The Jesuits have been tagged the CIA of the Vatican. They typically only recruit PHD’s. They have been tossed out of more countries than any other orders.
But one of the holiest men I ever knew --- Fr. Raymond Gawronski, now rejoicing I think before the high throne of Heaven --- was a Jesuit. So many names come to me, beloved Peter Faber, brilliant Matteo Ricci. It's an astounding history, epic: geniuses and imbeciles, "The Agony And The Ecstasy", seraphic spirituality and madcap, makeshift morality, real heroics and real hell.
Bring on the discalced reformer Jesuits!
For some reason, this popped into my mind --- it's about Borgias, not Jesuits, but what the hell, mutatis mutandis ---and I had to look it up:
"[I]n Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."--Harry Lime in the film "The Third Man".