ABSTRACT
From the earliest days of Catholic education, the Jesuits set the standard for the ways these colleges and universities should structure themselves. Ignatius Loyola's intention for the Jesuits was that they be "Pope's Men," supremely faithful to the pope. According to historians like Malachi Martin, the war between the papacy and the Jesuits began when a small number of Jesuit priests became involved in the propagation of a new more liberating and empowering theology that coupled theology with sociology and a dominant concern for the "here and now" rather than eternal salvation. Enlisting the Jesuits in the war, the Sandinistas successfully redefined the armed violence of a Marxist-style revolution into a religious action sanctioned by legitimate Church spokesmen. While the story of the Jesuits' role in Nicaragua may seem tangential to Catholic higher education, it is an important one because of its continued effect on many Catholic colleges and universities.
