Robert Blair Kaiser - Inside the Jesuits: How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church and the World

Praise for Inside the Jesuits

Robert Blair Kaiser writes with the enthusiasm and insight of one Jesuit for another Jesuit, Pope Francis. A brilliant journalist with immense experience, he explores Jesuit DNA to predict change in the papacy and Church. It excites with surprising revelations and perceptions. This is a must-read for changing times. Jane Anderson, University of Western Australia; author of Priests in Love

I have known Robert Kaiser since we both covered Vatican II back in the 1960s. He had an inside track, having been ten years a Jesuit, and he has now made an eloquent case for the hope that Pope Francis will transform the sclerotic Catholic Church. I hope that he is right. Ted Morgan, author of Valley of Death; Pulitzer Prize winner

It is rare that you can get to know a pope from the inside. Yet that is precisely what Robert Kaiser has done. He has gotten inside Pope Francis by highlighting how the popes spirituality and training has made being a Jesuit part of his DNA. Francis is a Jesuit to the core of his being, and Kaiser spells out with lucidity and style what this will mean for his papacy. With an insiders eye for detail, Kaiser introduces us to the spirituality and creativity that characterizes the best men in the Jesuit tradition, men who are always out on the edge. He sees Francis as being the first pope for centuries who will challenge the church to move outside its comfort zone, as well as being precisely the style of church leader that Vatican Council II wanted. Inside the Jesuits is both provocative and reassuring: provocative when Kaiser outlines just how challenging Francis approach to being bishop of Rome will be, and reassuring in that Francis is the most Christ-like pope Catholicism has had for centuries. Paul Collins, author of The Birth of the West

A compelling read, if only to hear Robert Kaiser wax rhapsodic about a pope! But theres more, for Kaiser writes from that peculiar twenty-first-century space where
a former Jesuit can still profess his enduring affection for the order and the Church.
Tom Roberts, editor at large, National Catholic Reporter

Only Robert Blair Kaiser could have pulled this off. Inside the Jesuits, an admiring analysis of what makes the Jesuits such extraordinary achievers in the life of the post-Reformation Church, is woven seamlessly into a penetrating, astute, and thoroughly engaging reflection on the promise of the first Jesuit pope. An extraordinary achievement! Donald Cozzens, John Carroll University; author of Notes from the Underground

At once chatty, insightful, and profound, this part-memoir, partstudy of Pope Francis as a Jesuit, written by the doyen of American Catholic religious journalists, will delight and inform a wide audience. Written in an engaging style, it is deeply informative of how and why Cardinal Bergoglio was elected, and what we may and may not expect from his papacy. Kaiser places Pope Francis wisely and well amid his Jesuit peers and the orders history and charism, putting both Kaiser himself and the pope into conversation with major events and movements in the last fifty years of the Catholic Churchs history, thus conveying the sense of constructive excitement that Franciss election has brought to the Church. Paul Lakeland, Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Professor of Catholic Studies, Fairfield University

Robert Kaiser has written a spirited defense of the social gospel, with special attention to Pope Francis and his Jesuit DNA. As an ex-Jesuit, I found this enlightening and indeed persuasive at important points. Kaisers hopes for a curing of the papal curia and his stories of Jesuit theologians trail-blazing in matters of faith were of special interest. Jim Bowman, author of Company Man

Inside the Jesuits

How Pope Francis Is Changing
the Church and the World

Robert Blair Kaiser

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