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Jesuit Terms A

Addresses & Keynotes

Presidential Inaugural Addresses

Other Addresses and Keynotes

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Acosta, Jose de (1540-1600)

Jose de AcostaSpanish Jesuit; missioner to Latin America; cultural anthropologist

Jose de Acosta went to the University of Salamanca and entered the Jesuits at an early age. At 17, he was writing poetry and plays and teaching grammar and humanities. As a student at the University of Alcala, then the intellectual hub of Spain, he came into contact with some of the most brilliant minds in Europe. He was nominated to succeed the famous Cardinal Toledo in the chair of theology at the Gregorian University, the intellectual headquarters of the Jesuits.

Instead, he volunteered to work in the New World and was sent to colonial Peru, a far more difficult front for his intellectual and pastoral activities. This new world of native peoples and (supposedly Christian) conquistadores challenged him with a host of intellectual and moral problems, shaking his ideas at their very foundations and forcing him to new understandings.

Gradually, Acosta undertook the most systematic, enlightened and compassionate study of Latin America made during colonial times. After 14 years in Peru and several more in Mexico, he returned to Europe and published two great volumes, one on the culture and customs of the American natives and the other on how to present the gospel to them. With the perspective of four centuries, we can say that Jose de Acosta deserves to be called a founder of the discipline of cultural anthropology and one of the most important interpreters of the new world to the old.

In his later life back in Spain, he was drawn into contact and action with the small but powerful group of dissident Spanish Jesuits that sought to remove superior general Claudio Acquaviva from office.

(Taken from Traub, Xavier magazine [Winter 1991]. There is a biography of Acosta: Claudio Burgaleta, Jose de Acosta [1540-1600]: His Life and Thought [Loyola, 1999].)

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Alumni

Julie IsphordingThe 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States have educated over one million living graduates to be people of competence and compassion. See some of the famous, influential, and noteworthy alumni from Xavier University and elsewhere.

IMAGE RIGHT: Julie Isphording, seen here, graduated from Xavier University in 1983 and went on to become a member of the first-ever women's U.S. Olympic Marathon team.

 
 

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A.M.D.G.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (Latin)

"For the greater glory of God." Motto of the Society of Jesus.

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Amaladoss, Michael (1936-  )

Indian Jesuit; theologian

Michael Amaladoss

Michael Amaladoss grew up in an Indian Christian family in South India and joined the Jesuits in 1953. In addition to the regular course of Jesuit formation and education, he studied South Indian classical music, art, and culture. He wrote a doctoral dissertation at the Institut Catholique in Paris on the variable and invariable elements in sacramental rites.

After returning to India, he founded an interreligious dialogue group with the creative British Benedictine Bede Griffiths, and he taught on the Jesuit theological faculty in Delhi with his former teacher, Jacques Dupuis. Next, he spent twelve years as a counselor to superior general Peter-Hans Kolvenbach with special responsibility for Jesuit missions. He dislikes being called a missiologist, however, and wants to be known as “an Indian theologian who is also interested in mission and dialogue, inculturation and liberation” (“My Pilgrimage in Mission,” International Bulletin of Mission Research, 31 [2007]).

See Hinsdale, “Jesuit Theological Discourse since Vatican II," Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (2008).

 

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Apostle

Apostle/apostolate/apostolic

Apostle is the role given to the inner circle of 12 whom Jesus "sent out" (on mission) and to a few others like Saint Paul. Hence apostolate means a "mission endeavor or activity" and apostolic means "mission-like."

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Aquaviva, Claudio (1543-1615)

Italian Jesuit; 5th superior general

Claudio Aquaviva

Elected superior general at the age of 37, when he had been a Jesuit for only 14 years. Served in this office for 34 years, by far the longest term of any superior general. (A group of dissident Jesuits in Spain lobbied to remove him from office; some also favored secession of Spanish Jesuits from the order. Neither goal was realized.)

During his generalate, the Society grew from 5,000 to 13,000. He codified Jesuit educational practice with the definitive edition of the Ratio Studiorum [The Plan of Studies] (1599) and did the same for the collected practices and guidelines for giving the Exercises with the Official Directory of 1599.

He was concerned about questions of missiology and the adaptation of the gospel to non-European cultures (e.g., India, Japan, China). Within the order, he promoted the yearly making of some week-long version of the Spiritual Exercises (earlier it was assumed that making the full Exercises once was good for life).

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Arrupe, Pedro (1907-1991)

Basque Jesuit; 28th superior general of the Jesuits (1965-81)

Pedro ArrupePedro Arrupe was the central figure in the renewal of the Society after Vatican Council II, paying attention both to the spirit of Ignatius the founder and to the signs of our times. From the Basque country of northern Spain, he left medical school to join the Jesuits, was expelled from Spain in 1932 with all the other Jesuits, studied theology in Holland, and received further training in spirituality and psychology in the U.S. Arrupe spent 27 years in Japan (where among many other things he cared for victims of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima) until his election in 1965 as superior general. He is considered the founder of the modern, post-Vatican II Society of Jesus.

See "Men and Women for Others"

Pedro Arrupe's Mysticism of Open Eyes Kevin Burke, SJ, Jesuit School of Theology

See Pedro Arrupe: His Life and Legacy (Georgetown University. DVD. Distributed by the Institute for Jesuit Sources in St. Louis)

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Associations

Jesuit Higher Education

The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities

Catholic and Christian Higher Ed

Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities

Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts at Valparaiso University

The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities

High School

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Authors of articles in this "Jesuit A to Z" collection 

  • JAMR = Jo Ann M. Recker, SNDdeN
  • JM = Judith Metz, SC
  • MA = Marjorie Allen, RSM
  • M-CD = Mary-Cabrini Durkin
  • RB and JM = Regina Bechtle, SC, and Judith Metz, SC
  • SM = Sarah MacDonald

Most of the articles without author initials in this "Jesuit A to Z" section were written (with help from many sources) by George W. Traub, SJ.

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms B

Ball, Frances [religious name: Teresa] (1794-1861)

Missioner and Educator

At a time when the Sisters of Loreto (formal title: Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary) were forbidden by the church to acknowledge Mary Ward (1585-1645) as their foundress, a remarkable religious woman, Dublin-born, very different in talents and temperament from Mary Ward, but imbued with her ideals - Teresa Ball - brought the Loreto spirit from York, northern England, to Dublin, Ireland (1821), from where it spread and brought its schools to India (1841), Canada (1847), Spain (1851) and elsewhere. “Today there are 150 Loreto schools and colleges around the world educating as many as 70,000 students in places like Sudan, Australia, Peru and Gibraltar as well as Ireland and the UK” (MacDonald, The Tablet).

These schools are all part of the “Loreto Education Trust,” one of the world’s best-known education networks (though not well known in the US). The Trust works to maintain the schools’ Catholic and Loreto “ethos” (the distinguishing character) even as the number of IBVM sisters is in decline. Enrolling students of diverse religions and none, their largely lay leaders insist that parents support the schools’ ethos and they themselves try mightily to meet the students where they are and cater to their needs. “The charism continues because the staff in the schools carry it on” (Rionach Donlon, IBVM, chair of the Loreto Education Trust).

Sarah MacDonald, “On a mission to teach,” The Tablet (21 May 2011).
"Portrait of Frances Ball before she entered the Bar Convent, York" from The Tablet (21 May 2011), 55.

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Barry, William A. (1930-  )

American Jesuit; teacher and practitioner of Ignatian spirituality; writer

William A. Barry is well-known for his teaching and writing on Ignatian spirituality. After earning a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, he cofounded the Center for Religious Development (Cambridge, MA) and authored experience-based essays on the giving of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises (see Barry and Connolly, The Practice of Spiritual Direction [Seabury, 197?]). All told, he is author or coauthor of 20 books of practical Ignatian spirituality.
He has taught at Weston Jesuit School of Theology, the University of Michigan, and Boston College, and engaged in administrative work in the Society of Jesus. From 1988 to 1991 he was rector of the Jesuit Community at Boston College and on the board of Trustees. From 1991 to 1997 he was provincial superior of the Jesuits of New England.
At present he is codirector of a nine-month program for Jesuit priests and brothers prior to their final vows and gives retreats and spiritual direction at Campion Renewal Center in Weston, MA. He is also editor-in-chief of the quarterly Human Development.

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Bea, Augustin (1881-1968)

German Jesuit; scripture scholar (Old Testament); ecumenist

Augustin Bea was one of several Jesuits Influential in the founding of Sophia University in Tokyo in 1910. He was head of the Jesuit-sponsored Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome from 1930 to 1949. In the 1940s and ‘50s, he was a major player in the official Catholic church’s turn away from biblical fundamentalism toward acceptance of critical historical biblical scholarship. A prominent theologian at Vatican II, he contributed significantly to the major document on Divine Revelation. After the Council, he was made a bishop and cardinal and became the creator and first head of the Vatican Secretariate for Promoting Christian Unity. 

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Bellarmine, Robert [in Italian Roberto Bellarmino] (1542-1621)

Italian Jesuit; eminent controversial theologian; preacher; cardinal

On his mother’s side, Robert Bellarmine was the nephew of Pope Marcellus II. As a Jesuit, he was educated in theology at the University of Padua and, then, at Louvain in Belgium, where he joined the new Jesuit faculty. While there, he studied the writings of Luther and Calvin and taught theology by answering the reformers’ objections to the Roman church. Later, when he was called to teach at the premier Jesuit-sponsored Roman College, he composed and published his three volumes of Controversies (1579, 1588, 1593), which went through twenty editions and were read by Catholics and Protestants alike. In 1598 he published his famous Catechism; it was translated into 62 languages.

Already a theological advisor to the pope, he was next made a cardinal (1599) over his own and the Jesuit superior general’s objections. Pope Clement VIII decided the matter: “We elect this man because he has not his equal for learning in the Church of God.” Bellarmine turned around and presented the pope with a denunciation of the major abuses in the pope’s own Roman headquarters. In his own personal life, he lived simply and cared for the poor. Yet, because of his cardinal role, he had to put up with wearing the red robes, being surrounded by servants, and having carriages to transport him. As a cardinal, he was also a voting member of the conclaves that elected Leo XI (1605), and six weeks later Paul V.

For years Bellarmine had asked to retire, but was told again and again that he was indispensable. Then in 1621, at the age of 79, he was finally allowed to have his wish; he moved to the Jesuit novitiate and died there a few weeks later.

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Bible

From the Greek word biblia, meaning “books”, the Christian Holy Bible is a collection of scripture, including the sacred writings of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), containing 39 books, and the New Testament, containing 27 books. When the early Judeo-Christian writings were bound together, they were called “bibles”.

Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises reflects the relationship he had with the Bible. Through scriptures and imagination, he guided himself and others to greater faith, love and understanding.

For more information see Ignatius and the Bible by John Padberg, SJ

For a number of Christian Bible translations in numerous languages, see here.

See the Qur’an, the Muslim Bible, via each surah (chapter)
One of the most famous passages is Surah 2:255. Surah 19, Marium (mother of Jesus), refers to the birth of Isa (Jesus) an important prophet of Islam.

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Billiart, Marie-Rose-Julie (1751-1816) and Marie-Louise-Françoise Blin de Bourdon (1756-1838)

Co-foundresses of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

In October of 1794, in Amiens, France, Julie Billiart and Françoise Blin de Bourdon met for the first time and, because they recognized the inherent goodness in one another, began an unlikely friendship. By this time, both women had been tested by sufferings endured during the height of the French Revolution. Julie, a daughter of the merchant class from the small village of Cuvilly, had also suffered twenty-two years of physical infirmity and the psychological stresses brought on by family trials. Françoise had been tested by the deaths of her mother and beloved grandparents and by a period of terrifying imprisonment which she shared with her family and other members of the French aristocracy prior to the fall of Robespierre.

Although from widely varied social classes, both Julie and Françoise had an inclination for the spiritual and a deep inner life. Both had been attracted to the contemplative order of Carmelites and both had emerged from their sufferings more faith-filled and committed. A small group of devout women began to gather around Julie’s sickbed in rented lodgings within the Blin family town home. Père Antoine Thomas (1753-1833), a Father of the Faith, an order founded in Rome with the intention of resurrecting the Society of Jesus (that had been suppressed by order of the pope in 1773), and, as of 1814 (when the Jesuits were reestablished), a Jesuit, was in hiding in Amiens because he had refused to take the constitutional oath. He was a teacher at the Sorbonne, known for his erudition as well as his virtue and became spiritual adviser to Julie, Françoise and the others.

Gradually, in Amiens and the surrounding area, the little group of women in the rue des Augustins received high commendations for their care of the poor, their kindness toward the sick and the suffering, their unique ability to instruct the catechism and to prepare young and old for the reception of the sacraments. In the fall of 1801, the Fathers of the Faith opened a secondary school for boys in Amiens and Father Varin (1769-1850), the superior and a friend of Father Thomas, began to persist in his effort to have Julie found a new congregation and enjoined upon her the duty of praying for subjects for this new institute. France was in dire need of educators in the aftermath of the Revolution. Though the voice of reason questioned the viability of this course of action given Julie’s still paralyzed state, Julie and Françoise did as Father Varin bid and asked the Carmleites of Amiens to pray with them.

From the outset, and like so many women in the more than 250 years since the founding of the Society of Jesus in 1540, Julie and Françoise saw the possibilities in a religious congregation free to move beyond the constraints of the cloister and to go wherever needed, one that would extend beyond diocesan boundaries and whose communities of religious women educators would be united by regular communication with a Mother General. Together they faced the hostility of an ecclesiastical hierarchy reluctant to permit these freedoms to women and, subsequent to persistent misunderstandings with the bishop and clergy in Amiens, they relocated the motherhouse to Namur, Belgium, which was at the time a part of Napoleon’s French empire, in response to the invitation of the bishop there.

Since its official founding in 1804, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have established schools and engaged in a variety of ministries on five of the world’s seven continents, always from an educational perspective and with a preference for poor women and children. Documents to further the process of canonization were prepared for both Julie and Françoise during the latter part of the nineteenth century and Julie’s cause was submitted first since hers was founding spirit and charism, that of recognizing everywhere, at all times, and in all persons and things the infinite goodness of God. “Ah! Qu’il est bon, le bon Dieu!” In 1969, Julie, who had taken as her religious name, Soeur Ignace, was canonized a saint of the Catholic Church.

JAMR

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Black Madonna

See "Montserrat, Our Lady of."

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Bolland, John Van (1596-1665)

Belgian Jesuit after whom the Society of Bollandists is named

John Van Bolland was a theologian-historian and early leader of the association of critical hagiographical scholars after whom it was named. The work was started in 1603 by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde, who was engaged in producing critical editions of the enormous number of manuscript lives of the saints in the libraries of northern Europe. His proposed grand work, sent to the distinguished Jesuit theologian Robert Bellarmine, drew the following response: “This man, then, counts on living two hundred years longer!” Bolland brought new energy and direction to the work, modifying his predecessor’s plan but still greatly underestimating what it would take to realize it.

