A Jesuit's Legacy: What Pope Francis Taught This Non-Believer

Last night, the world lost more than a pope. We lost a revolutionary disguised as a humble servant. Pope Francis – the first Jesuit to wear the papal ring – didn't exit this world surrounded by golden splendor. He died as he lived: deliberately, simply, and devoted not to his throne, but to those who would never sit on one.

While others before him embraced pomp, Francis rejected it with startling clarity. He carried his own bags, paid his own bills, and chose a modest apartment over palatial isolation. And when confronted with the Church's longstanding judgment of gay Catholics, he didn't recite doctrine...he asked a question that shattered centuries of certainty: "Who am I to judge?" Those five words ultimately paved the way for the Church's historic decision to bless same-sex unions.

For a pope, that was revolutionary. For a Jesuit, it was authentic. And for someone like me, who doesn't believe in divinity but hungers for truth, justice, and the power of radical love – it meant something devastatingly real.

The Jesuit Imprint: Not Dogma, But Discipline

I've spent most of my life in Catholic institutions – pre-K through Ph.D. – surrounded by scripture, sacraments, and sermons. But I never found God there. Instead, I discovered something that changed me more profoundly than any miracle could: a lens through which to see the world.

Jesuit education carved into me a truth I couldn't shake: belief matters less than integrity. Prayer pales against action. Seeking the truth outshines defending certainty. And loving others – entirely, indiscriminately, courageously – is the highest form of worship, even if you refuse to call it that. That is the true spirit of the divine.

I don't believe Jesus was God incarnate. I don't accept the Bible as literal truth. But I believe fiercely in the philosophy this carpenter-turned-rebel embodied: radical love, fearless equality, and the complete rejection of greed, power, and spiritual ego.

Francis: The Philosopher Pope

That's the Jesus that Francis followed. Not the glorified figure painted in gold leaf, but the one with dirt under his fingernails, fire in his eyes, and fury in his voice when he encountered injustice.

Francis spoke without pretense, lived without excess, and rejected empire for empathy. He didn't lead like someone desperate to preserve a throne; he led like someone determined to ensure no human being was thrown away or forced into the shadows.

This is what being Catholic – being Jesuit – can mean. Not blind allegiance to supernatural claims, but a bone-deep commitment to a way of being. It's answering the call to seek truth relentlessly, serve others sacrificially, and confront systems that crush the vulnerable. It's being the Good Samaritan who refused to walk past suffering, who wouldn't ignore injustice, who couldn't look away because of race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or sexuality.

Living the Fourth, Without the First Three

In Jesuit retreats like Kairos, the most challenging day isn't on the retreat itself. It's "the fourth day, " which begins when the retreat ends. It is when emotional highs crash into everyday reality, sacred silence gets swallowed by noise, and you must take what you've experienced and actually live it in a world designed to make you forget.

I never had a conversion moment. I haven't returned to the Church and likely never will. But I've returned to the fourth day—to the brutal, beautiful challenge of living what I value most. And in doing so, I reclaimed something I thought was lost forever: not belief but belonging, not worship but witness, not faith in a deity but trust in a way of life that elevates love, truth, service, and humility above all else.

Pope Francis embodied that daily.

Kairos: A Different Kind of Sacred

Jesuits speak of Kairos – God's time. Not the chronological ticking of seconds, but sacred moments when the world stops and something transformative breaks through. When you encounter a profound truth, your worldview shatters and rebuilds instantly.

I don't believe in miracles. But I believe in Kairos with every fiber of my being.

I believe in those still, shattering moments after loss, after truth, after reckoning, where life suddenly appears in ruthless clarity, when silence becomes understanding. When discomfort becomes direction. My Kairos didn't happen in church pews. It erupted in the hypocrisy I witnessed in religious spaces that preached love while practicing fear. It ambushed me in leadership rooms where ethics surrendered to ego, where convenient lies crushed necessary truths. It finds me in the agonizing tension of being a husband, parent, veteran, and thinker, trying to align values with systems that demand constant compromise.

Francis helped me see these moments not as failures but as sacred interruptions, as urgent invitations to live differently and truthfully.

Jesus, to Me

Let me be crystal clear: I don't believe Jesus was divine.

But I believe he was a philosopher whose radical vision still threatens the powerful 2,000 years later. He was a truth-teller, a table-flipper, a system-breaker, and a man who dared proclaim that every human being carries sacred worth, especially those society discards.

His words weren't about metaphysics. They were moral challenges that still cut to the bone. His teachings weren't focused on some distant afterlife; they demanded we transform how we live right now. And I believe that if you choose to live in hatred, separation, greed, and self-service, you don't need to wait for hell. You've already built your prison.

But if you choose love, integrity, community, and truth–even when it costs everything–you're building something sacred here and now.

That's what the Jesuits gave me: A framework. A language. A discipline I couldn't find anywhere else. And that's why I say, with both contradiction and conviction: I'm Catholic. But I'm Jesuit. And that means something radically different.

Jesuit to the End

To be Jesuit is not to be certain; it's to be perpetually seeking. Not to obey blindly, but to discern carefully. Not to kneel in submission, but to stand with the broken. Not to memorize scripture, but to embody love so fiercely that it changes systems.

Pope Francis lived this truth. He wasn't perfect, but he was authentic to his core. He never stopped questioning, listening, or serving. He lived the fourth day when others retreated to comfortable certainty.

And he left us an invitation – not to believe what he believed, but to live as he lived:

To flip tables when power is abused. To walk beside the hurting. To love so outrageously, it makes the comfortable squirm. And seek truth, especially when it's the last thing we want to hear.

If that's not faith, I don't know what is.