878 and 1903), but they were not Italians and were therefore not papabili. In the 1939 conclave, Cdl. Pietro Boetto was eligible, but he would have had a short reign since he died in 1946.
The most intriguing case is perhaps that of Cdl. Louis Billot, who could have been pope from 1914–1931. There are those prepared to say that he would have been a better pope than Pius XI, a judgment that I would not make. What is intriguing about his case is that he, in fact, resigned his cardinalate in 1927, allegedly at the insistence of Pius XI, who found him too right-wing for his liking.
What can be safely asserted is that if Billot had been pope, no heresy would have been heard from the Holy See or tolerated in the Church. But in any case, the bar against Cdl. Billot in the two conclaves he attended was not that he was a Jesuit but that he was French.
Thus, if we look at the history of conclaves since the founding of the Society of Jesus, we find that the option of electing a Jesuit pope seldom arose; there was no question of a general wariness against it. No, that prejudice will begin from now on.
