Category: European Politics

• The Jesuit "Black Pope"

  This theory held that the Superior General of the Jesuits—the so-called “Black Pope”—was the true hidden ruler of Roman Catholicism and, through the Society of Jesus, the real strategist behind Vatican decisions and the subversion of Protestant states. The nickname itself was real, and anti-Jesuit conspiracy literature in the nineteenth century repeatedly cast the Jesuit general as a power behind the papal throne. The historical record clearly shows that anti-Jesuitism was a major conspiracy tradition in Protestant and liberal political culture, and that the phrase “Black Pope” was used to suggest a dark counter-sovereign to the pope in white. What remains unproven is the theory’s core claim that the Jesuit superior general secretly governed the Vatican or coordinated the overthrow of Protestant governments.