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Jesuit Terms C
 

Campion, Edmund (1540-1581)

British Jesuit; martyr; saint

William Allen’s seminary for training British diocesan priests in Douai, Belgium, was the principal hope of Catholics in the England of anti-Catholic penal laws. Two of these well-trained men, Thomas Woodhouse and John Nelson, smuggled into their homeland, were captured and, while awaiting execution in the Tower of London, asked to be admitted to the Society of Jesus. They were the first Jesuit martyrs to die in England. Allen kept urging the Jesuit superior general to establish an English Jesuit mission. After some hesitations, he did so. And therefore, in 1580, three Jesuits including Edmund Campion, disguised, landed on the coast of Kent. “All three were to know the efficiency of the English government’s spy system” (Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus [1986]).

Before entering the Jesuits on the Continent, Campion had distinguished himself as a student at Oxford and come to the attention of Queen Elizabeth, who twice offered him prestigious offices in the Church of England, which twice he turned down. Shortly after his return to England, he issued a manifesto about his mission, now known as Campion’s Brag. In it he asserted that his purpose was religious, not political. Here is his famous conclusion:

And touching our Society, be it known to you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits of the world—cheerfully to carry the cross you lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn [place of execution in London], or to be racked with your torments, or to be consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun. It is of God, it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted, so it must be restored.

Eventually Campion was betrayed by a spy, captured, and taken to the Tower of London, where he was stretched on the rack, and then, in the customary manner of execution, “hanged, drawn, and quartered” [that is, hanged, cut down while still alive, disemboweled, and his body cut into four parts].

From 1880 to 1975, the Jesuits had a boarding school (secondary) for boys in Prairie du Chien, WI, named Campion Jesuit High School. The school’s slogan was “Give Campion a boy and get back a man.

The residence for Jesuit scholars at Oxford is named in his honor Campion Hall.

See Waugh, Edmund Campion (1946) and The Reckoned Expense: Edmund Campion and the Early English Jesuits, rev. and enl., ed. Thomas M. McCoog (2007).

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Campus Ministry

at Jesuit Colleges and Universities

• Boston College
• Canisius College
• College of the Holy Cross
• Creighton University
• Fairfield University
• Fordham University
• Georgetown University
• Gonzaga University
• John Carroll University
• Le Moyne College
• Loyola University Maryland
• Loyola Marymount University
• Loyola University Chicago
• Loyola University New Orleans
   
• Marquette University
• Regis University
• Rockhurst University
• Saint Joseph's University
• Saint Louis University
• Saint Peter's College
• Santa Clara University
• Seattle University
• Spring Hill College
• University of Detroit Mercy
• University of San Francisco
• University of Scranton
• Wheeling Jesuit University
• Xavier University

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Canisius, Peter (1521-1597)

Dutch Jesuit; “Second Apostle of Germany” [St. Boniface was the first—8th cent]

The 22 year old Peter Canisius (a Latinized form of his name), born in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and educated at the University of Cologne, went to Mainz, Germany, to seek out Peter Faber (one of the early companions of Ignatius in Paris). Faber guided him through the Spiritual Exercises and, honoring the discernment he made during the retreat, admitted him to the Society of Jesus.

Ignatius as superior general sent him to be part of the team that founded the first Jesuit school for non-Jesuit students in Messina, Sicily. From there he was called by the pope and sent to Germany, where he spent the rest of his life writing, founding and running colleges (18), and preaching—perhaps his most important ministry. His preaching drew people back to the Catholic church who had gone away in response to the Protestant reformers. Among the cities where he worked were Ingolstadt (Bavaria), Vienna (Austria), Prague (Bohemia), Innsbruck (Austria), and Fribourg (Switzerland).

The most famous and popular of Canisius’ 37 books was the Catechism, which he composed in Latin, but which was soon translated into German. The original, intended for university students, was adapted for secondary schools and then for children just starting their religious education. All of these together had some 200 printings during his lifetime and continued to be used into the 19th century. Catechism and Canisius were synonymous.

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Cardinal

A senior Catholic church official, a “prince of the church” and elector of the pope

Appointed by the pope, cardinals advise him when asked. Together (in number well over 100) they make up the College of Cardinals, whose major charge is to elect a new pope--bishop of Rome--when the previous one dies or resigns. Except for the patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic churches, cardinals--wherever they come from--are considered clergy of the diocese of Rome in order to be in continuity with the tradition that the clergy elect their bishop. (A cardinal who turns 80 years old ceases to be an elector.)

