DETROIT — That the first Jesuit pope should choose Francis for his name calls to mind the tradition of Franciscan-Jesuit jokes.

Often told by members of the respective orders themselves, they often have a double-edge, so that Franciscans come off as simple, but more spiritual, while Jesuits are depicted as brighter, but more worldly.

Some years ago, Jesuit Fr. Joseph Fessio, president of Ignatius Press, told this one about a man who really wanted a new Lexus:

“So, he went to a Franciscan priest, and asked, ‘Father, would it be OK if I made a novena for a new Lexus?’ And the Franciscan replied, ‘What’s a Lexus?’

“Then, he went to a Jesuit priest, and asked, ‘Father, would it be OK if I made a novena for a new Lexus?’ And the Jesuit replied, ‘What’s a novena?’”

The late Fr. Francis Budovic, SJ, told one that Pope Benedict XVI — then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — had told him 13 years before his election to the papacy:

“I introduced myself, and as soon as I said I was a Jesuit, he began telling a Jesuit-Franciscan joke,” he recalled about the 1992 encounter.

Adding translations, Fr. Budovic retold the joke: “A Jesuit and a Franciscan priest were walking together in the forest, and the Jesuit wanted to see whether there was an echo. So, he called out in a loud voice, ‘Quod est Franciscanorum regula?’ (‘What is the rule of the Franciscans?’) And the echo came back, ‘-gula, -gula’ — gula in Latin means gluttony.

“Then the Franciscan calls out in a loud voice, ‘Fuitne Judas Jesuita?’ (‘Was Judas a Jesuit?’) And the echo came back, ‘-ita, -ita’ — Latin for yes, yes.”

Sometimes Dominicans also figure in the jokes, as in one told by Fr. Patrick Peppard, SJ, pastor of SS. Peter & Paul (Jesuit) Parish in Detroit:

“There are three things even God doesn’t know — what Jesuits are doing, what Dominicans are thinking, and just how many orders of Franciscan nuns there are.”