The first two thousand-page volumes of the Acta Sanctorum (starting with January in the church calendar) appeared in 1643, the collaborative work of Bolland and his new assistant Godfrey Henschen (1601-1681), who surpassed his former teacher in the quality and method of his scholarship and set the standard for the volumes to come. In 1659 a third Jesuit joined the team—Daniel van Papebroch (1628-1714), also a gifted student of Bolland. Scholars from all over Europe, enthusiastically helping the great work, sent the team manuscripts. And the two younger Jesuit scholars went on a long and successful manuscript-gathering tour of Western Europe.

Not everybody was enthusiastic about the project, however. The volumes, as they came out, stirred angry responses from individuals and a whole religious order because of its critical separating of fact from legend. Papebroch bore the brunt of the outrage.

The Bollandist Society suffered various losses after the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, but was re- established and moved from Antwerp to Brussels in the 1840s. Still at work today in their superb library—one of the best in Europe—the Bollandists, now including non-Jesuit scholars, have produced more than 120 volumes on the saints. Their great service to the church has been to present as honest and clear a picture of the lives of saints—people considered worthy of veneration and imitation—as critical historical scholarship can yield.

The Bollandist Society has a website: http://www.kbr.be/~socboll/

See Hippolyte Delehaye, The Work of the Bollandists through Three Centuries, 1615-1915 (Princeton Univ. Press, 1922).

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Books

Foundational Readings

Associated With Xavier University

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Boscovich, Roger Joseph [in Croatian, Rudger Josip Boskovic] (1711-1787)

Croatian Jesuit; fearless, independent thinker; creative scientist; proponent of an early atomic theory of matter

A native of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) in Dalmatia, the young Roger Joseph Boscovich was praised by one of his distinguished teachers: “He starts where I leave off.” He taught at the Jesuit Roman College for twenty years (1740-1760). He published some sixty books and pamphlets on scientific subjects. In 1758, after years of reflection, he published his masterwork, A Theory of Natural Philosophy, anticipating much later findings of atomic physics. “From an absolutely new point of departure in physics, he conceived the material world as made up of individual non-extended points which are centers of action, while the action, be it attractive or repulsive, between the points is a function of the distance which separates them” (Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus [1986]).

He could be acerbic and did not suffer fools lightly. He judged that the famous Jesuit College Louis-le-Grand in Paris did not have up-to-date scientific instruments and criticized the blindness of Jesuits who considered Newton a heretic. The naïve rector of the Jesuit college at Sens, who showed him among the school’s precious holdings a piece of Aaron’s rod and a rib of the prophet Isaiah, was told, in the interest of truth, to throw them away. Boscovich more than any other 18th-century Jesuit thinker was responsible for defeating the attitude that Jesuits were closed to new ideas.

In the last fifty years or so, appreciation of Boscovich’s work has grown considerably. The University of California, Berkeley, purchased a large collection of manuscripts and letters that now constitute the Boscovich Archives in its Bancroft Rare Books Library. And historians of science have honored him with books and articles and international symposia.

See Hill, “Biographical Essay” in Roger Joseph Boscovich: Studies of His life and Work on the 250th Anniversary of His Birth, ed. Lancelot Law Whyte (1961).

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Brebeuf, John [in French, Jean de Brebeuf] (1593-1649)

French Jesuit; missioner to New France

Though early in his Jesuit life he was beset by illness, John Brebeuf became legendary for his strength and endurance and heroic in his gruesome torture and death. He was declared a saint in 1930.

He was in the second group of Jesuit missioners to go from their homeland to New France (1625), and he served there in two periods until he was put to death by the Mohawk in 1649.

Brebeuf was a leader of the illustrious but tragically short-lived mission to the Wendat (formerly called “Huron”)—numbering some 30,000 in 20 villages. It was his determination to live among the people and to honor their culture and customs—not an easy thing to do. In one of his letters home to France, he wrote: “You may have been a famous professor or theologian in France, but here you will merely be a student and with what teachers! The Huron language will be your Aristotle and, clever man that you are, speaking glibly among the learned, you must make up your mind to be mute in the company of these natives.”

In another letter home, Brebeuf described a native game in which players used a curved stick that he named “La crosse” because it reminded him of a bishop’s crosier. To this day, the game bears that name.

The dream of the mission was to have the Wendat and the Europeans living together in harmony where the rites and tradition of both peoples could be strengthened and enriched by the values of the gospel. And gradually that dream came toward realization with the building of the settlement-compound Sainte-Marie that at its peak housed 23 Jesuits and 23 French lay volunteers along with the Wendat converts. But in 1648-49, repeated attacks by the Mohawk destroyed one village after another and killed most of the Jesuit and lay leadership, including Christian Wendat who had come to assume an important role in the blended community.

Brebeuf and his companions are memorialized in a long epic poem by Canadian poet E. J. Pratt— Brebeuf and His Brethren (1940). A less heroic but compelling portrait of a French Jesuit missioner to New France is painted by Irish-Canadian-American novelist Brian Moore in Black Robe (1985). The film version (1991), by Australian director Bruce Beresford with a screenplay by Moore, dramatizes the impossibility of the two cultures—French and aboriginal—ever coming together. Although the works make good fiction and good film, they are not historically accurate. In spite of great difficulty, the two cultures did come together and, indeed, lived together in a Wendat-French Christian community.

A reliable and clarifying essay on “The Jesuits in New France” by Jacques Monet appears in the Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, ed. Thomas Worcester (2008).

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Buckley, Michael J. (1931-  )

American Jesuit; philosophical theologian; writer

Michael Buckley is currently a Professor of Theology at Santa Clara University. Prior to this appointment, he was for fourteen years a member of the theological faculty at Boston College, during which time he served as the director of the Jesuit Institute and as Canisius Professor of Theology. Previously, he was a member of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He held various university positions, including visiting fellow at Cambridge University’s Clare Hall, of which he is also a life member.

Buckley is the author of numerous articles in systematic theology, philosophy, spirituality, science and theology, and the history of ideas. Among his books are: The Catholic University as Promise and Project: Reflections in a Jesuit Idiom (1998) and most recently Denying and Disclosing God: The Ambiguous Progress of Modern Atheism (2004).

He has served as the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, a trustee for a number of universities and for Theological Studies, and has participated on various boards and commissions. He presently serves on the Theological Consultants Board for Herder/Crossroad.

Buckley received his BA and MA from Gonzaga University, his STM from Santa Clara University, and his PhD from the University of Chicago. He has received two doctorates honoris causa and has also been honored with a Festschrift (Finding God in All Things: Essays in Honor of Michael J. Buckley, SJ, eds. Michael J. Himes and Stephen J. Pope [1996]).

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

 

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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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 spiritualties 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 and Teilhard de Chardin's The Human Phenomenon, 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 towad 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.


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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.

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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?"

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms D

Delp, Alfred (1907-1945)

German Jesuit; writer and preacher; martyr

In the early 1940’s, people avidly read his regular contributions to the Jesuit review Stimmen der Zeit and came from all over Munich to hear him preach.

In 1943, at the invitation of Count von Moltke and with the encouragement of his provincial superior, he joined the secret Kreisau Circle, an anti-Nazi group that was planning a new social order to be built on Christian lines after the War.

The group was found out. Delp was arrested, imprisoned, interrogated and encouraged to repudiate his Jesuit and Catholic allegiance. But he refused, was “convicted,” and executed on February 2, 1945.  The Nazis disposed of his body secretly so that his grave would not become a place of pilgrimage; and so people today visit the parish church where he served.

His Prison Writings (Orbis, 2004) make powerful reading.

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De Mello, Anthony (1931-1987)

Indian Jesuit; teacher of eastern spiritual practices to the West

Born in Mumbai (Bombay), India, Anthony De Mello studied psychology at Loyola University Chicago and then set up his spiritual center “Sadhana Institute” in Pune (Poona), India. In the 1970s, he started offering guided awareness exercises (e.g., attentiveness to one’s breathing) to Christians in India and, during summers, in the U.S. He also offered them to his Jesuit brothers at General Congregation 32 (1974-1975). These exercises were finally published as Sadhana: A Way to God—Christian Exercises in Eastern Form (1978). Many more books followed until his sudden death in New York at age 56, and even then, friends and disciples published a number of manuscripts that he was working on. His bibliography totals 59 books. His book Awareness (1992), which transcribes one of his workshops, is said to be a good place to start becoming acquainted with his approach. Several of his workshops are also available in video form.

In 1998, eleven years after De Mello’s death, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) issued a “Notification” that some of his writings were a danger to the Catholic faith. Even a cursory reading of a page-worth of his sayings, stories, and parables—readily available on the internet—makes clear that De Mello has a certain anti-institutional bias toward religion. His basic message is “spiritual,” not “religious.” It is a call to awareness, a call to “wake up” from the “sleep” that most people live in without realizing it. In this quest, he is just as apt to turn to non-Christian sources as to Christian ones.

See the De Mello website www.deMello.org maintained by the deMello Spirituality Center at Fordham University (its founder, Jesuit Frank Stroud, died recently; the Center is now in the hands of two trustees, Jonathan Galente and Desmond Towey). Anthony de Mello: Writings, ed. William V. Dych (Orbis, 1999; Modern Spiritual Masters Series). Dych’s introduction to De Mello is outstanding.

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De Smet, Peter (1801-1873)

Belgian Jesuit; promoter of missions to NW Native Americans

Peter De Smet came to the United States in 1821, entered the Jesuits, and was ordained in 1827. Twelve years later, he encountered two Flathead Indians seeking priests to instruct their nation. This event proved to be the turning point in his life, and he soon became the founder of missions to the Rocky Mountain Northwest Native Americans. He visited the Rocky Mountain area, founded St. Mary’s near Missoula, MT, then went to the far Northwest and planned the growth of the church in Oregon country.

In 1843 he sailed to Europe and recruited five Jesuits and six Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur for mission work in the Northwest. In the 1850’s and 1860’s he visited the Plains and the Rocky Mountains seven times as an emissary of the federal government. In 1864 he was the only white man trusted enough to be allowed into Sitting Bull’s camp.

De Smet was not so much a missionary as he was a promoter and procurator of missions. In their interest he made repeated journeys to the Mountains and crossed the Atlantic sixteen times.

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Desolation

See Discernment.

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Discernment

(also "Discernment of spirits") - A process for making choices, in a context of (Christian) faith, when the option is not between good and evil, but between several possible courses of action all of which are potentially good. For Ignatius the process involves prayer, reflection and consultation with others - all with honest attention not only to the rational (reasons pro and con) but also to the realm of one's feelings, emotions and desires (what Ignatius called "movements" of soul). A fundamental question in discernment becomes "Where is this impulse from — the good spirit (of God) or the evil spirit (leading one away from God)?" A key to answering this question, says Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises, is that, in the case of a person leading a basically good life, the good spirit gives "consolation" — acts quietly, gently and leads one to peace, joy and deeds of loving service — while the bad spirit brings "desolation" — agitates, disturbs the peace and injects fears and discouragement to keep one from doing good.

Inspired Choices

Video Clips about Discernment

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Diversity

Jesuit universities and schools are respected for academic excellence, the promotion of social justice, and "finding God in all things." These mission-driven values, as well as the necessity to prepare students for a rapidly changing multicultural and global society, draws Jesuit educational institutions to lead in the call for diversity and the inclusion of all peoples. A respect for all human persons and differences is a significant aspect of the history of the Society of Jesus. Ignatius Loyola befriended fellow students who were quite different from himself with regard to social class, age, and nationality — rather unique in the 1500's; they became the founding companions. Most recently, the Society has addressed relationships with non-Catholics and women, see GC 34.

A collection of resources from the Office of Diversity at Xavier University

Daily Examen for Diversity

Video Clips about Diversity

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Dulles, Avery (1918-2008)

American Jesuit; theologian of "models"; cardinal (2001)

Avery Dulles’ father, John Foster Dulles, was U.S. Secretary of State in the Eisenhower Administration (1952-1960). Avery, though brought up in his family’s Presbyterian Christianity, considered himself an agnostic when he entered Harvard as an undergraduate in 1936. By the time of his graduation, however, he had become a Catholic, something not easy for his parents to accept in that pre-ecumenical era (A Testimonial to Grace [1946]).

After service in the military during World War II, he entered the Jesuits in 1946 at the age of 28. He did doctoral studies in theology at the Jesuit Gregorian University in Rome and then taught for many years at Woodstock College, the Jesuit theological school in rural Maryland. Later, he joined the faculty at Catholic University in DC, and finally, he was McGinley Professor at Fordham in NYC.

Among his published works—25 books and more than 800 articles, many of them translated into other languages—perhaps the most significant are his “models” books where he lined up the various theological opinions on a given subject in relation to one another and assessed the strengths and weak- nesses of each: Models of the Church (1974 and subsequent editions), Models of Revelation (1983, 1992), and The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith (1994). He had a deep knowledge of the long and diverse tradition, could write about it with clarity, and so help foster a unity of faith in a post-Vatican II Catholic culture that he saw as increasingly unmoored. It was his contention that the truth lies, not in any one position, but in the totality of them all.

Pope John Paul II made Dulles a cardinal in 2001. Many “liberal” Catholics saw this as a benediction on Dulles’ supposed move to the right (for example, he was adamantly opposed to the ordination of women), but others read it more generally as a recognition that American Catholic theology had come of age (Dulles was the first American theologian to be given a red hat).

See Mark Massa in Commonwealth (August 13, 2010) and Patrick Carey in Theological Studies (December 2010).

 

Dupuis, Jacques (1923-2004)

Belgian Jesuit; theologian of religious pluralism

Jacques Dupuis went to teach in India in 1949, and his more than 30 years there, where Christianity is such a tiny part of the predominantly Hindu culture, had a profound impact on his theology.

In 1984 he left India and started teaching systematic theology and “other religions” at the Jesuit-sponsored Gregorian University in Rome. In 1997 he published a book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis), articulating an “inclusive pluralism” that seeks to hold together “the constitutive and universal character of the Christ-event in the order of human salvation and the salvific significance of [other] religious traditions . . . within the one manifold plan of God for humankind.” The book drew a Vatican investigation of its orthodoxy. Despite a 2001 “Notification” (or “warning”) about the book from the Doctrinal Congregation, Jesuit superior general Peter-Hans Kolvenbach issued a public statement encouraging Dupuis to continue his pioneering work in the field of interreligious dialogue.

See Hinsdale, “Jesuit Theological Discourse since Vatican II,” The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (2008) and Jesuit General Congregation 34, Decree 5, “Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue” (1995).

