New Pope – is the Church taking a new direction or old?

All the world is buzzing about what this new Pope could mean for the Catholic Church and whether or not he will change the face of it. Over the last few days my Fb has quite a few feeds about the Jesuits and who they are and about St Francis of Assisi. But I just want to take a minute to share you a little bit of personal history. When I first became a Christian, a friend of mine and I were discussing the Catholic Church and the Popes. She said to me, “I wonder if the Catholic Church would ever elect a Jesuit for a Pope, because that would NOT be good!” I didn’t know much about the Jesuits at that time, I only knew that they were the military arm of the Church.

Now jump forward to today. We have a Pope who is exactly that! Coincidently, I have been reading a book about the history of the huguenots in France. I started this book quite a few weeks ago, and the Jesuits are not shown in good light in that book! The Jesuits rounded up and tortured, killed thousands of people, they took away children from the parents that would NOT succumb to the King’s Religion. The Jesuits started schools in monkeries and nunneries to educate the young in the ways of Catholicism. In this book the Jesuits were something to be feared as was the Catholic religion.

Now I hear things about how the Jesuits are still interested in education and spreading the religion throughout the world. How will a Jesuit Pope do this? Well, HERE is an article that puts forth a few observations about a Catholic Social Gospel, and a Liberation Theology. Have a read, and see what you think?

The Church may have changed the means in which it makes converts, but it still wants them. And just to add a little bit more information, the commission of the Church was not to make converts but to make disciples. It is easy to make converts and even easier to make bad converts, but not so easy to make disciples. If you don’t get what I mean, watch THIS youtube.