In addition to this crucial role, it often happens that cardinals, as bishops, head a diocese, or they may run a department of the Vatican.

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Carroll, John (1735-1816)

American; first bishop of U.S.; founder of Georgetown University

Born in the Maryland colony and educated in Europe where he joined the Jesuits. With the pope’s Suppression of the Society in 1773, he returned to his family’s plantation in Maryland and ministered to people in what is now the District of Columbia. In 1786 he was appointed superior of the clergy in the U.S., and he moved to found Georgetown Academy (later University) in 1789 to provide intelligent, educated laity for the new country. Carroll was appointed Bishop of Baltimore and gathered around him fellow ex-Jesuits to form “The Catholic Gentlemen of Maryland.” His diocese was all of the United States.

As leader of the American Catholic church, Carroll was centuries ahead of his time. He advocated liturgy in the vernacular, participation of the laity in the running of the church, and in the selection of bishops interference neither by the state nor by church administration in Rome.

In 1814, two years before his death, the Jesuits were re-established; and Carroll anticipated an influx of new Jesuit teachers for his favored project Georgetown.

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Catholic

The word comes from the Greek meaning “through the whole,” that is “universal,” “world-wide,” “all inclusive.”  This is the meaning when the word starts with a lower-case c as in “We need to become more catholic in our attitudes.” In talking about the “Catholic church” (Catholic with a capital C), members often mean “the pope and the bishops” or “the Vatican.” But Vatican Council II, in its Constitution on the Church, used several other terms with inclusive meanings like “the People of God.”

For us in Jesuit education, the question is often “Are we maintaining and enhancing our ‘Catholic Identity’?” Despite the fact that there are entire books devoted to the question, the answer is not easy to come by. A careful reading of the various essays on “The Issue of Catholic Identity” in A Jesuit Education Reader seems to indicate both that much is being done and that more needs to be done.

Some people, when they hear the word Catholic think "thought control" or "one-issue myopia." Even if there is some justification for their attitude, they are probably operating with little more than news-media knowledge of Catholicism, with no sense of the rich and diverse Catholic intellectual tradition, the artistic tradition accompanying it, the Catholic social justice tradition since 1891, or the witness of heroic lives lived in the past and especially our own time.

After the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and 16th-century Catholic reform, for centuries prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), there was a homogeneity to Catholic belief, theology, and practice in most of Europe and North America. That kind of unity now feels long-gone, for there is currently such a broad spectrum—one might almost say polarization—of Catholic theologies and spirituality that some Catholics feel “closer” to some Protestants than they do to other Catholics. It seems likely that the Catholic unity of the future will be far from uniformity, but rather will incorporate some of present-day pluralism within its unity.

Read more on the term "Catholic"

Click here for 3-minute video excerpt about the various forms of Catholicism.

See also Vatican Council II. 

See also Hellwig, “The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Catholic University” and other essays in the same section of A Jesuit Education Reader.

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Catholic Intellectual Tradition, The

Theologian Monika Hellwig (1929-2005) defines the Catholic Intellectual Tradition in terms of its content and also its approach to knowledge, to reality. Content -- this includes not just great written works like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's plays (especially great tragedies), Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, G.M. Hopkins' poetry (especially The Wreck of the Deutschland), Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Georges Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest and Teilhard de Chardin's The Human Phenomenon (the recent English re-translation), but also great works of art -- music, painting, stained glass, sculpture and architecture. Approach to knowledge, to reality -- it recognizes the continuity of faith and reason, respects the cumulative wisdom of the past, has an anti-elitist bent, pays attention to how knowledge is used (for good or ill), works toward the integration of knowledge, and operates out of the "sacramental principle" (all of creation can lead us to the sacred, to God).

See Monika Hellwig, "The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Catholic University" in A Jesuit Education Reader.

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Christian doctrines, Central

The central Christian doctrines are Trinity, Incarnation, and Grace. In the doctrine of the Trinity, with its "threeness" in one God, many theologians see the foundation for the call to human beings (God’s creation) of community, equality and self-giving love (see the entry “God,” paragraph 2). Though many can recite the Christian creed, they can fail to understand the implications of the Incarnation, God’s becoming fully human in Jesus.* Thus God is committed to the human enterprise, and by becoming more and more human—our vocation in Jesus--we become more like God (see the entry “Judaeo-Christian Vision,” paragraph 3 [“God has freely chosen . . . .”] and “Jesus,” paragraph 1). Grace tells us about the gratuitous character of God’s love and salvation; we can’t earn God’s love, but we don’t have to. God gives it freely, unconditionally. 

