twice you’ve called jesuits the “elite” of the church.
that smacks of some sort of conspiracy nonsense of which i’m not well versed. in fact, it sounds like the sort of thing one would find in a book by Dan Brown.
just to be clear, there is no “elite order” in the church. Catholics are just Catholics. there are different orders that those who are called to serve can join, and they have different goals/callings, but none are above or beneath any other. the jesuits tend to be involved in education. i find them to be the most liberal order from my own experience and don’t much care for what’s happened to jesuit universities since Vatican II (aside - i’m an alum of one such university), but that doesn’t mean that the current pope is in favor of population control, which is what i think you’re implying. that alone would put him in stark contrast with a fundamental teaching of the church and would disqualify him even from being a priest, much less the pope!
is the pope liberal by US political definitions? yes. is he a socialist? maybe. is he deliberately aiding and abetting the forces determined to undermine the teachings of the church? no (or at least i hope not, because maybe then we would be facing the end of times).
But the actual situation is a bit more complicated.
The Polish pope understood that the talent pool among his bishops was a bit shallow, so he reached out to the religious orders to find episcopal talent. Bergoglio, Martini, O'Malley and others became bishops because they caught the papal eye with the quality work they were doing in their respective orders. Bergoglio made it all the way to the top.
that smacks of some sort of conspiracy nonsense
Really?
Here are the definitions of the words, since you seem not to be a native English speaker:
elite: n, a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities.
conspiracy: n, a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
Now that you've been disabused about the meanings of two common words which have no conceptual overlap other than that they involve a "group," let alone nexus that I can determine, let's deal with the rest.
The Jesuit order is involved in education at what were at one time some of America's most elite universities. This goes directly to the point that the pope is not a stupid or naive man. And I said that. Twice. I can say it again, and he will still not be a stupid or naive man.
Next: Am I insinuating that he favors population control? No, I am pointing out that his closest lay adviser on environmental issues believes our environmental problems are a direct result that there are too many people, and that we need more contraception and more abortions. A lot more. He wants six of the seven billion people in the world not to be around in the next generation.
You may draw your own conclusions as you like. I am only asking a question: why is Jeffery Sachs a part of this discussion?
As for this statement: is he deliberately aiding and abetting the forces determined to undermine the teachings of the church? no (or at least i hope not, because maybe then we would be facing the end of times).
All I can say is, come now, my FRiend. It's not like he would be the first pope who did that. And yet somehow the world endures.
I was once a Jesuit novice, after attending a Jesuit college. My brother attended a Jesuit high school.
The Jesuits WERE an elite group in some respects. They were the largest teaching order and the largest missionary order, at the same time. But they were never ALL scholars and geniuses, or political operatives, and all that conspiratorial stuff.
Today, some of the most astonishing (in a good sense) scholars in the Church are Jesuits. But the Society is DYING. Every Jesuit in Spain is over 70. Or 75. There were about 55,000 Jesuits in 1960. There will be only several thousand Jesuits in 20-40 years, and probably none in 100 years.