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms E

Ecology

Jesuits urged to pray, think, act to promote ecological responsibility
Article by Cindy Wooden, 9/27/11

Note from Superior General Adolfo Nicolas, SJ
to the Society regarding the commitment to nature and the environment – 9/16/11

Healing a Broken World
Task Force on Ecology

The Place of Sustainabililty and the Environment within Roman Catholic Thought
Remarks by Michael J. Graham, S.J., President of Xavier University, Sustainability Day, November 7, 2011
 

See sustainability.

 

Ecumenism

From the Greek word meaning "world-wide."

With the new emphasis on relations between Christian and non-Christian* religions and the emergence of its own term "interreligious dialogue," the word ecumenism is now used only for relations among different Christian bodies. Since the Second Vatican Council,* groups of theologians -- Lutheran-Catholic, Anglican-Roman Catholic, Orthodox-Catholic and others -- have engaged in dialogue to indentify doctrinal differences and, where possible, resolve them. Such, for instance, was the accord reached by the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue on "justification."

Ecumenial activity is not limited to dialogue among theologians, however. An important part of the ecumenism practiced in today's world is the shared experience of married couples from different Christian denominations.

Among the main issues that still separate main-stream Protestants and Orthodox from Roman Catholics is the current form of papal governance. The question arises, Is Catholic church governance with the pope as an absolute ruler and almost all power concentrated at the top an essential part of the church's constitution? Perhaps Roman Catholic absolutism owes more to the Roman Empire than to the essence of the church, and the church could re-introduce governmental reforms that give a significant voice to the bishops' conferences, the presbyterate (the body of priests), and the faithful (that is, the laity). Thus the church could more surely embrace the "collegiality" and representative government endorsed by Vatican II.

In any case, toward the end of his life, the distinguished 20th-century Catholic theologian Karl Rahner claimed that nothing significant stood in the way of main-stream Protestant and Catholic bodies coming together. They would simply have to make a start by recognizing the validity of one another's ministries and, while each would maintain its own rites and theologies and laws, gradually move toward further integration and collaboration. That recognition and move toward unification has not happened.

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Education

Jesuit

Ignatius of Loyola and his first companions, who founded the Society of Jesus in 1540, did not originally intend to establish schools. But before long they were led to start colleges for the education of the young men who flocked to join their religious order. And in 1547 Ignatius was asked to open a school for young lay men.

By the time of his death (1556), there were 35 such colleges (comprising today's secondary school and the first year or two of college). By the time the order was suppressed in 1773, the number had grown to more than 800 — all part of a system of integrated humanistic education that was international and brought together in a common enterprise men from various languages and cultures. These Jesuits were distinguished mathematicians, astronomers and physicists; linguists and dramatists; painters and architects; philosophers and theologians; even what today would be
called cultural anthropologists.

These developments are not surprising; the order's founders were all University of Paris graduates, and Ignatius' spirituality taught Jesuits to search for God "in all things." After the order was restored (1814), however, Jesuit schools and scholars in Europe never regained the prominence they had had. Besides, they were largely involved in the resistance to modern thought and culture that characterized Catholic intellectual life through the 19th century and beyond.

In other parts of the world, especially in the United States, the 19th century saw a new birth of Jesuit education. Twenty-one of today's 28 U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities were founded during that century. These schools served the needs of an immigrant people, enabling them to move up in the world while maintaining their Catholic belief and practice in a frequently hostile Protestant environment. After World War II, U.S. Jesuit higher education (as American higher education generally) experienced enormous growth and democratization under the G.I. Bill. Significantly, this growth entailed a shift from a largely Jesuit faculty to one made up increasingly of lay men (and more recently women). Further, Vatican Council II (1962-1965) released a great burst of energy in the Catholic church and Jesuit order for engagement with the modern world, including its intellectual life. Finally, Jesuit schools in the 1970s and 1980s moved to professionalize through the hiring of new faculty with highly specialized training and terminal degrees from the best graduate schools.

These sweeping changes of the last 50 years have brought U.S. Jesuit schools to the present situation where they face crucial questions. Will so-called Jesuit institutions of higher education simply merge with mainstream American academe and thereby lose any distinctiveness and reason for existing — or will they have the creativity to become more distinctive? While taking the best from American education and culture, will they still offer an alternative in the spirit of their Jesuit heritage? Will they foster the integration of knowledge — or will specialization reign alone and the fragmentation of knowledge continue? Will they relate learning to the Transcendent, to God — or will spiritual experience be allowed to disappear from consideration except in isolated departments of theology? While developing the mind, surely, will they also develop a global, cross-cultural imagination and a compassionate heart to recognize and work for the common good, especially for bettering the lot of the poor and voiceless [see "Men and Women for Others"/"Whole Persons of Solidarity" and "The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice"] — or will the dominant values present in them be self-interest and the "bottom line"?

Jesuits and Jesuit Education: A Primer
Jesuit Community at Boston College

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Ellacuria, Ignacio (1930-1989)

Basque/Salvadoran Jesuit; writer, speaker, “Martyr of the University.”

A native of the Basque territory of NE Spain, he went to teach and write in El Salvador from 1955-58 and returned there permanently in 1967 after studies in Europe – theology under Karl Rahner and philosophy with a dissertation on the Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri, but he moved beyond his mentors “precisely by grounding his philosophical and theological work in a specific historical reality, that of Latin America” (Robert Lassalle-Klein).

He soon became the guiding intellect for the reform of the Society of Jesus in Central America. He was instrumental, too, in re-directing the University of CA (San Salvador) into “what a Christian university in the Third World ought to be”—a clear and rational voice against the social and economic evils oppressing the vast majority of the people.

He argued for a negotiated settlement to the 10-year-long Civil War. But the extremist wing of the ruling party called for his death on the radio; and on November 16, 1989, soldiers of an elite battalion—many of them trained at the School of the Americas in the U.S.—broke into the Jesuit residence, took him and his five companions out into the yard, and one by one shot them to death at close range, blowing out their brains. Their cook and her teenage daughter were murdered with them so as to leave no witnesses.

In a special academic convocation the following March, Xavier University conferred on him and his companions posthumous honorary doctorates.

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

Whitfield, Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuria and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador (1994).

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Espinal, Luis (1932-1980)

Spanish/Bolivian Jesuit; Teacher of journalism; pastor; martyr

Luis Espinal was born in Manresa, the town where Ignatius of Loyola had the signal experiences that led to his famous Spiritual Exercises.

His university education prepared him for a career in journalism. He entered the Jesuits and soon went to Bolivia, where he did further studies and was ordained. His teaching and pastoral ministry took up the call of the Medellin Conference of Latin American bishops for the church to side with the poor and oppressed.

He was beaten, tortured, and machine-gunned by para-military forces in LaPaz, on March 22,1980 (two days before the assassination in El Salvador of Archbishop Oscar Romero).

Sometime before his death, he composed a poem celebrating the triumph of resurrection over death, somewhat in the genre of Edmund Campion’s “Brag.”

Click to read "A Prayer of Hope" by Luis Espinal, S.J.

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Ethics

A collection of discipline-specific business resources from the Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility at Xavier University

The Woodstock Theological Center
an independent nonprofit institute at Georgetown University

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Examen

also Consciousness Examen

A method of prayer that Ignatius of Loyola taught in his Spiritual Exercises. He considered it the most important thing a person could do each day. It takes only a few minutes. A contemporary adaptation of Ignatius' teaching broadens the traditional "Examination of Conscience" (preparation for confession) into the "Examination of Consciousness." As presented by Creighton U. theologian Dennis Hamm, SJ, this prayer has five steps: (1) Pray for light to understand and appreciate the past day. (2) Review the day in thanksgiving. (3) Review the feelings in the replay of the day. (4) Choose one of those feelings (positive or negative) and pray from it. (5) Look toward tomorrow.

The Examen: A Daily Prayer

Daily Examen for Diversity

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Ex Corde Ecclesiae

(Latin meaning From the Heart of the Church) An Apostolic Constitution regarding Catholic colleges and universities. Issued by Pope John Paul II on August 15, 1990, its aim was to define and refine the catholicism of Catholic institutions of higher education. Ex Corde Ecclesiae describes the identity and mission of Catholic colleges and universities.

On November 17, 1999, the Catholic Bishops of the United States, meeting in Plenary Session of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, approved The Application of Ex corde Ecclesiae for the United States implementing the Apostolic Constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae, according to the norm of law.

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms F

Faber, Peter (1506-1546)

One of the original companions

Latin and English version of Pierre Favre, University of Paris student from the south of France who roomed with Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier and together with them and several others founded the Society of Jesus. In the course of seven years, he traveled some 7,000 miles and served in seven different western European countries. The largest part of his ministry was in Germany. There he drew up guidelines for ecumenical dialogue with Lutherans, but these were, sad to say, hardly put into practice. Among the early companions, he was known to be the finest guide for those making the Spiritual Exercises.

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Finding God in All Things

Ignatian spirituality is summed up in this phrase. It invites a person to search for and find God in every circumstance of life, not just in explicitly religious situations or activities such as prayer in church (e.g., the Mass) or in private. It implies that God is present everywhere and, though invisible, can be "found" in any and all of the creatures which God has made. They reveal at least a little of what their Maker is like — often by arousing wonder in those who are able to look with the "eyes of faith." After a long day of work, Ignatius used to open the French windows in his room, step out onto a little balcony, look up at the stars and be carried out of himself into the greatness of God.

How does one grow in this ability to find God everywhere? Howard Gray draws the following paradigm from what Ignatius wrote about spiritual development in the Jesuit Constitutions: (1) practice attentiveness to what is really there. "Let that person or that poem or that social injustice or that scientific experiment become (for you) as genuinely itself as it can be." (2) Then reverence what you see and hear and feel; appreciate it in its uniqueness. "Before you judge or assess or respond, give yourself time to esteem and accept what is there in the other." (3) If you learn to be attentive and reverent, "then you will find devotion, the singularly moving way in which God works in that situation, revealing goodness and fragility, beauty and truth, pain and anguish, wisdom and ingenuity."

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First Studies

The stages of Jesuit formation

The second stage of a Jesuit's formation and education, consisting of two years of philosophy studies and a year of theology, while living in a Jesuit community at a university.

See also Novitiate, Regency, Theology and Tertianship.

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Formation, Stages of Jesuit (early)

The stages of Jesuit formation

The stages of Jesuit (early) formation are Novitiate (2 years), First Studies (3 years), Regency (2-3 years), Theology (3 years), and Tertianship (several options like 2 summers, 1 semester or the better part of a year).

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms G

General Congregation

The supreme legislative body of the Society of Jesus consisting of major ("provincial") superiors and locally elected representatives. It is called to elect a new superior general when the previous one dies or resigns and/or to address major issues confronting Jesuit works and Jesuit life. There have been 35 such congregations in the 450+ years of the order. The most recent one met from January to March 2008 to accept Peter-Hans Kolvenbach's resignation at age 80 and to elect his replacement, Adolfo Nicolas.

GC 35 - 2008 Election of Fr. Adolfo Nicolas as the new Superior General of the Society

GC 34 - 1995

GC 33 - 1983 Election of Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach as the new Superior General of the Society

GC 32 - 1974-1975

  • Decree 4
  • See Service of Faith and Promotion of Social Justice

GC 31 - 1965-1966 Election of Fr. Pedro Arrupe as the new Superior General of the Society

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George, Margaret Farrell, SC (1787-1868)

Foundress of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati

To read a mini-bio of Margaret Farrell George, click here.

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God

Various titles or names are given to the Mystery underlying all that exists — e.g., the Divine, Supreme Being, the Absolute, the Transcendent, the All-Holy — but all of these are only "pointers" to a Reality beyond human naming and beyond our limited human comprehension. Still, some conceptions are taken to be less inadequate than others within a given tradition founded in revelation. Thus, Jews reverence "the Lord" (the name of God, YHWH, is holy and its vocalization unknown); and Muslims worship "Allah" (the [only] God).

Christians conceive of the one God as "Trinity," as having three "ways of being": (1) Creator and covenant partner (from Hebrew tradition) or "Father" (the "Abba" of Jesus' experience); (2) incarnate (enfleshed) in Jesus — the "Son"; and (3) present everywhere in the world through the "Spirit." Ignatius of Loyola had a strong Trinitarian sense of God, but he was especially fond of the expression "the Divine Majesty" stressing the greatness or "godness" of God; and the 20th century Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner could talk of "the incomprehensible Mystery of self-giving Love."

The reluctance of some of our contemporaries to use the word God may be seen as a potential corrective to the tendency of some believers to speak of God all too easily, as if they fully understood God and God's ways.

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Gonzaga, Aloysius (1568-1591)

Italian Jesuit; martyr of care for the plague-stricken

Aloysius [Luigi in Italian] Gonzaga’s family heritage was appalling. “His ancestors included despots who condoned assassination, debauchery and extortion.” They bled their subjects by taxation. “Aloysius had a remarkable toughness of character. . . . his innocence was founded on neither ignorance nor prudery.” As a young Jesuit, he had hoped to be sent to work on the foreign missions, but while caring for victims of the plague in Rome, he contracted the illness himself and died at the age of 23. (MacDonnell, Jesuit Family Album)

This reconciler of people who hated each other, catechist of Roman ragamuffins, consoler of the imprisoned, and martyr of charity for the plague-stricken was chosen by American Jesuit Terry Charlton as the patron of the school for AIDS orphans that he co-founded in 2004 in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya (East Africa). St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School for AIDS Orphans is the first school of its kind in the world. (Visit www.sagnairobi.org)

The name Gonzaga is attached to many Jesuit secondary schools and to the university in Spokane, WA.

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Gospel

literally "good news"

The good news or glad tidings about Jesus.

Plural. The first four works of the Christian scriptures (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that tell the story of Jesus — each with its own particular theological emphasis — and thus invite a response of faith and hope in him.

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Grande, Rutilio (1928-1977)

Salvadoran Jesuit; martyr

A tortured, self-doubting priest who in the last decade of his life became fearless and a martyr.

Of mixed Indian and Spanish heritage, he was bright and gifted and yet tortured with self-doubt at every stage of his Jesuit formation. He wound up being a seminary professor of theology.

Called forth to speak against the atrocities committed by military and para-military forces, he suddenly lost all his doubts and preached so powerfully that he became a severe embarrassment to the government. He resigned from the seminary and went to work among the landless peasants of his home territory, teaching them to read and to claim their own human dignity and rights.

On March 12, 1977, he was ambushed and machine-gunned to death. His murder was the turning point in the life of his friend, Archbishop Oscar Romero. Instead of trying to please all sides, Romero started to speak out loud and clear and often against the military’s violent repression of the poor. Soon he too was killed (March 24, 1980).

