Pope Francis was a Jesuit. But what do we know about the religious order?

Pope Francis was the first Jesuit Pope.

Jesuits, officially known as the Society of Jesus, are one of the biggest and high-profile religious orders in the entire Catholic Church.

There are around 15,000 priests, brothers and novices across 110 nations in the world.

From the world’s biggest universities to the most dilapidated migrant shelters and jungles, Jesuits toil to fulfil their creed – “ad majorem Dei gloriam” (“for the greater glory of God”).

“As if answering an implicit question about who a Jesuit is, Pope Francis … affirmed that ’the Jesuit is a servant of the joy of the Gospel’ in whatever mission he is engaging,” the order’s superior general, the Reverend Arturo Sosa, wrote in his message to fellow Jesuits upon Francis’ death.

But who are they? What do we know about them?

The origins of Jesuits

The Jesuits originated in the 16th Century.

It was St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose “Spiritual Exercises” are still a classic of Catholic contemplative practices, who founded the order.

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From the beginning, Ignatius emphasised the missionary, international reach of the order.

The Jesuits have spent the next hundreds of years building a reputation in scholarship and education.

They have founded some of the biggest schools and universities including Georgetown University in Washington and the Pontifical Gregorian University, which serves mostly clergy, nuns and seminarians in Rome.

They have also often been on the forefront of helping the most downtrodden.

They work at border flashpoints in the Americas and serve refugees from conflict and humanitarian crises worldwide.

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That ability to move from socio-political elites to the most marginalised has been a hallmark of the Jesuits from their founding, said the Reverend Bruce Morrill, a Jesuit priest and theology professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

“God is glorified where human beings are saved,” Morrill said, summarising the thread between the Jesuits’ educational, spiritual, social justice and humanitarian missions.

Outreach to refugees

Jesuit Refugee Service was founded in 1980 to respond to the growing needs of those escaping the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

Since then, it has become one of the most active organisations globally in helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants around the world, regardless of their faith.

Advocating for migrants was one of Francis ’ top priorities.

There are also Jesuit Migrant Network and Jesuit Migrant Service groups active in many countries, providing humanitarian, legal, psycho-social and pastoral care to those displaced by violence or hunger.

They also minister to the families migrants leave behind. Nearly two dozen migrants left from the area around a small town in Guatemala’s largely Indigenous highlands, only to die en route in Mexico and the United States in recent mass tragedies.

The parents and siblings of the dead said the Jesuits were the only constant support.

The Reverend Michael Gallagher, a Jesuit priest and attorney, ministered to 13,000 migrants last year in El Paso, Texas, where his church used to operate a shelter a few blocks north of the US-Mexico border.

It is now closed, due to the enormous drop in border crossings.

“We all felt greatly supported by his keeping saying that migrants are important,” Gallagher said of Francis. “His continued focus on the humanity and human dignity of all people, especially those often demonised, is one of his lasting contributions.”

Also in Texas, the Reverend Brian Strassburger, another Jesuit priest, directs Del Camino Border Ministries in the Rio Grande Valley and has often visited nearby shelters in Mexico.

He called Francis a “great pastor and pilgrim” who put “the defense of migrants at the center of his papacy” from the beginning through his final Easter message.

“He constantly reminded us that we are all migrants on a journey in this life, and our final destination is eternal rest with the Lord,” Strassburger said.

Political struggles and controversies through the centuries

At one point in history the Jesuits were refugees of sorts themselves — Pope Clement XIV, bowing to pressure from European political interests in 1773, ordered the society to be disbanded.

In 1814, a different pope restored the Jesuits, who got right back into their educational vocation.

Just two years ago, Nicaragua’s government confiscated the Jesuit-run University of Central America, which had been a hub of massive protests against President Daniel Ortega. His crackdown on religious freedom has been widely condemned.

During El Salvador’s civil war, the church tried to mediate peace between the government and those rising against it when, in 1989, soldiers killed six Jesuits on the campus of the Central American University in the country’s capital.

Many communities in Mexico are still grieving the 2022 murder of two elderly Jesuit priests in the remote Tarahumara mountains by a leader of one of Mexico’s crime gangs.

The Jesuits have also been targets of controversy, from abuses in former residential schools for Indigenous children in Canada and the United States affiliated with the order to a recent case involving a famous ex-Jesuit artist.

The order announced last month reparations to some 20 women who said they were sexually, psychologically and spiritually abused by the Reverend Marko Rupnik, who was expelled by the Jesuits in2023.