Others found the Jesuit lifestyle too lax. Followers of Jansenism, a theological movement within the Catholic Church, were particularly disdainful of the Society of Jesus. "The Jesuits seemed to have a softer look at Christianity than other orders," O'Malley said. "They had villas for their members, houses in the country. They seemed very worldly because their schools put on these plays—theater was a big thing. It just drove the Jansenists crazy."

Jesuit thinkers also defended an approach to moral decision-making called probablism, which was divisive within the Church. This was the idea that, in a morally ambiguous situation, someone can follow a teaching that's probably morally correct, even if other teachings seem more correct. The Jansenists particularly despised this aspect of Jesuit teachings. "They seemed to be soft on sin," O'Malley said.

All of these grievances culminated in Dominus ac Redemptor, a brief issued by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. He outlined a long list of accusations against the Society, concluding:

It was very difficult, not to say impossible, that the Church could recover a firm and durable peace so long as the said Society subsisted. After a mature deliberation, we do, out of our certain knowledge, and the fulness [sic] of our apostolical power, SUPPRESS AND ABOLISH THE SAID COMPANY: We deprive it of all activity whatever, of its houses, schools, colleges, hospitals, lands, and, in short, every other place whatsoever, in whatever kingdom or province they may be situated.

Clement went on to specify all the ways that Jesuits were banned from the Church (he was quite thorough). And just like that, a 233-year-old order ceased to exist—at least for a while.

Then came the French Revolution.

"In France, [the revolution] turns out to be rabidly anti-Christian and anti-Catholicism," O'Malley said. "The bishops and priests—it's hard to estimate how many were killed and executed. Liberty, equality, fraternity—come on! This brought the destruction of order, of hierarchy."

The revolution, according to O'Malley, was a Europe-wide distraction that offered political cover for Jesuits. After the order was suppressed, Catherine the Great had offered the priests a haven in Russia, and there, a small group deftly maneuvered to continue their work. In 1801, after the French Revolution had thoroughly upended political affairs on the continent, Pope Pius VII issued a decree confirming the legitimacy of the Jesuits in Russia. Thirteen years later, he universally restored the order with the papal bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum.

But 40 years had passed since the Society was formally banned from the Church. Who would become the next Jesuits? Young people who came of age during the the French Revolution. "You had a generation or several generations of conservative young people entering the order," O'Malley said. That meant loyalty to hierarchy, structure, tradition—and the Vatican.