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Gray, Howard (1930-  )

American Jesuit; internationally recognized interpreter of Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit education

Howard Gray presently serves as special assistant to the president of Georgetown University. Previously, he was founding director of the Center for Ignatian Spirituality at Boston College and rector of the Jesuit community at John Carroll University, where he was also assistant to the president for mission and identity.

Within the Jesuit order, Gray has filled a number of leadership positions including that of provincial superior of the Detroit Province, rector of the Jesuit community at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology (Cambridge, MA), and tertianship director.

Four of his best essays on Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit education are re-printed in An Ignatian Spirituality Reader and A Jesuit Education Reader (both 2008).

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms H

Heartland/Delta

The Heartland/Delta Conference is a consortium of the following eleven schools within the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities: Creighton University, John Carroll University, Loyola University Chicago, Loyola University New Orleans, Marquette University, Regis University, Rockhurst University, St. Louis University, Spring Hill College, University of Detroit Mercy and Xavier University. Sponsored conferences include the Magis National Faculty Retreat, Heartland/Delta Faculty Conversations, and the Heartland/Delta triennial gathering that was held at Xavier University in 2010.

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High Schools, Jesuit

Homepages

See Jesuit High Schools.

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Hiring & Mission

A Best Practices Approach

In order to assist University hiring committees and their chairs in addressing Jesuit, Catholic identity, departmental chairs, directors and senior administrators at Xavier University were invited to offer comments that they have found helpful in guiding meaningful discussions with candidates during the interview process.

Questions and Comments from Chairs, Directors, and Senior Administrators

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Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889)

British Jesuit; poet

One of the great lyric poets of the English language, he reached and expressed a unique, Catholic, overwhelming vision of God.

Convert from the Anglican Church to Roman Catholicism under John Henry Newman while at Oxford.

He burned all his poems when he entered the Jesuits. While studying theology, at his superior’s invitation, wrote his greatest poem, “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” a partly autobiographical ode commemorating the death of five exiled German nuns drowned at sea, exploring implications of the Incarnation, and celebrating the mystery of faith, of knowledge reaching—through love—far beyond the natural limits of intellect (“What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay, /Is out with it!”)

His poems were not published until 30 years after his death and then had a major impact on 20th-century English poetry.

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Hurtado, Alberto (1901-1952)

Chilean Jesuit; founder of El Hogar de Cristo; saint

Alberto Hurtado’s father died when he was four, and his widowed mother was forced to sell their farm to pay off debts. From then on, Alberto, his mother and brother lived with various relatives; they had to move often. So he knew what it was like to be homeless and vulnerable.

He received a scholarship to attend the Jesuit secondary school in Santiago. Already as a teenager he gave his Sunday afternoons to visiting the poor in their slums, a practice that he continued for the rest of his life. He delayed his entry into the Society of Jesus in order to help his mother financially; he worked full time and still went to college. Then he interrupted his studies to go into military service. Finally, at the age of 22, he did enter the Jesuit novitiate. He finished his novitiate training in Argentina and continued to move around—to Spain until the Society was suppressed there, then briefly to Ireland, and finally to Louvain and to Drongen in Belgium, only returning to his homeland after twelve years away.

He taught, acted as director of Catholic Action, gave retreats, and continued to keep in touch with the poor. On one retreat for women, he spoke so movingly of the hard lives of homeless people that the retreatants asked “What can we do?” And what followed was the beginning of the movement El Hogar de Cristo, which spread all over Chile and eventually to other parts of South America. Hogar means “hearth” or “home,” and so these homeless poor were welcomed into “Christ’s Home.”

In addition to his direct work with the poor, Alberto published three books—On Unions, Social Humanism, and The Christian Social Order—and started a monthly periodical Mensaje (“Message”) that continues to this day. With his canonization, people saw a ratification of his life that combined teaching and writing with ministry with the poor.

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms I

Ignatian

Adjective, from the noun Ignatius (of Loyola). Sometimes used in distinction to Jesuit, indicating aspects of spirituality that derive from Ignatius the lay person rather than from the later Ignatius and his religious order, the Society of Jesus.

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Ignatian Colleagues Program

This leadership opportunity, an initiative of the Heartland/Delta universities and five sponsoring Provinces, supports higher education administrators throughout the ACJU in understanding and advancing the Ignatian mission on their campus.

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Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm

Ignatian pedagogy (from the International Center for Jesuit Education [Rome, 1993]), is a model that seeks to develop men and women of competence, conscience and compassion. Similar to the process of guiding others in the Spiritual Exercises, faculty accompany students in their intellectual, spiritual and emotional development. They do this by following the Ignatian pedagogical paradigm. Through consideration of the context of students' lives, faculty create an environment where students recollect their past experience and assimilate information from newly-provided experiences. Faculty help students learn the skills and techniques of reflection, which shapes their consciousness, and they then challenge students to action in service to others. The evaluation process includes academic mastery as well as ongoing assessments of students' well-rounded growth as persons for others.

For more information see:

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Ignatian Solidarity Network

The Ignatian Solidarity Network's purpose is to facilitate and enhance the effectiveness of existing social justice and advocacy efforts that are currently present in Jesuit affiliated high schools, universities and colleges, parishes, retreat centers, independent organizations, and individuals across the nation. The network serves as a means to connect, strengthen and broaden communication among these already existing groups in order to better understand what it means to live and act upon "a faith that does justice."

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Ignatian Vision

Characteristics of the Vision

Drawing on a variety of contemporary sources which tend to confirm one another, one can construct a list of rather commonly accepted characteristics of the Ignatian/Jesuit vision. It...

  • sees life and the whole universe as a gift calling forth wonder and gratefulness;
  • gives ample scope to imagination and emotion as well as intellect;
  • seeks to find the divine in all things — in all peoples and cultures, in all areas of study and learning, in every human experience, and (for the Christian) especially in the person of Jesus;
  • cultivates critical awareness of personal and social evil, but points to God's love as more powerful than any evil;
  • stresses freedom, need for discernment, and responsible action;
  • empowers people to become leaders in service, "men and women for others", "whole persons of solidarity," building a more just and humane world.

The relative consensus about these should not be taken to indicate that the six characteristics exhaust the meaning of the living Ignatian tradition. Like the living tradition of Christian faith, of which it is a part, no number of thematic statements can adequately articulate it. At the heart of both traditions stands the living person of Jesus, who cannot be reduced to a series of ideas.

No one claims that any of these characteristics are uniquely Ignatian/Jesuit. It is rather the combination of them all and the way they fit together that make the vision distinctive and so appropriate for an age in transition—whether from the medieval to the modern in Ignatius' time, or from the modern to the postmodern in ours.

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Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

Youngest child of a noble Basque family fiercely loyal to the Spanish crown (Ferdinand and Isabella), he was named Inigo after a local saint. Raised to be a courtier, he was trying valiantly to defend the fortress town of Pamplona in 1521 when a French cannonball shattered his leg. During a long convalescence, he found himself drawn away from the romances of chivalry that had filled his imagination from an early age to more spiritual reading — an illustrated life of Jesus and a collection of saints' lives.

After his recovery, he set out for the Holy Land to realize a dream of "converting the infidel." On the way he stopped first at the Benedictine Abbey of Monsterrat where he made a confession of his whole life and held an all-night vigil before the Black Madonna.  There he hung up his sword and dagger; effectively, his old life was over and his new life had begun.  Next he went to the nearby town of Manresa and wound up spending nearly a year there during which he experienced both the depths of despair and great times of enlightenment.

Ordered to leave Palestine after being there little more than a month, Ignatius decided that he needed an education in order to be able to "help souls." In Barcelona, he went to school with boys a quarter his age to learn the rudiments of Latin grammar, then moved on to several Spanish university cities. In each he was imprisoned and interrogated by the Inquisition, because he kept speaking to people about "spiritual things," having neither a theology degree nor priestly ordination.

Finally, turning his back on his homeland, he went to the foremost university of the time, the University of Paris, where he began his education all over again and with diligence, after five years, was finally awarded the degree "Master of Arts." It was here at Paris that he changed his Basque name to the Latin Ignatius and its Spanish equivalent Ignacio.

While at the university, he had roomed with and become good friends with a fellow Basque named Francis Xavier and a Savoyard named Peter Faber. After graduation, these three, together with several other Paris graduates, undertook a process of communal discernment and decided to bind themselves together in an apostolic community that became the Society of Jesus. Unanimously elected superior by his companions, Ignatius spent the last 16 years of his life in Rome directing the fledgling order, while the others went all over Europe, to the Far East, and eventually to the New World. And wherever they went they founded schools as a means of helping people to "find God in all things."

A Biography of St. Ignatius Loyola: The Founder of the Jesuits
George Traub, S.J. and Debra Mooney, Ph.D.

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Ignatius of Loyola, Marian influence

See "Montserrat, Our Lady of".

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IHS

IHS seal

The first three letters, in Greek, of the name Jesus. These letters appear as a symbol on the official seal of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits.

IMAGE RIGHT: The seal of the Society of Jesus being lifted onto Bellarmine Chapel on the campus of Xavier University.

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Inculturation

A modern theological concept that expresses a principle of Christian mission implicit in Ignatian spirituality — namely, that the gospel needs to be presented to any given culture in terms intelligible to that culture and allowed to grow up in the "soil" of that culture; God is already present and active there ("God's action is antecedent to ours"-Jesuit General Congregation 34 [1995], "Our Mission and Culture").

Thus in the first century Saint Paul fought against the imposition of Jewish practices on non-Jewish Christians. And in the 16th and 17th centuries, Jesuits like Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656) fought to retain elements of Chinese and Indian culture in presenting a de-Europeanized Christianity to those peoples, only to have their approach condemned by the Church in the 18th century.

Ideally, the gospel and a culture mutually interact, and in the process the gospel embraces some elements of the culture while offering a critique of others.

Continuing the Legacy of St. Ignatius Loyola: A Pioneer in International Education
Laura Hellebusch, International Student Advisor, Xavier University

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Inter-Religious Dialogue

See Religions, Non-Christian.

Documents on inter-religious dialogue at Creighton University

The Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life at Boston College

The Brueggeman Center for Dialogue at Xavier University

Reflections of a Muslim Faculty Member at a Jesuit University, Anas Malik, Ph.D.

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms J

Javier

Common Spanish spelling of the name "Xavier."

 

Jesuit

Noun. A member of the Society of Jesus. The term was originally coined as a put-down by people who felt there was something terribly arrogant about a group calling itself the Company or Society of Jesus, whereas previous religious orders had been content to name themselves after their founder (e.g., "Benedictines," "Franciscans," "Dominicans"). Later the title was adopted as a shorthand name by members of the Society themselves, as well as by others favorable to them.

Adjective. Pertaining to the Society of Jesus. The negative term, now that Jesuit has been rehabilitated, is Jesuitical meaning "sly" or "devious."

The number of Jesuits world wide

  • 6,260 Europe
  • 4,020 South Asia
  • 2,950 United States
  • 2,890 Latin America
  • 1,670 East Asia & Oceania
  • 1,430 Africa

The average age of Jesuit priests in 2007 was 63 years.

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Jesuit Colleges and Universities

Jesuit Colleges and Universities Worldwide

Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States

Homepages (Year Founded)

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Jesuit High Schools

Jesuit High Schools Worldwide

Jesuit High Schools in the United States

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    Jesuit History

    Jesuit history falls into two parts separated by the period of suppression (1773-1814): (1) the “Old Society,” 1540-1773, and (2) the “New Society,” 1814-present. To read about “Jesuit History in Brief,” click here.

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    Jesuit History: A Time-Line of Milestones

    1491 - Ignatius Loyola is born in the Basque region of northeastern Spain

    1521 - While Ignatius is defending Pamplona, cannon fire shatters his right knee

    1522 - Ignatius stays in the town of Manresa while struggling with his relationship with himself and God; this experience forms the basis of his Spiritual Exercises.

    1528 - Ignatius begins schooling at the University of Paris where he meets Francis Xavier, Pierre Favre and other early companions.

    1537 - Ignatius and companions are ordained

    1540 - Pope Paul III gives Ignatius and companions official approval to found the Society of Jesus

    1541 - Ignatius is elected Superior General of the Society of Jesus

    1548 - The first Jesuit college opens in Messina, Sicily

    1556 - Ignatius dies in Rome; 34 Jesuit schools have been founded

    1773 - The Society is suppressed by order of Pope Clement XIV

    1789 - Georgetown University is founded, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the United States.

    1814 - The suppression is ended by Pope Pius VII

    1954 - Wheeling Jesuit University is founded, the youngest of the Jesuit universities in the United States

    1965 - Pedro Arrupe is elected the 28th Superior General of the Society

    1975 - General Congregation 32 declares that the hallmark of any work deserving the name Jesuit is its "service of faith" of which the "promotion of justice" is an absolute requirement.

    1983 - Peter-Hans Kolvenbach is elected the 29th Superior General of the Society, which now returns to its own governance.

    1996 - The Cristo Rey model of college-preparatory education for inner-city youth is inaugurated with the founding of Cristo Rey High School in Chicago

    2006 - This Jesuit Jubilee year marks the 450th anniversary of the death of Ignatius and the 500th anniversary of the births of his companions Francis Xavier and Pierre Favre.

    2008 - Adolfo Nicolás is elected the 30th Superior General of the Society

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    Jesuits and Jews

    On more than one occasion, Ignatius of Loyola, as elected leader of the newly-founded Jesuit order, was heard to say that he would like to have been born of Jewish blood because he would then be closer to Christ our Lord. His attitude here is remarkable because there were strong negative feelings against New Christians -- people descended from recent converts to Christianity from Judaism or Islam -- in his native Basque territory and in all the Iberian Peninsula. New Christians were simply not trusted as genuine Christians and so were forbidden to hold office in church or state.

    Diego Lainez, one of the original companions at the University of Paris, was elected to succeed Ignatius as superior general. He was of Jewish blood, and so was Juan de Polance, Ignatius' secretary and collaborator in the writing of thousands of letters and of the Jesuit Constitutions. But powerful figures like the Archbishop of Toledo tried to force the Society to abide by their limpieza de sangre ("purity of blood") proscriptions.

    The same strong front against limpieza continued during the generalates of Lainez and Borja (the third general). But then trouble came. Polanco was the obvious choice to succeed Borja, but a small minority of Jesuits mostly from Portugal lobbied Pope Gregory XIII to decree that the next Jesuit head could not come from Spain. Jesuits on both sides of the question knew what the real reason was for the prohibition. The next general congregation elected Everard Mercurian, a Belgian.

    Antonio Possevino, an Italian Jesuit likely of Jewish lineage and Mercurian's secretary for several years, wrote a long and compelling "Memorial" to his leader, arguing the urgent need for action -- a letter -- from the general because he alone had the authority to address the growing dissention within the Society. It would be a call for unity and faithfulness to Ignatius' constitutional principles and practice of non-discrimination. The letter that Possevino called for was never written. The issue did not go away.

