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In Robert Alexander Maryks’ study “The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews”(2010) in [8] tells a different story, but also there Claudia Acquaviva gives secret orders.

These orders do not have to goal of gathering wealth to the Society with whatever means possible. The secret order that Acquaviva in reality gave according to [8] was to apply blood purity laws in order to stop admission of converted Jews to the Society of Jesuits.

The study [8] explains the reasons for Acquaviva’s orders. The founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius de Loyola, was pro-converso and pro-Jewish, [on the consensus that they follow Christ] but he had included into the Jesuit Constitution a rule that from everyone wanting to join Jesuits should be asked if he is a New Christian. If this practice had been done, it had been possible to limit the number of conversos and to know who were conversos, but the practice was not continued. Loyola had converse co-workers, such as Juan Alfonso de Polanco and Jeronimo Nadal. When Loyola died, as the new supreme general was elected a converso, Diego Laynez. His closest men were conversos: Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Jeronimo Nadal and Christobal de Madrid. Laynez still did not allow conversos to become the majority of new admissions,** but under the third supreme general, Francisco de Borja (of the family of Pope Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia) the Jesuit Order become to be seen as a Jewish Synagogue. Conversos had made a complete take-over of the Society.

After Borje died, there was the counterstrike. Italian and Portuguese anti-converso lobby, most prominent being Benedetto Palmio, managed to elect Everard Mercurian as the fourth supreme general and after him Claudio Acquaviva. Under these generals the Jesuit Order pushed conversos from leading roles and stopped admission of new conversos. The purity of blood rule was mitigated in 1608, but conversos never gained back the power that they had obtained in the early years.

The study in [8] describes the actions of Acquaviva. He asked his trusted men, many of whom were anti-converso, to give opinions what should be improved in the Society. These opinions presented converted Jews as troublemakers, who should not be accepted to the Society.

In 1590 Acquaviva gave secret orders to Spanish provincials to exclude New Christians from jobs that were very visible to the outside world, as their presence irritated Spanish nobles. Acquaviva did not at this point ban all of Jewish origins from joining the Society.

Three years later, in 1593, Acquaviva imposed the Limpieza de sangre, which made it impossible for New Christians to join Jesuits. [8] suggests the reason was that memorialistas had tried a revolt against the way Acquaviva ruled the Society.

The memorialistas were a group of Spanish Jesuits, largely conversos, who were sending secret memorandums to the Spanish crown, the Inquisition and the Pope in order to get the supreme general of Jesuits (Mercurian and Acquaviva) change his orders. It was a rebel in a military order like that of Jesuits.

Whether the problem of conversos was only that they gained power in the Society, or were the conversos also leading the Society in a non-Christian spirit, is not well answered by [8].

It is explained that Palmio thought that New Christians were still Jews and:

overly ambitious, insolent, Janus-faced, pretentious, despotic, astute, terrible, greedy for power, and infamous”, and that “the neophytes want to dominate everywhere and this is why the Society is agitated by the tempest of discords and acrimonies”, and that “all their and our evils proceeded from neophytes and especially from those who governed in Rome”.

Being children of this world, pompous, cunning, fake, self-seeking, etc.,it is certain that they fit religious life very badly and that it is impossible to maintain union with them. If those of this blood are made superiors, they employ almost all their government in external things: they promote genuine mortification and solid virtues very little and seem to be merchants, seeking first seats and being called rabbis; they are hardly eager to seek perfection that is described in the parts 5 and 6 of the Constitutions; and readily admit others of the same blood who are very unworthy.” [8]