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Can. 705 A religious raised to the episcopate remains a member of his institute**
A bishop remains a religious. Therefore, the Bishop of Rome remains a Jesuit. He is released from obedience to his major superior. He is not released from his obligations to his vows and to the charism of his order. Pope Francis does not cease to be a Jesuit, he cannot lay aside Jesuit customs, spirituality, worldview, and other characteristics that make him a Jesuit without good reason.
We can get hung up on whether Pope Francis owes obedience to the Superior General of the Jesuits, which would be a waste of time. We know that a pope is the highest ranking major superior of every religious institute, including his own.
But the part that I’m referring to here is the part from which Canon Law does not dispense, probably because the Code of 1917 tried to do so and it did not work. The Code of 1917 said that a religious elevated to the episcopacy ceased to be a religious. In theory that was fine. He was no longer in vows. In reality, it never worked. You can’t take Ignatius out of the Jesuit, Francis out of the Franciscan, or Dominic out of the Dominican. For this reason, Pope Paul VI change the code to say that a bishop remains a member of his religious institute and Pope John Paul II promulgated it in 1983.
If we do not factor this into who he is, much of what he does, how he does it, what he says and how he teaches his going to leave us confused or annoyed. This is the usual result when you look at a person out of his context.
Pope Francis will never be any less of a Jesuit than I am a Franciscan. Even if I did not owe obedience to my community, legalities are the least important thing here. That dispensation is granted for practical reasons. It frees the bishop to govern without having to submit to a superior who may attempt to abuse his power over the bishop. We understand this and it makes sense.
Now, will Pope Francis remain obedient to Ignatius? Yes. Does he have a moral duty to obey Ignatius? Yes, because the law says that he remains a member of the order that Ignatius founded. Remaining a member is more than just the right to sign SJ after his name or wearing the order’s habit, if they had one. Remaining a member means that you remain a son of the founder, a follower of that school of thought, and maintain an ongoing fraternal relationship with the community. That’s the pope’s side of the equation.
Our side of the equation is that we must understand the Jesuit charism. For example, those who are alarmed because the Holy Father lives in a small suite in a hotel would not be so alarmed if they understood that for a Jesuit, the idea of having more space than he knows what to do with is not something that is common. His immediate reaction is, “What do I do with this much space?”
The folks who are upset because he does not wear the pontifical garments would probably feel more comfortable if they knew that from the time that they enter as aspirants until they make solemn vows 12 years later, Jesuits are trained to blend in with the common man. For this reason, they never had a habit. Instead, they wore whatever the diocesan clergy in the region wears.
People may be less upset over the feet washing, if they understood that the Jesuits are very used to having a dispensation from almost every canon that binds other religious. These dispensations are often granted to individual Jesuits, to houses, provinces or to the entire order, depending on the need. This was an arrangement that Ignatius made with the papacy when the order was erected as a pontifical institute. Also, the Jesuits are exempt religious as individuals and as a community. There are points in law that do not bind them or from which they can easily be excused. For example, the Jesuits are excused from praying the Divine Office in choir, even though the law says that all religious in solemn vows (only) must pray the office in community.
When such a man becomes a pope, the idea of dispensing the with a regulation for what he perceives to be a higher good is not out of the question, because he comes from a culture where they’re always asking for indults and dispensations or are granted them without asking. The Church understands that this is part of the Right of Exemption and when exemptions are requested, the Church easily grants them. A pope has no one to whom he can apply for an exemption. He grants it to himself. Again, the idea of an exemption is not new to him, because he comes from background where exemptions are the norm.
The same is true of his preaching. If one listens very carefully, Pope Francis’ homilies, those which he actually constructs, follow Jesuit pedagoy. We see this a lot when he speaks without a script.
Finally, I have to add that Jesuits, though very well educated, are also very simple men. They live very simply and they are very focused rather than attend to too many things at one time. Their formation is very military. And their daily life is guided by the exercises.
Again, if we take the man out of context, we’re going to be confused. Since most of us are not experts in the Jesuit charism, we’ll be learning by observation, unless we want to read about it.
