When we turn our attention to profiling Pope Francis' constellation of the four archetypes of feminine maturity in his psyche, we need to take into account his personal devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a common devotion in the Roman Catholic Church, and his fondness for using mother imagery in reference to the church itself. In my estimate, he was able to use his positive orientation toward the feminine in his psyche to leverage his own personal psycho-spiritual growth and development to learn how to access three of the four optimal forms of the masculine archetypes of maturity in his psyche.
For further discussion of the kind of inner work with the feminine archetypes of maturity that I am referring to here as being involved in Pope Francis' own personal psycho-spiritual growth and development, see the American humanistic psychologist Jean Houston's 1992 self-help book The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as Mystery and Initiation (Ballantine Books).
By way of digression, I should note here that it is hard work for adult women to learn how to access the optimal forms of the four feminine archetypes of maturity and it is at least equally hard for adult men to learn how to access the optimal forms of the four feminine archetypes of maturity in their psyches. However, one example of an adult man at least attempting the kind of inner work with some optimal forms of the feminine archetypes of maturity in his psyche is Dante's famous portrayal of the character Beatrice in the Divine Comedy. The character Beatrice is based on his fond memory of his boyhood encounter with a girl named Beatrice. My favorite scholar the American Jesuit Professor Ong describes Dante-the-poet's "apotheosis of Beatrice" in his 1951 essay "The Lady and the Issue" that he reprinted in his 1967 book In the Human Grain: Further Explorations of Contemporary Culture (Macmillan, pages 188-202, at 192). Professor Ong's choice of the word apotheosis to describe the character Beatrice is apt. The word apotheosis contains the Greek word theos, meaning god. So Professor Ong is accusing Dante of making the character Beatrice into a goddess. But this is consistent with Jean Houston's discussion of the inner goddess in our psyches.
Also see the American Jungian psychotherapist Edward C. Whitmont's 1982 book Return of the Goddess (Crossroad); and my essay "Whitmont Identifies the Next Evolutioary Step for Western Culture" that is available online at the University of Minnesota's digital conservancy:
http://hdl.handle.net/11299/185771
In any event, in my estimate, Pope Francis appears to like women who are
(1) stuck in the Masochist "shadow" form of the feminine Warrior archetype of maturity,
(2) stuck in the Weakling "shadow" form of the Queen archetype of feminine maturity,
(3) stuck in the Denying "Innocent" One "shadow" form of the feminine Magician archetype of maturity, and
(4) stuck in the Impotent Lover "shadow" form of the feminine Lover archetype of maturity.
Consequently, like most male misogynists I profiled above, he tends not to like women who manifest simultaneously both the Sadist and the Tyrant "shadow" forms of the two crucial archetypes of feminine maturity.
But I want to discuss a bit further here the Denying "Innocent" One "shadow" form of the masculine Magician archetype of maturity. In all honesty, I suspect that many Roman Catholic bishops involved in covering up instances of priest sex abuse were themselves stuck in the Denying "Innocent" One "shadow" form of the masculine Magician archetype of maturity and I suspect that this was also the case with Pope John-Paul II.
Before the enormity of the sex-abuse and cover-up scandal emerged in public awareness, perhaps most practicing Catholics were also stuck in the Denying "Innocent" One "shadow" form of the Magician archetypes of maturity. No doubt the enormity of the scandal has shaken the faith of practicing Catholics in their bishops and in their church. Consequently, they face the challenge of learning how to access the optimal forms of the Magician archetypes of maturity (masculine and feminine) rather than just switching from their "shadow" form to the bipolar opposite "shadow" form (the Detached Manipulator forms).
But the abusive priests involved in the sex abuse of underage victims were themselves most likely stuck in the Impotent Lover "shadow" for of the masculine Lover archetype, because of their attempts to practice celibacy a practice dictated by church custom. When those priests engaged in sex abuse of underage victims, they momentarily flipped from the Impotent Lover "shadow" form to the Addicted Lover "shadow" form.
Most of us are stuck simultaneously in four "shadow" forms of the archetypes of maturity, even if we occasionally alternate from one "shadow" form to the bipolar opposite "shadow" form. But the goal should be to switch from a given "shadow" form of one archetype of maturity to the optimal form of that one archetype of maturity if we can. But each pair of bipolar opposite "shadow" can be likened to an inner Scylla and Charybdis. Consequently, the market for self-help books is not likely to vanish in the near future.
However that may be, even though I think that Pope Francis is a beautiful man in many ways who is setting a good example for faithful Roman Catholics, I would be remiss if I did not mention here that he has evoked strong expressions of hostility among certain American Catholics. But I see those hostile American Catholics as stuck in the culture warrior profile involving (1) the Sadist "shadow" form of the Warrior archetypes of maturity combined with (2) the Tyrant "shadow" form of the Royal archetypes of maturity (the King and the Queen archetypes).
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