    "Possevino foresaw, with a clarity that few men of his generation possessed, that the effort to exclude New Christians would inevitably lead to the exclusion of other groups." It would have important implications for the Jesuit mission to non-Europeans.

    See Thomas M Cohen, "Jesuits and New Christians: The Contested Legacy of St. Ignatius," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits (Autumn 2010).

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    Jesuit Refugee Service/USA

    The mission of the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, sponsored by the Society of Jesus, is to accompany, serve and defend persons driven from their homes by conflict, natural disaster, economic injustice, or violation of other human rights.

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    Jesuit Volunteer Corps

    The Jesuit Volunteer Corps provides essential services to low-income people and those who live on the margins of our society. About 250 JVs each year work for and with people who are homeless, unemployed, refugees, people with AIDS, the elderly, street youth, abused women and children, the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled. JVC has become the largest Catholic volunteer program in the country.

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    Jesuits, Famous and Not-so-famous

    Alphabetical List of

    In his excellent book Ignatian Humanism, historical theologian Ron Modras devotes five chapters to the lives of five Jesuits who, he believes, exemplify the Ignatian humanism he has described in earlier chapters. No claim is made that the biographical mini-essays scattered through this A-Z section of our jesuitresource.org website are illustrative of Jesuit spirituality to the same degree. But taken as a group, these 60-some bios surely add up to more than just a bunch of individual pieces. See what you think. Look for the mini-biographies of the following men and woman under their individual names:

    Acosta, Jose
    Amaladoss, Michael
    Aquaviva, Claude
    Arrupe, Pedro
    Barry, William A.
    Bea, Augustin
    Bellarmine, Robert
    Bolland, John
    Boscovitch, Roger
    Brebeuf, John
    Buckley, Michael J.
    Campion, Edmund
    Canisius, Peter
    Carroll, John
    Claver, Peter
    Clavius, Christopher
    Delp, Alfred
    De Mello, Anthony
    De Smet, Peter
    Dulles, Avery
    Dupuis, Jacques
    Ellacuria, Ignacio

    Espinal, Luis
    Faber, Peter
    Gonzaga, Aloysius
    Grande, Rutilio
    Gray, Howard
    Hopkins, Gerard Manley
    Hurtado, Alberto
    Ignatius of Loyola
    Juana
    Kino, Eusebio
    Kolvenbach, Peter-Hans
    LaFarge, John
    Lainez, James
    LeMoyne, Simon
    Lonergan, Bernard
    Marquette, Jacques
    Martini, Carlo Maria
    Mveng, Engelbert
    Murray, John Courtney
    Nadal, Jerome
    Nicolas, Adolfo

    O’Keefe, Vincent
    O’Malley, John W.
    Owen, Nicholas
    Padberg, John W.
    Pieris, Aloysius
    Polanco, Juan
    Pozzo, Andrea
    Rahner, Karl
    Regis, John-Francis
    Rhodes, Alexander
    Ricci, Matteo
    Rodriguez, Alphonsus
    Segundo, Juan Luis
    Spee von Langenfeld, Frederick
    Starkloff, Carl
    Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre
    Valignano, Alessandro
    Xavier, Francis
    Zipoli, Domenico
    Zucchi, Nicolas

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    Jesus

    Jesus [the] Christ, meaning Jesus [God's] anointed one

    The historical person Jesus of Nazareth whom Christians acknowledge to be, by his life (what he taught and did) and his death and resurrection, the true revelation of God and at the same time the exemplar of what it means to be fully human. In other words, for Christians, Jesus shows what God is like and how they can live in response to this revelation: God is the compassionate giver of life who invites and empowers human beings, in freedom, together with one another, to work toward overcoming the forces of evil — meaninglessness, guilt, oppression, suffering and death — that diminish people and keep them from growing toward ever fuller life.

    In his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius has the retreatant devote most of the time to "contemplating" (i.e., imaginatively entering into) the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, so as to become more and more a companion of Jesus. And when Ignatius and his companions from the University of Paris decided to establish a religious order, he insisted that it be called the Company or Society of Jesus [see "Jesuit" — noun].

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    Juana, SJ (1535-1573)

    The only woman known to have lived and died a Jesuit

    Second daughter of Emperor Charles V, Juana was married in 1552 to Joao Manuel, the heir apparent to the Portuguese throne. They were married only two years when her husband died. Shortly thereafter her brother Philip (II), who had married Mary Tudor of England, appointed her Regent of Spain in his absence. And in that same year (1554), Juana approached superiors of the Society of Jesus about becoming a Jesuit. Careful debate and deliberation followed. As Lisa Fullam, a specialist on Juana, puts it: “Juana, widowed at nineteen, was an eminently marriageable young woman. To admit her to the Society would risk enraging her father the Emperor, himself no fan of the Jesuits. But at the same time, to refuse her request was to risk the displeasure of the Regent of Spain... a move that could have serious consequences for the work of the Society there” (“Juana, SJ,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. [November 1999]).

    In their hushed deliberations, Jesuit superiors used the name “Matteo Sanchez” for Juana. They considered many other factors in her case. In the end, they decided to admit her in secret as a “scholastic,” a Jesuit with first vows in the process of formation. And all through her short life—she died a Jesuit at 38—they continued to care for her growth in the spirit.

    The life of Juana provides an opportunity to clarify, not just her own case, but the larger question of Ignatius and the Society in regard to women. As Fullam sums up:

    [M]ost women in Ignatius’s time could not embody the availability for mission that is essential to the Jesuit charism. Ignatius’s group was a religious order. The question of the admission of women to the Society was, in most cases, a non-starter in Ignatius’s time, because women were either cloistered if they were religious, or not religious if they were not cloistered. On grounds of mobility Ignatius consistently rejected the idea of women belonging to the Society. And Juana’s admission underscores the idea that sex cannot be the deciding issue here—Juana was no less a woman after her admission than before. What she was after her admission was a woman living under the religious vows of the Society of Jesus while substantially assisting the Society’s work in Spain. To an unusual extent, Juana was able to overcome the catch-22 that kept most women from being able to live as Jesuits: her political influence was an avenue to a kind of apostolic availability for the work of the Society, and at the same time it served as leverage that enabled her to force the question of her admission on the Jesuit leadership. And, as it turned out, they let her in. Beyond that, they admitted her in a strikingly ordinary way. The infanta Juana, Regent of Spain, became—a scholastic. An extraordinary person in extraordinary circumstances was seen to fit into a very ordinary niche. It is her ordinary admission, freely undertaken, that is salient about Juana’s case: when all was said and done, the Jesuits decided that Juana was a Jesuit—an unusual Jesuit, to be sure, but a Jesuit nonetheless. (ibid.)

    A Woman Jesuit

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    Judaeo-Christian Vision

    Here is a version of the Judaeo-Christian vision or story, told with certain emphases from Ignatius of Loyola.

    The great and mysterious Reality of personal love and self-giving that many call God is the origin and destiny of all creation, the whole universe. God is present and at work in everything, leading it to fulfillment. All things are originally good and potentially means for those creatures called human beings to find the God who made and works in them. Still, none of these things are God, and therefore they are all radically limited.

    Indeed, in the case of human beings (who somehow image God in a special way), their relative freedom results in a new dimension of being whereby not just good but also evil exists in the world: selfishness, war, domination — racial, sexual, economic, environmental — of some over others. Human history, then, is marked by a struggle between the forces of good, or "life," and evil, or "death."

    God has freely chosen to side with struggling, flawed humanity by participating more definitively in human life and living it "from the inside" in the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth. This irrevocable commitment of God to the human enterprise grounds and invites people's response of working with God toward building a community of justice, love and peace—the "kingdom" or "reign" of God that Jesus preached and lived.

    As with Jesus, so for his followers, it takes discernment — a finely tuned reading of oneself and one's culture in the Spirit of God — to recognize in any given situation what helps the coming of God's reign and what hinders it. In the face of human selfishness and evil, the way ultimately entails self-giving, going through suffering and death in order to gain life — indeed, life everlasting. And along the way, because the followers of Jesus are wary of idolizing anyone or anything (that is, making a god of them), they are less likely to become disillusioned with themselves or others or human history for all its weight of personal and social evil. Rather do they continue to care about people and the human enterprise, for their hope is in God, the supreme Reality of personal love and self-giving.

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

 

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Jesuit Terms K

Kino, Eusebio (1644-1711) [in German, Eusebio Kühn]

Italian/German Jesuit; missioner; explorer

Born near Trent in the Italian Alps, Eusebio Kino entered the Jesuits in the Upper [that is, southern] German Province. In addition to the usual Jesuit studies in the humanities, philosophy, and theology, he also studied geography and cartography. In 1681, he went to the Mexican Province mission in Sonora-lower Arizona-California and served there for the rest of his life. He started with the already established Jesuit missions along the Sierra Madre and spread out from there both east and west, often mapping the territory as he went along; he seemed to live in the saddle. With the native people he started cattle ranches and introduced European cereals and fruits to their farms. Also a diarist, he chronicled the growth of the church on this frontier.

In 1965 the state of Arizona dedicated a statue of Kino in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.

See Polzer, Kino a Legend: His Life, His Works, His Missions, His Monuments (1998).

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Kolvenbach, Peter-Hans

(1928- )

Dutch-born superior general of the Society of Jesus from 1983, when the Jesuits were allowed to return to their own governance after a time of papal "intervention," until 2008, when he resigned at the age of 80.

He entered the Jesuits in 1948, went to Lebanon in the mid-1950s, earned a doctorate from the famous Saint Joseph's University in Beirut, and spent much of his life there, first as a professor of linguistics and then as superior of the Jesuit vice-province of the Middle East.

By his own admission, he was relatively "ignorant of matters pertaining to justice and injustice," when he went from Beirut to Rome for Jesuit General Congregation 32 and witnessed the faith-justice emphasis emerge from the Congregation under the leadership of Pedro Arrupe [see "The Service Faith and the Promotion of Justice"]. Still, as superior general, he worked tirelessly in collaboration with his advisors to implement and extend the direction in which his predecessor had been leading the Society [see "Men and Women for Others"/"Whole Persons of Solidarity for the Real World"].

He leaves a legacy to Jesuit higher education in a series of major addresses, most notably at Georgetown University (Assembly '89) and at Santa Clara University (2000).

29th Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1983 to 2008)
A biography

Addresses of Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. delivered at American universities

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

 

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Jesuit Terms L

LaFarge, John (1880-1963)

American Jesuit; editor, journalist, founder of the Catholic interracial movement in the U.S.

Spent 15 years in pastoral ministry in the Jesuit rural missions of St. Mary’s County, southern Maryland, largely among African Americans.

From 1926 until his death, associate editor of America, the national Jesuit weekly review.

For more than 35 years, carried on his long apostolate for interracial justice in the pages of America, on the lecture platform, and principally through the formation across the country of the Catholic Interracial Councils and their organ, the Interracial Review.

Besides numerous journal articles and reviews, his published works include Interracial Justice (1937), The Race Question and the Negro (1953), The Manner Is Ordinary, his autobiography (1954), and An American Amen (1958).

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Lainez, Diego (1512-1565)

Spanish Jesuit; one of first companions; second superior general

Of Jewish descent (his great-grandfather was a convert) Lainez was one of the great men of Catholic reform—especially through his work as papal theologian at the Council of Trent (3 sessions between 1545 and 1563). Two years after Ignatius’s death, he was elected second superior general of the Society.

There is a biography by Joseph Fichter titled James Lainez, Jesuit (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1944).

The last name is sometimes spelled Laynez.

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Laity

Lay person/lay people

The people of a religious faith as distinguished from its clergy; within Catholic circles, however, members of religious communities who are not ordained (i.e. "sisters" and "brothers") are often popularly associated with priests and bishops and not with lay people. (It would be more accurate to see them as neither, as having their own unique role and style of life; see "Religious Order/Religious Life.")

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LeMoyne, Simon (1604-1697)

French Jesuit; missioner to New France; peace negotiator

Simon LeMoyne arrived in Quebec city in 1638 and soon went to Wendake (earlier called the Huron territory), where John Brebeuf and other Jesuits and lay volunteers labored. He became proficient in the Wendat, Iroquois, and Algonquin languages. Indeed, among the 300 French Jesuits who would serve on the New France mission in the 17th and 18th centuries, he knew the native languages and the nuances of their oratory and diplomacy best (MacDonnell, Jesuit Family Album (1997).

LeMoyne survived the Mohawk destruction of the Wendat-French community (see “Brebeuf, John”) and went on to negotiate peace (1654) with another branch of the Five Nations (Iroquois), the Onondagas, near the site of present-day Syracuse, NY. When the New York Jesuits established a school in Syracuse in 1946, they named it LeMoyne College in honor of Simon LeMoyne.

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Lonergan, Bernard (1904-1984)

Canadian Jesuit; philosopher, theologian, interdisciplinary scholar of “method.”

Concerned with the crisis caused by Christianity’s difficulty in making the transition to modern society and culture (Theology “has somehow to mediate God’s meaning into the whole of human affairs”).

Inspired by what Thomas Aquinas did for Christianity in somewhat similar circumstances in the 13th century.

Professor of theology at Jesuit theologates in Montreal and Toronto (Insight: A Study of Human Understanding [1959]), Rome, again Toronto (Method in Theology [1972], and finally at Boston College (work on an economics neither capitalist nor Marxist).

Conducted a now-famous “Institute in the Philosophy of Education” at Xavier University in August of 1959.

The University of Toronto Press is gradually issuing the Collected Works in 20 volumes.

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Lopez Quintana, Amando (1936-1989)

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

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Lopez y Lopez, Joaquin (1918-1989)

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

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Loyola

The House of Loyola's coat of arms

Loyola is a town in the Basque Country of northeastern Spain, where Ignatius (of Loyola) was born and raised. The name Loyola may be derived from the Spanish Lobo-y-olla, meaning wolf and kettle. The coat of arms of the House of Loyola is depicted in the crests of many universities and schools.

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

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Jesuit Terms M

Magis

Latin for "more"

The "Continuous Quality Improvement" term traditionally used by Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits, suggesting the spirit of generous excellence in which ministry should be carried on. (See A.M.D.G.-"For the greater glory of God.")

Rethinking Magis
Trudelle Thomas, Xavier University

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Manresa

Town in northeastern Spain where in 1522-1523 a middle-aged layman named Ignatius of Loyola had the powerful spiritual experiences that led to his famous "Spiritual Exercises" and later guided the founding and the pedagogy of Jesuit schools.

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Marquette, Jacques (1637-1675)

French Jesuit; missionary friend of native Americans; explorer

Jacques Marquette spoke six Amerindian languages and befriended many different native tribes. A report to Rome observed that the Indians “have great veneration for the Black Robes . . . [They] slept on the ground, exposed themselves to all privations, did not ask for money” (quoted by Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus, 1986).

