>>7448
I'm Catholic. They were an order created by St. Ignatius and they had some differences from Catholic orders of the time - eg. They didn't have regular fasting days, they were highly centralized and high lifetime leadership etc.
This flexibility let them grow quickly and a lot of them focused on missionary work in places like Africa, China and the New World. Their growing power led to a backlash by the church.
In the 60s the Jesuits made a proclamation that their focus would be on the poor. This led to many of them following liberation theology.
They are considered a liberal order in the Catholic church - but the reality is that Jesuits have always been pretty liberal. Eg. They tried to convert china by using existing chinese traditions. They spoke out against abuses of Natives in the New World etc.