See "Trinity"
See "Incarnation" and "Incarnation, Why the."
See "Grace"
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Claver, Peter (1580-1654)

Spanish (Catalan) Jesuit; “slave of the slaves forever”; saint

As a young Jesuit scholastic, Peter Claver studied at the Jesuit college in Palma on the island of Majorca. There he became good friends with the wise and holy brother doorkeeper, Alphonsus Rodriguez. Alphonsus encouraged him to consider going on mission to the New World for his life’s work. And that is what Peter did.

In 1610, he sailed across the Atlantic to Cartagena, Colombia, infamous for being the chief slave market of South America. There he was trained for ministry with the enslaved people from West Africa by an older Jesuit, Alfonso Sandoval, a great spokesman for the dignity of the slaves. After ordination, then, Claver, binding himself by vow to be “slave of the slaves forever,” carried on a tireless ministry of compassion and care for nearly forty years. He “met the slave ships, descended into the stinking holds filled with poor, frenzied, distressed [human beings,] brought physical relief by his practical nursing in a spirit of tenderness” and spiritual support with the gift of faith (Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus [1986]).

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Clavius, Christopher (1538-1612)

German Jesuit; mathematician; creator of the present calendar

For 45 years Christopher Clavius [Christoph Klau in German] taught mathematics at the Roman College (in the 16th century, the premier seat of Jesuit higher education). He won the respect and friendship of virtually every significant mathematician and astronomer of his day. He was a life-long friend of Galileo. He exerted a wide influence on the schools of Europe as well as those in China through his Jesuit pupils laboring there.

Clavius’ best-known contribution was his reform—at the request of Pope Gregory XIII—of the Julian calendar, which gave a year 11 minutes plus longer than the actual solar year. The new Gregorian calendar was not accepted everywhere. In various parts of Europe, people broke windows in Jesuit residences as a protest. The Orthodox church saw the new calendar as a Roman intrusion (which it was), and Protestant countries were reluctant to accept any decree from a pope. England did not change to the new calendar until 1751, while Orthodox Russia would require the Bolshevik revolution to change. (MacDonnell, Jesuit Family Album)

The Clavius Group of mathematicians, founded by a number of Jesuits in 1963 (but soon joined by other religious and lay colleagues), gather every summer (along with spouses and children) at a different university to work together in keeping with the behest of their namesake: “Let an academy be formed for the advancement of mathematics” (Christopher Clavius [1596]).

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Colleges and Universities

Homepages

See Jesuit Colleges and Universities

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Conferences & Retreats

To view a list of all conferences and retreats, click here.

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Consolation

See Discernment.

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Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education

Conversations is published bi-annually by the National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education, which is jointly sponsored by the Jesuit Conference Board and the Board of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. View issues from the 1992 inaugural edition to the current edition.

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Conversations on Catholic Identity at a Jesuit University: An E-Seminar

For information on the E-Seminar, please click here.

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Conway Institute for Jesuit Education

The Ruth J. and Robert A. Conway Institute for Jesuit Education at Xavier University is a center of distinction, assisting educators in transforming students intellectually, morally, and spiritually in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition, while appropriating Ignatian pedagogy and spirituality in today's world. The Institute reaches beyond the Xavier campus with pedagogical innovations communicated locally, nationally, and internationally.

Watch an introduction video to the Institute here.

Find more information about the Institute here.

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Cristo Rey Network

An ever-growing nation-wide network of college-preparatory high schools for economically disadvantaged, inner-city students, modeled on the original Cristo Rey school founded by the Jesuits in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood in 1996. The Network describes itself as "Schools that Work"; the students all work one day a week for some cooperating company—earning a large part of the cost of their education—and go to school four days.

www.cristoreynetwork.org

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Cura Personalis

(Latin meaning "care for the [individual] person") - A hallmark of Ignatian spirituality (where in one-on-one spiritual guidance, the guide adapts the Spiritual Exercises to the unique individual making them) and therefore of Jesuit education (where the teacher establishes a personal relationship with students, listens to them in the process of teaching, and draws them toward personal initiative and responsibility for learning [see "Pedagogy, Ignatian/Jesuit"]).

This attitude of respect for the dignity of each individual derives from the Judaeo-Christian vision of human beings as unique creations of God, of God's embracing of humanity in the person of Jesus, and of human destiny as ultimate communion with God and all the saints in everlasting life.

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^{JESUIT A TO Z: An expanded version of the publication "Do You Speak Ignatian?"}