Marquette established the Mission of St. Ignace (named for Ignatius) opposite Mackinac Island.

He concluded correctly that the Mississippi River did not run into the Atlantic (as many thought), but into the Gulf of Mexico.

He was only 38 when he died.  He is one of two Jesuits memorialized with a statue in the U.S. Capitol.

There is a full-length biography by Joseph P. Donnelly—Jacques Marquette: 1637-1675 (Loyola U P, 1968).

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Martin-Baro, Ignacio (1942-1989)

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

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Martini, Carlo Maria (1927- )

Italian Jesuit; scripture scholar and cardinal archbishop

For many years, professor of New Testament at the Jesuit-run Pontifical biblical Institute in Rome and eventually its head.

Against the tradition and rule of the Jesuits who consider it acceptable and safe to become a bishop only in poor and difficult mission territories, made a bishop by Pope John Paul II. He was appointed Archbishop of Milan and soon thereafter named cardinal. He distinguished himself as a good pastor and preacher and able administrator of the huge Milan archdiocese.

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The Martyrs of the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA)

On November 16, 1989, shortly after 1:00 a.m., six Jesuit priests at the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA) were assassinated along with their housekeeper and her daughter by the Atlacatl commando unit of the Salvadoran military.

Those killed in the attack were:

  • Ignacio Ellacuria, 59, rector of the Central American University, native of the Basque region of Spain
  • Ignacio Martin-Baro, 50, vice-rector, founder and director of the Public Opinion Institute
  • Segundo Montes, 56, a sociology professor and Jesuit priest who did work on Salvadoran refugees in the United States
  • Arnando Lopez, 53, a philosophy professor and Jesuit priest
  • Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, 71, a native Salvadoran Jesuit priest, co-founder of the UCA, and director of a university-affiliated center for humanitarian assistance
  • Juan Ramon Moreno, 56, a Spanish-born Jesuit priest and director of two university-related programs
  • Julia Elba Ramos, 42, housekeeper and cook, and Cecilia Ramos, her daughter, 15

The UCA Jesuits had been vocal advocates of social change in El Salvador. For this reason, the Salvadoran military considered the priests to be "intellectual godfathers" of the FMLN guerilla movement and therefore a threat to the government.

In addition, the priests were accused by the Salvadoran military of being communists, supporting the FMLN movement, and hiding weapons at the University. None of these accusations were ever substantiated.

In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 761, "Remembering and commemorating the lives and work of [the Jesuit Fathers, their housekeeper and her daughter] on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of their deaths at the University of Central America José Simeón Cañas in San Salvador, El Salvador." The resolution was sponsored by Rep. James McGovern (D) of Massachusetts.

Hear how Xavier University Theology Professor Dr. Gillian Ahlgren's  approach to Jesuit education was influenced by this event

Universidad Centroamericana's webpage dedicated to the martyrs

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McAuley, Catherine (1778-1841)

Foundress of the Sisters of Mercy

On September 24, 1827, Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, first opened the doors of her home to the public on Baggot Street in Dublin, Ireland. By coincidence or act of providence, September 24th, is also the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, who would lend both her identity and spirit to the building and its works, when it was named the 'House of Mercy.'

Prior to founding her religious order, Catherine's lifelong dream came true when she used her inheritance to build a home where women and children in dire need would be provided with housing, education, religious and social services enabling them to find a far brighter future than was generally available to the Irish, particularly Irish women, of the time. Catherine's innovative approach to housing and educating young women and children from the slums was considered shocking, especially since it brought the poor, the sick and the uneducated into an affluent neighborhood. Within three years over 200 girls were enrolled in the school at House of Mercy and volunteers, inspired by Catherine's spirit and compassion, were numerous.

In 1831, upon founding the Sisters of Mercy, the 'House of Mercy' also became the first convent of the Sisters of Mercy. As Catherine’s passion for the poor took root in the hearts of her companions, the charism of Mercy spread rapidly across Ireland and England. By 1839, a mere eight years after being founded, the Sisters of Mercy numbered over 100 women religious and in the ten years between the founding of the order and her death, Catherine had founded nine Convents of Mercy.

In a 1841 letter to Sister Elizabeth Moore, she described the spirit which characterized the congregation and its members: “All are good and happy. The blessing of unity still dwells amongst us and oh what a blessing, it should make all else pass into nothing. All laugh and play together, not one cold, stiff soul appears. From the day they enter, reserve of any ungracious kind leaves them. This is the spirit of the Order, indeed the true spirit of Mercy flowing on us...”

Today, the special charism and spirit of Venerable Catherine McAuley remains alive and well within the Sisters of Mercy and Mercy Associates. She continues to draw women to minister to the poor, the sick, the uneducated and the underserved. Almost 5,000 Sisters of Mercy of the Americas currently serve in 11 countries and one territory, while other Mercy foundations and institutes can be found in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Philippines, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland and Newfoundland.

And what remains of the original House of Mercy? In 1994, it was fully restored and opened to the public as Mercy International Centre, an important historical link for Sisters of Mercy and Mercy Associates from all over the globe. Although she died November 11, 1841, at her Baggot Street convent, her spirit of hospitality and her legacy continues today embodied within each Sister of Mercy. Mercy International Center allows all to reflect on Catherine's passion for helping the poor, which continues to inspire women as they carry forth the contemporary ministry of Mercy worldwide.

MA; watercolor portrait by Marie Henderson, RSM

 

Men and Women for Others

Whole Persons of Solidarity for the Real World

In a now famous address to alumni of Jesuit schools in Europe (July 31, 1973), Pedro Arrupe painted a profile of what a graduate should be. Admitting that Jesuit schools had not always been on target here, Arrupe called for a re-education to justice:

Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-and-women-for-others... people who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; people convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for human beings is a farce.... All of us would like to be good to others, and most of us would be relatively good in a good world. What is difficult is to be good in an evil world, where the egoism of others and the egoism built into the institutions of society attack us.... Evil is overcome only by good, egoism by generosity. It is thus that we must sow justice in our world, substituting love for self-interest as the driving force of society.

Following up on what Arrupe had said, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, challenged the 900 Jesuit and lay delegates from the 28 U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities gathered for "Assembly '89" to teach our students to make "no significant decision without first thinking of how it would impact the least in society" (i.e., the poor, the marginal who have no voice). And 11 years later, speaking on "the faith that does justice" to a similar national gathering at Santa Clara University (October 6, 2000), Kolvenbach was even more pointed and eloquent in laying out the goals for the 21st-century American Jesuit university:

Here in Silicon Valley, some of the world's premier research universities flourish alongside struggling public schools where Afro-American and immigrant students drop out in droves. Nationwide, one child in every six is condemned to ignorance and poverty.... Thanks to science and technology, human society is able to solve problems such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or developing more just conditions of life, but stubbornly fails to accomplish this.

- - - - -

The real measure of our Jesuit universities, [then,] lies in who our students become. Tomorrow's "whole person" cannot be whole without a well-educated solidarity. We must therefore raise our Jesuit educational standard to "educate the whole person of solidarity for the real world."

Solidarity is learned through "contact" rather than through "concepts." When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Our universities boast a splendid variety of in-service programs, outreach programs, insertion programs, off-campus contacts, and hands-on courses. These should not be too optional or peripheral, but at the core of every Jesuit university's program of studies.

- - - - -

Faculty are at the heart of our universities. Professors, in spite of the cliché of the ivory tower, are in contact with the world. But no point of view is ever neutral or value-free. A legitimate question, even if it does not sound academic, is for each professor to ask, "When researching and teaching, where and with whom is my heart?" To make sure that the real concerns of the poor find their place, faculty members need an organic collaboration with those in the Church and in society who work among and for the poor and actively seek justice.

What is at stake is a sustained interdisciplinary dialogue of research and reflection, a continuous pooling of expertise. The purpose is to assimilate experiences and insights in "a vision of knowledge which, well aware of its limitations, is not satisfied with fragments but tries to integrate them into a true and wise synthesis" about the real world. Unfortunately, many faculty still feel academically, humanly, and, I would say, spiritually unprepared for such an exchange.

- - - - -

If the measure of our universities is who the students become, and if the faculty are the heart of it all, then what is there left to say? It is perhaps the third topic, the character of our universities — how they proceed internally and how they impact on society — that is the most difficult.

In the words of [Jesuit] General Congregation 34, a Jesuit university must be faithful to both the noun "university" and to the adjective "Jesuit." To be a university requires dedication "to research, teaching, and the various forms of service that correspond to its cultural mission." To be Jesuit "requires that the university act in harmony with the demands of the service of faith and the promotion of justice." [A] telling expression of the Jesuit university's nature is found in policies concerning hiring and tenure. As a university it must respect the established academic, professional, and labor norms, but as Jesuit it is essential to go beyond them and find ways of attracting, hiring, and promoting those who actively share the mission.

- - - - -

Every Jesuit academy of higher learning is called to live in a social reality and to live for that social reality, to shed university intelligence upon it and to use university influence to transform it. Thus Jesuit universities have stronger and different reasons than do many other academic institutions for addressing the actual world as it unjustly exists and for helping to reshape it in the light of the Gospel.

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Merici, Angela (1474-1540)

Trailblazer; saint

Finding God in daily life, serving God in people around her, Angel Merici created a surprising new way of life. Her spiritual family now includes the Company of St. Ursula, a spiritual companionship for single lay women, and the Order of St. Ursula for women religious.

An older contemporary of Ignatius Loyola, she too fostered the spirit of renewal in the Church of the early 16th Century.

Angela grew up on her family’s farm in northern Italy, where she was born around 1474. She and her siblings worked together and got in trouble together. As their father read the lives of the saints, Angela longed to imitate these friends of God.

Death ruptured this happy circle, first taking her older sister. Angela was devastated - and worried. Was her mischievous sister saved? One day, she had a consoling experience: Angela saw her sister, happy in heaven.

Still a teenager, Angela lost both parents. While her older brothers farmed, she and a younger brother went to live with relatives who were eager to arrange a marriage. Their plans and Angela’s vocation were on a collision course. Angela sensed God’s call to a deep intimacy with him. The more her guardians tried to find her a husband, the more she resisted.

She sought guidance from Franciscan friars and joined the Third Order (now called the Secular Franciscan Order) for lay persons. Its spiritual practices deepened her prayer life. Finally, her family accepted Angela’s desire to devote herself to God alone.

Woman of compassion and wisdom

Soon she was back on the farm. One day during the olive harvest, Angela had another visionary experience: women and angels on a ladder between heaven and earth. She understood that someday she would establish a group of women consecrated to God.

Angela’s days began with Mass and were punctuated by prayer. She worked with neighbors and helped out where needed. People turned to her for wisdom and comfort. Her own bereavement had taught her deep compassion. When the friars asked her to console a widow whose three children had died, Angela visited her in the war-torn city of Brescia. This became the place for her life’s work.

Soon Brescians discovered Angela’s goodness and wisdom. Husband and wife quarrelling? Talk with Angela! Should I propose marriage? Consult Angela! Doubts about faith? Turn to Angela! She persuaded two sworn enemies to call off a duel.

A pilgrim like Ignatius, she visited Jerusalem in 1524 as he had done a year earlier. Also like Ignatius in this same period, she responded to the Church’s need for reform by fostering lay involvement that was Spirit-driven and outside hierarchical structures. She encountered lay men and women who undertook a variety of initiatives to address spiritual and social ills, to heal their war-ravaged city. For them she was a spiritual Madre.

A new path for women

Angela encountered single women who knew that God was calling them, but not to marriage or religious life - the only paths then open to women. They wanted to learn from her experience of intimacy with God. On November 25, 1535, Angela and 28 other women consecrated themselves to Christ under the patronage of St. Ursula, an early martyr and leader of women. When Angela died in 1540, the Company of St. Ursula had 150 members.

Ursulines still live as Angela did, dedicated to Christ and serving others in ordinary circumstances, as single laywomen. The Company of St. Ursula exists in 20 countries. The Company spread from Italy into France. There, in the early 1600s, French Ursulines took another step, becoming a religious order. These women pioneered education for young women; their life and mission have spread around the globe. Often their educational mission has been paired with that of Jesuits.

Angela Merici was canonized in 1807. Her feast day is celebrated on January 27.

M-CD

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Mission and Identity Offices at U.S. Jesuit Colleges and Universities

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Montes, Segundo (1933-1989)

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

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Montserrat, Our Lady of (the Black Madonna)

Situated in the awesome serrated mountains some 4,000 feet above the Catalonian plain and 30 miles west of Barcelona, the Benedictine monastery was already a popular place of pilgrimage when the 30-year-old Iñigo (Ignatius) of Loyola came there probably on March 20 or 21, 1522. He spent three days writing out a confession of the sins of his life and presented it to a French Benedictine priest who ministered to pilgrims visiting the monastery. He then gave away his fine clothes to a stunned tramp, put on penitential sackcloth and held an all-night vigil before the Black Madonna and Child (an ancient wood sculpture), hanging up his sword and dagger there. “Effectively,” writes Ron Hansen, “his former life was over” (“The Pilgrim: Saint Ignatius of Loyola” in An Ignatian Spirituality Reader) and his new life had begun.

Some months earlier, at Loyola, while still recovering from his battle wounds and struggling to deal with his shattered psyche and the dawning sense of a new religious identity, he had been graced with a clear and deeply consoling vision of Our Lady and the Infant Jesus.

Marian shrines and imagery abounded in the Spain of Ignatius’ time. And the church given to the early Jesuits in Rome was that of Madonna della Strada (“Our Lady of the Way”). The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner once observed that Ignatius was among the very few male Christian mystics who were also visionaries (Visions and Prophecies [1963]). In this context, one might say that the post-conversion Ignatius was a man untypically well developed in his feminine side. Indeed, Xavier professors Margo Heydt and Sarah Melcher, Protestant women who went on an Ignatian pilgrimage to Spain and Rome, see Jesus’ mother Mary as the “hidden catalyst” of Ignatius’ conversion and life.

See Gemma Simmonds, "Women Jesuits?" in The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (2008).

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Moreno, Pardo, Juan Ramon (1933-1989)

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

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Murray, John Courtney (1904-1967)

American Jesuit; Systematic theologian, advocate of religious liberty

Professor of theology at Woodstock College, MD, Jesuit theological seminary.

For years in the Jesuit journal Theological Studies argued the superiority of the pluralist system of church-state relations (as in the U.S.) and then was silenced by Rome for some nine years.

Prominent theologian at Vatican II and a principal architect of the Council’s document on religious liberty.

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Mveng, Engelbert (1930-1995)

Cameroonian Jesuit; "a father of the church" in Africa

Engelbert Mveng, a prophetic voice in Africa, was one of the first promoters of African liberation theology. He used the term “anthropological impoverishment” to describe the consequences of European enslavement and colonization and “anthropological annihilation” to describe the absolute abyss into which a people fall when their poverty becomes structural and produces a political and economic vacuum in the state.

This multi-talented Jesuit—historian, poet, artist, philosopher, and theologian—was violently assassinated in his home near Yaounde on April 23, 1995.

For the most part, Mveng’s writings (in French) have not been translated into English, but see his essay “African Liberation Theology” in Concilium (1988) and the brief account of his work in Hinsdale, “Jesuit Theological Discourse since Vatican II,” Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (2008).

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms N

Nadal, Jerome [Jeronimo in Spanish] (1507-1580)

Spanish Jesuit; promulgator of Constitutions

Ignatius sent Nadal as his trusted ambassador to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Austria to promulgate and explain the newly-composed Constitutions of the order.

Nadal made use of the new medium of perspective illustrations to enhance the realism of Pictures of the Gospel Stories. Matteo Ricci took this work with him to China and thus introduced the art and science of perspective to that forbidden country.

Nadal is considered by historian John O’Malley to be one of the three absolutely central figures (along with Polanco and Ignatius himself) in the founding and early development of the Society of Jesus (The First Jesuits [Harvard, 1993]).

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Novitiate

The stages of Jesuit formation

The first two years of a Jesuit's formation. A Novice engages in the study of Jesuit history and Jesuit life (including the vows common to all forms of religious life), the making of the full Spiritual Exercises over 30 days and other "experiments" like insertion among the poor, work in hospitals, going on pilgrimage, work in a Jesuit-sponsored ministry while living in community with Jesuits who have completed their course of (early) formation.

See also First Studies, Regency, Theology and Tertianship

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Nicolás, Adolfo (1936- )

30th superior general of the Society of Jesus, elected by General Congregation 35 in January 2008. The delegates were evidently thinking of the global reality of our broken, lovable 21st-century world, and in electing Adolfo Nicolás they were choosing indeed a great-hearted man with extensive cross-cultural experience and a global worldview.

A native of Spain, Nicolás entered the Jesuits in 1953. In 1960 he left for Japan and four years of language study. From 1964-1968, he studied theology in Tokyo and was ordained a priest there. After three years of doctoral studies in Rome, he returned to Tokyo and taught systematic theology at the Jesuit-sponsored Sophia University from 1971 to 1978, and again from 1984 to 1993.

From 1978 to 1984, he was director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute (Manila, Philippines), which had wide influence in the theological renewal of all Asia in the aftermath of Vatican II. In 1993, he was appointed provincial of the Jesuit Province of Japan, and in this capacity he participated in General Congregation 34 (1995) and was elected secretary of the congregation.

On completing his term as provincial, he chose to live in a poor parish in Tokyo, where, amid great difficulties, he was able to help thousands of Philippine and other Asian immigrants. At the time of his election as superior general, he was head of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, a vast territory.

Challenges to Jesuit Higher Education Today
Superior General Adolfo Nicolas, S.J.
Mexico City, April 23, 2010

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

 

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Jesuit Terms O

O'Keefe, Vincent (1920- )

American Jesuit; confidant of Pedro Arrupe as superior general

O’Keefe was president of Fordham University when in 1965 he went to General Congregation 31 as an elected delegate. This was the Congregation that elected Pedro Arrupe superior general; it elected O’Keefe one of four general counselors, and he remained in that office through the entire Arrupe generalate. When Arrupe was refused permission by John Paul II to retire from office for reasons of age and infirmity and shortly thereafter suffered a debilitating stroke, he appointed O’Keefe vicar general in his place. But the pope removed them both from office and appointed his own delegate to run the Society. Then in less than two years after this papal “intervention,” saying that he had been "misinformed", the Pope allowed the Jesuits to return to their own governance and elect a new superior general (Peter-Hans Kolvenbach).

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O'Malley, John W. (1927- )

American Jesuit; historian of early modern and contemporary Catholicism

John O’Malley is currently a university professor in the theology department at Georgetown University. His specialty is the religious culture of early modern Europe, with concentration in Renaissance humanism and the Society of Jesus. He is also interested in Vatican Council II and contemporary Catholicism. His best known work is The First Jesuits, winner of several best-book awards and now translated into ten languages. His latest books are Four Cultures of the West and What Happened at Vatican II. Fourteen U.S. Jesuit universities have given him honorary doctoral degrees. He has also been honored with a Festschrift (Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W. O’Malley, S.J., eds. Kathleen Comerford and Hilmar Pabel [2001]).

See his autobiography in the booklet series Lives of the Georgetown Jesuits.

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Order

The Society of Jesus in the United States

The Jesuit Conference

Provinces
Provinces in a reorganization taking place over the coming decade (2010-2020)
  • California
  • Chicago-Detroit-Wisconsin
  • Maryland-New England-New York
  • Missouri-New Orleans
  • Oregon

The Society around the world

See also Religious Order/Religious Life.

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Organizations

  • Ignatian Solidarity Network
    The Network facilitates existing social justice and advocacy efforts that are present in Jesuit affiliated high schools, universities and colleges, parishes, retreat centers, independent organizations and individuals.
  • Jesuit Volunteer Corps
    About 250 volunteers commit themselves to working with people in the United States and 7 countries marginalized by society.
  • Ignatian Lay Volunteer Corps
    The IVC, in partnership with hundreds of service sites, provides women and men, aged 50 and older, opportunities to serve others, to address social injustice, and to transform lives.
  • Jesuit Refugee Service
    JRS’s mission is to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. Serving in over 50 countries, with the support of an international office in Rome, JRS provides assistance to refugees in refugee camps, to people displaced within their own country, to asylum seekers in cities and those held in detention.

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Owen, Nicholas (15??-1606)

English Jesuit brother; builder of secret “priest holes”; martyr, saint

Nicholas Owen was a carpenter and stonemason and a Jesuit brother. He used his skills to build secret hiding places for Catholic priests who traveled around providing Mass and the sacraments to Catholics in the England of anti-Catholic penal laws, where numerous government agents—“bounty-hunters”—practiced their art. Since being a Catholic priest in Elizabethan and Jacobean England was punishable by death, Owen saved hundreds of lives with his “priest-holes.” He himself was picked up several times and shortly released as “small fish,” since he wasn’t a priest and his real occupation was unknown. Early on, he traveled with Edmund Campion, later with Henry Garnet, and finally with John Gerard –all well-known Jesuit priests. He was simply known as “Little John.”

Eventually, he and his work were discovered and he was taken to the Tower of London. There he was tortured to make him reveal the locations of his “holes,” but he never said a word until he expired from the torture.

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms P

Padberg, John W. (1930- )

American Jesuit; historian and publisher

John Padberg, a native of St. Louis, entered the Jesuits in 1944. In addition to the regular Jesuit course of studies, he did doctoral studies in the history of ideas at Harvard. His “magisterial” study Colleges in Conflict: The Jesuit Schools in France from Revival to Suppression, 1815-1890 (1969) “remains the standard work on that subject” (Lucas, Spirit, Style, Story [2002]). Among the administrative positions he has filled with distinction, his ten years as president of Weston Jesuit School of Theology (Cambridge, MA) stand out. He has dealt in print with Jesuit general congregations and contributed a number of essays to the series Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 80 issues of which he published as editor. And as director of the Institute of Jesuit Sources, he has overseen the production of more than 40 books. Indeed, it is in this capacity of publisher and mentor of other Jesuit scholars that he may have made his finest contribution. Colleagues, Jesuit and lay, have honored him with a Festschrift (Spirit, Style, Story: Essays Honoring John W. Padberg, SJ, ed. Thomas M. Lucas [2002]).

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Pedagogy

Ignatian/Jesuit

Having to do with Ignatian/Jesuit teaching style or methods.

In one formulation (Robert Newton's Reflections on the Educational Principles of the Spiritual Exercises [1977]), Jesuit education is instrumental (not an end in itself, but a means to the service of God and others); student centered (adapted to the individual as much as possible so as to develop an independent and responsible learner); characterized by structure (with systematic organization of successive objectives and systematic procedures for evaluation and accountability) and flexibility (freedom encouraged and personal response and self-direction expected, with the teacher an experienced guide, not primarily a deliverer of ready-made knowledge); eclectic (drawing on a variety of the best methods and techniques available); and personal (whole person affected, with goal of personal appropriation, attitudinal and behavioral change).

See Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm for a second formulation.

Both these approaches were developed in the context of secondary education, but could be adapted for higher education.

Jesuit Education and Ignatian Pedagogy
Peter Hans Kolvenbach, SJ

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Pieris, Aloysius (1934-  )

Sri Lankan Jesuit; Asian liberation theologian

Although he was originally slated to teach theology in Rome, Aloysius Pieris, in dialogue and discernment with his provincial superior, decided to remain and work in his native land. Two themes remain central to his theology: the path of interior liberation from greed and the path of social liberation from poverty.

The British Jesuit theologian Philip Endean, in a Festschrift essay for Pieris, sees his re-reading of the Ignatian tradition in the light of Christian-Buddhist dialogue as advocating a “symbiosis” which “enables Christians to grow within their own tradition, sharpening their awareness of inauthenticities in what they have previously taken for granted” (“The Same Spirit Is in Everything,” Encounters with the Word, ed. Robert Crusz et al. [2004]).

See Hinsdale, “Jesuit Theological Discourse since Vatican II,” The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (2008). Among Pieris’ best-known works is An Asian Theology of Liberation (1988).

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Polanco, Juan de (1517-15??)

Spanish Jesuit; secretary to Ignatius and successors

Collaborated with Ignatius in the writing of the Jesuit Constitutions and of many of the nearly 7,000 letters of Ignatius.

Considered by historian John O’Malley to be one of the three absolutely central figures (along with Nadal and Ignatius himself) in the foundation and early development of the Society of Jesus (The First Jesuits [Harvard, 1993]).

Polanco was a “new Christian” (having Jewish ancestry) and as such was not elected fourth superior general even though he was the logical choice; the bias of some Spanish Jesuits was reinforced by Pope Gregory XIII, who intervened in the election.

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Pozzo, Andrea (1642-1709)

Italian Jesuit brother; painter, pioneer of perspective painting

Andrea Pozzo wrote a book on perspective geometry “ to aid artists and architects.” Later, when the money ran out in the construction of St. Ignatius church in Rome and the planned dome had to be abandoned, he created his greatest work. He turned the flat ceiling of the church into a magnificent virtual world of cupola and columns depicting the missionary spirit of the Society of Jesus. In it, light passes from God the Father to the Son who transmits it to Ignatius and he sends it in four rays to the continents—Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In grand baroque style, the awesome ceiling celebrates nearly two centuries of venturesome Jesuit activity.

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Prayer

Prayer is a dialogue with the Divine. It is an opportunity for a deeper experience with God and a connection with what is True and Real.

Daily online prayers and reflections:

Follow the Irish Jesuits on Twitter here.

See spiritual exercises

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Province

The geographic regions within a country created for the purpose of governance within the Society of Jesus. The major administrator of each province is the Provincial, appointed by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus for a period of six years. Presently there are ten provinces in the United States: California, Chicago, Detroit, Maryland, Missouri, New England, New Orleans, New York, Oregon, Wisconsin.

The U.S. Provincials are in the planning stage of reconfiguring this present arrangement.
Reconfiguration being implemented over the next decade (2010-2020)
  • California
  • Chicago-Detroit-Wisconsin
  • Maryland-New England-New York
  • Missouri-New Orleans
  • Oregon

The Society around the world
Jesuit Provinces World-Wide

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms Q

Terms Q

Quotes

Spirituality is not a "sometime" thing. It is not a technique or a methodology that is applied in certain circumstances. It is a way of ordering oneself and through the ordering of one's self, developing a standard that can serve as a benchmark for deciding and acting. It provides access to an affective feeling, which can, with care and patience, and much intentional effort and close supervision, become something you can trust.

John J. Degioia, Ph.D., President, Georgetown University
May 25, 2004, Heartland-Delta IV Conference at Marquette University
For the complete presentation

Jesuit education seeks to open students' minds to the vast riches of human experience and thought, to promote a greater understanding of our world and to enable them to discern truth. Jesuit education accepts the inherent value and power of intelligent and dispassionate thought. ……Colleges and universities are, and must remain, hallowed places of intellectual discussion. But if we are to be true to our educational mission, we must ensure that academic freedom--the freedom to pursue truth in all areas of human understanding — remains vibrant.

Eugene Cornacchia, Ph.D., President, St. Peter's College
October 20, 2007, Presidential Inaugural Address
For the complete address

...Scientific advances, perhaps more than theology, have inspired amazement. Photographic images from the Hubble Telescope, first available to the public in 1990, reveal that the universe is much vaster, more ancient, and more grand than we imagined. The majesty of the cosmos shows how limited the human perspective has been. Similarly, discoveries about DNA and quantum physics are inspiring awe in scientists and non-scientists alike. Such discoveries have caused some thinkers to see a profound connection between the human mind and the works of God... Viewing God as Mysterium Tremendum is conducive to dialogue among different religious traditions. In a time in history when many discussions deteriorate into stand-offs between the Left vs. Right, Saved vs. Unsaved, Enlightened vs. Benighted, appreciation for Mystery reminds us that all truth is limited. We can let uncertainty cause us to latch on to partial truths--or we can let it lead us into greater exploration...

Trudelle Thomas, PhD.
English Department, Xavier University
Expanding Horizons: A Christian Female Talks at Length with a Muslim Male
For the complete presentation

I believe that what we must do is ensure a globalization without marginalization or confrontation…a globalization that recognizes our common humanity, community, and solidarity… How Jesuit universities can work toward this “globalization of hope,” this ideal is not only a necessity, it is a moral imperative—and it will require that we do three things: Remember the past … engage the present … and influence the future.

John DeGioia, Ph.D.
President, Georgetown University
Globalization of Hope, October 20, 2008
Celebrating the inauguration of Julio Giulietti, S.J. as 8th president of Wheeling Jesuit University

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

 

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Jesuit Terms R

Rahner, Karl (1904-1984)

German Jesuit; father of Catholic theology in the 20th century

Did doctoral studies in the history of philosophy at the University of Freiburg, but his dissertation on Thomas Aquinas’ epistemology (later published as Spirit in the World) was rejected by a professor whose only claim to fame now is that he rejected Rahner’s dissertation.

In his teaching (at Innsbruck, Munich, & Münster) and writing over nearly 50 years, he re-did the long tradition of Catholic theology in a way that required much of his listeners and readers intellectually, but still “spoke” to their hearts and touched their existential reality and need. He was a poet in his own unique style of prose.

He was a commanding theological presence at Vatican II (1962-65). And reading his works as they were gradually translated into English after the Council was for many in this country to understand what had prepared the way for that great revolution in official Catholic theological thinking.

See the fine biographical-theological essay on Rahner in Ronald Modras’ Ignatian Humanism (Loyola Press, 2004).

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Ramos, Julia Elba (42) and Cecilia Ramos (15)

See "Martyrs of the UCA"

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Ratio Studiorum

Latin for "Plan of Studies"

A document, the definitive form of which was published in 1599 after several earlier drafts and extensive consultation among Jesuits working in schools. It was a handbook of practical directives for teachers and administrators, a collection of the most effective educational methods of the time, tested and adapted to fit the Jesuit mission of education. Since it was addressed to Jesuits, the principles behind its directives could be assumed. They came, of course, from the vision and spirit of Ignatius. The process that led to the Ratio and continued after its publication gave birth to the first real system of schools the world had ever known.

Much of what the 1599 Ratio contained would not be relevant to Jesuit schools today. Still, the process out of which it grew and thrived suggests that we have only just begun to tap the possibilities within the international Jesuit network for collaboration and interchange. [See also "Education, Jesuit" and "Pedagogy, Ignatian/Jesuit."]

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Regency

The stages of Jesuit formation

After the first five years of study and formation, the Regent devotes 2-3 years to full-time apostolic work (ministry) with supervision, often in a Jesuit high school, sometimes in a Jesuit university or other Jesuit ministry. In addition to the ministry provided, he thus also gains experience for reflection and integration in the next stage, Theology

See also Novitiate, First Studies, Theology and Tertianship

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Regis, John Francis (1597-1640)

French Jesuit; home missioner

After the devastation of religious war (Huguenots vs. Catholics), John Francis Regis ministered throughout southern France. “He consoled the disturbed of heart, visited prisons, collected food and clothing for the poor, established homes for [the rehabilitation of] prostitutes. . . . His influence reached all classes and brought about a lasting spiritual revival . . . . (MacDonnell, Jesuit Family Album [Fairfield, CT: Clavius Group).

Miraculous cures of the sick, attributed to his intercession, took place during his life and after his death.

Many institutions are named after him (e.g., the Jesuit university and the high school in Denver).

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Religions, Non-Christian

One of the major accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council* (1962-1965) was a reversal of a centuries-long negative attitude toward non-Christian religions—Judaism especially, as well as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and others. Even before the council, the Catholic church had prepared the way for this reversal by condemning the long-held belief that there is no salvation outside the church. Now Vatican II went on to affirm that non-Christian religions contain truth and goodness and to call for Christian dialogue with members of these faiths on an equal and mutually respectful footing. The way to be religious, in our pluralist world, is to be “interreligious.”

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Religious Order/Religious Life

In Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity (less frequently in Anglican/Episcopal Christianity), a community of men or women bound together by the common profession, through "religious" vows, of "chastity" (better called voluntary "consecrated celibacy" [and thus not to be confused with the imposed celibacy of Roman Catholic clergy]), "poverty" and "obedience." As a way of trying to follow Jesus' example, the vows involve voluntary renunciation of things potentially good: marriage and sexual relations in the case of "consecrated celibacy," personal ownership and possessions in the case of "poverty," and one's own will and plans in the case of "obedience."

This renunciation is made, not for its own sake, but "for the sake of [God's] kingdom" (Matthew 19:12), as a prophetic witness against a culture's abuse of sex, wealth (greed), and power (domination) and toward a more available and universal love beyond family ties, personal possessions, and self-determination. As a concrete form of Christian faith and life, it emphasizes the relativity of all the goods of this earth in the face of the only absolute, God, and a life lived definitively with God beyond this world.

This way of life first appeared in the second half of the first century in the person of "virgins" (mostly women but also some men) who lived at home and, by refusing to marry and produce offspring (they claimed to be "spouses of Christ"), countered the absolutist claims of the state (Rome) and hence many of them became martyrs. After Constantine's conversion to Christianity (313) and Christianity's establishment as the state religion, "religious life" developed further as a major movement away from the "world" and the worldliness of the church. The monastic life of monks and nuns is a variation on this tradition. At the beginning of the modern Western world, various new religious orders sprang up (the largest being the Jesuits) that saw themselves not as fleeing from the world but as "apostles" sent out into the world in service. In more recent centuries, many communities of religious women were founded with a similar goal of apostolic service, often with Jesuit-inspired constitutions.

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Rhodes, Alexander (1591-1660)

French Jesuit; missioner to Vietnam

Alexander Rhodes, of Jewish Spanish descent, was born in Avignon in southern France. In 1625, as a Jesuit missioner, he went to Cochin, China, and two years later to Tonkin in Indochina. There he did “gigantic work in building a church which through three and a half centuries of turbulent history . . . numbers those who have died for the faith in the hundreds of thousands, a record for protracted martyrdom with few, if any, parallels in the annals of Christianity” (Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus (1968).

In his missiology, Rhodes favored an understanding and acceptance of Vietnamese customs, he wore Vietnamese clothing, and he was a master of their language, being the first person to transcribe it in western characters and write its grammar. He insisted on the development of a native clergy and arranged with Rome to have church officials unconnected to the Portuguese colonial system. He trained catechists who became the backbone of the young but fast-growing Vietnamese church.

See Phan, Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam (1998).

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Ricci, Matteo (1552-1610)

Italian Jesuit; missioner to China, pioneer practitioner of inculturation

First Jesuit to enter the forbidden kingdom of China and reach the court of the emperor; adopted Chinese language, dress, and culture, and wrote two of the great masterpieces of Chinese (Mandarin) literature.

Born the year Francis Xavier died, Ricci was the living incarnation of the adaptive principles set out by the Jesuit visitor Alessandro Valignano (1538-1606) in his missiology for the Far East. Trained in mathematics and the sciences under Clavius (1538-1612) at the Roman College, Ricci appealed to the natural curiosity of the educated Mandarin class in China by his exhibition of clocks, prisms, mathematical instruments, oil paintings, and maps of the world.

He ran into difficulty with certain traditional Chinese ritual practices in honor of ancestors and of Confucius. His final judgment was that these practices were more cultural and civic than religious and so should be allowed to converts. The issue remained in dispute till the 18th-century condemnation of the “Chinese Rites” by the Vatican. See “Inculturation.”

Matteo Ricci is one of the five Jesuits that Ronald Modras treats in his Ignatian Humanism (Loyola, 2004). Vincent Cronin was Ricci’s first book-length biographer in English (The Wise Man from the West [Dutton, 1954]). A more recent biography is The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan Spence (Viking, 1984).

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Rodriguez, Alphonsus (1533-1617)

Spanish Jesuit brother; doorkeeper

Alphonsus Rodriguez’s father was a prosperous cloth merchant in Segovia. When Peter Faber, one of the closest companions of Ignatius of Loyola, came to town to preach and teach catechism, he stayed with the family and along with other ministries prepared Alphonsus for his first communion. Alphonsus went to a Jesuit school, but did not finish because his father died suddenly. He helped his mother carry on and eventually took over the family business. At 27, he married Maria Suarez and the couple had three children. But their happy family life was interrupted by the deaths in quick succession of one, then another child, then his wife and finally the only remaining child, leaving Alphonsus a lonely, grieving widower.

At approximately age 35, he sought entry into the Jesuit novitiate to become a priest. But he was refused, told that he was too old and lacked sufficient education and health. He went to Valencia to finish his studies and applied again and again was turned down—until the provincial superior overruled the examiners’ decision. Shortly after entering the novitiate as a Jesuit brother, he was sent to the Jesuit college in Palma on the island of Majorca off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean. He wound up spending the rest of his life there. After holding a number of positions in his early years there, he was appointed doorkeeper; he welcomed visitors who came to see Jesuits or students, delivered messages, and offered counsel to many who sought his advice. Among them was the young Peter Claver, whom he encouraged to go to the South American missions, where he became a minister to the slaves brought from Africa to Cartagena (in present-day Colombia).

Although few knew the deep, intense mystical inner life with which he was graced, many sensed the holiness of the man. When Alphonsus was declared a saint in 1888, the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins celebrated the event with a sonnet that concludes . . .

Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

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

 

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms S

Sanchez, Matteo

Pseudonym used by Jesuit leaders for Juana, daughter of Emperor Charles V and Regent of Spain, in considering her application to become a Jesuit

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Scholastic

A Jesuit with first vows in the process of formation leading eventually to ordination as a priest.

See Formation, Stages of Jesuit (Early).

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Segundo, Juan Luis (1925-1996)

Uruguayan Jesuit; liberation theologian

Juan Luis Segundo has been called “the most original and the most profound of Latin American theologians.” After theological studies at Louvain in Belgium (where the diocesan priest-theologian Gustavo Gutierrez , often said to be the father of Latin American liberation theology, was his classmate), he returned to Montevideo and worked for ten years at the Peter Faber theological and social center which he had founded in 1965. Out of this experience came his first major theological work in five volumes called (in Spanish) “An Open Theology for an Adult Laity” (English translation titled A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity [1973-74]).

Segundo established the fundamental method of liberation theology as operating with “the hermeneutical circle,” the circular relationship between a theologian’s social context and her or his interpretation of doctrines or texts. Since “all ideas are always encountered in and within a social context, one cannot know God’s self-revelation except as that revelation is embodied in a social context or lived experience.” Failure to take account of the historical character of Christian faith “condemns the Christian faith to irrelevance” (Goizueta, “Juan Luis Segundo,” in A New Handbook of Christian Theologians[1996].

See Hinsdale, “Jesuit Theological Discourse after Vatican II,” The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits [2008]).

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Service Learning

To be fully prepared to find one's place in a rapidly changing global society, experience in the world, including the local community, is an integral part of Ignatian pedagogy. As the former Superior General, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., stated, “Solidarity is learned through 'contact' rather than through 'concepts'...When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change…..All American universities, ours [Jesuit] included, are under tremendous pressure to opt entirely for success in this sense [acquiring professional and technical skills]. But what our students want — and deserve — includes but transcends this ‘worldly success’ based on marketable skills. The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become.” Service experiences challenge people to use their talents and abilities to make this a better world, to become “agents of change” and become people of competence and compassion.

Service learning offices and officers at Jesuit universities
from the Service Learning Office at LMU

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The Service of Faith

and the Promotion of Justice

In 1975, Jesuits from around the world met in solemn assembly (General Congregation 32) to assess their present state and to sketch plans for the future. Following the lead of a recent international assembly ("synod") of Catholic bishops, they came to see that the hallmark of any ministry deserving of the name Jesuit would be its "service of faith" of which the "promotion of justice" is an absolute requirement. In other words, Jesuit education should be noteworthy for the way it helps students — and for that matter, faculty, staff and administrators — to move, in freedom, toward a mature and intellectually adult faith. This includes enabling them to develop a disciplined sensitivity toward the suffering of our world and a will to act for the transformation of unjust social structures that cause that suffering. The enormous challenge, to which none of us are entirely equal, nevertheless falls on all of us, not just on campus ministry and members of theology and philosophy departments.

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Seton, Elizabeth Bayley (1774-1821)

Foundress of the Sisters of Charity, first community of women religious founded in the U.S.; first native-born U.S. saint

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton began the Sisters of Charity, the first religious community of women founded in the United States. She was born into a prominent Episcopalian family in New York City, August 28, 1774. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was a physician, professor of medicine, and one of the first health officers of New York City. Her mother, Catherine Charlton Bayley, daughter of a Protestant Episcopal minister, died when Elizabeth was only three years old.

Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, scion of a wealthy New York mercantile family with international connections, January 25, 1794, at the home of her sister, Mary Bayley Post. Five children were born between 1795 and 1802, Anna Maria, William, Richard, Catherine, and Rebecca. As a young society matron, Elizabeth enjoyed a full life of loving service to her family, care for the indigent poor, and religious development in her Episcopal faith, nurtured by the preaching and guidance of Rev. John Henry Hobart, an assistant at Trinity Church.

As the eighteenth century drew to a close, a double tragedy visited Elizabeth. Political and economic turmoil took a severe toll on William Seton's business and on his health. He became increasingly debilitated by the family affliction, tuberculosis. Hoping to arrest the disease, Elizabeth, William, and Anna Maria embarked on a voyage to Italy. On their arrival in Leghorn, they were placed in quarantine; soon after, December 27, 1803, William died. Waiting to return to their family, Elizabeth and Anna Maria spent several months with the Filicchi brothers of Leghorn (Livorno), business associates of her husband.

For the first time Elizabeth experienced Roman Catholic piety in her social equals. She was deeply impressed, especially by the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. She returned to New York in June 1804, full of religious turmoil. After almost a year of searching, she made her profession of faith as a Roman Catholic in March 1805, a choice which triggered three years of financial struggle and social discrimination. At the invitation of several priests, she moved with her family to Baltimore in June 1808 to open a school for girls.

Catholic women from around the country came to join her work. Gradually, the dream of a religious congregation became a reality. The women soon moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where they formally began their religious life as Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's July 31, 1809. Elizabeth Seton was named first superior and served in that capacity for the next twelve years.

As the community took shape, Elizabeth directed its vision. A Rule was adapted from that of the French Daughters of Charity, a novitiate was conducted, and the first group, including Elizabeth, made religious vows July 19, 1813. In 1814 the community accepted its first mission outside Emmitsburg, an orphanage in Philadelphia. By 1817 sisters had been sent to staff a similar work in New York.

During her years in Emmitsburg, Elizabeth suffered the loss of two of her daughters to tuberculosis, Anna Maria in 1812 and Rebecca in 1816. By that time she herself was weak from the effects of the disease. She spent the last years of her life directing St. Joseph's Academy and her growing community. She died January 4, 1821, not yet forty-seven years old.

Elizabeth Seton was canonized September 14, 1975, by Pope Paul VI as the first native-born saint of the United States.

From Elizabeth Bayley Seton: Collected Writings, 4 vols. (New City Press, 2000-2006).

RB and JM

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Sisters of Loreto

Popular name of the women's relgious congregation "Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (IBVM).

See Ward, Mary, and Ball, Frances.

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Social Justice

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Society of Jesus, The ("The Jesuits")

Catholic religious order of men founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and a small group of his multinational "friends in the Lord," fellow students from the University of Paris. They saw their mission as one of being available to go anywhere and do anything to "help souls," especially where the need was greatest (e.g., where a certain people or a certain kind of work were neglected).

Today, numbering about 17,000 priests, brothers, and scholastics, they are spread out in almost every country of the world ("more branch offices," said Pedro Arrupe, "than Coca-Cola") — declining in numbers in Europe and North America, but holding steady in India, Africa, Latin America and the Far East. The largest group is from India, more than one fifth of the whole membership and about one third of the Society's novices and scholastics (those in early formation, the first ten to twelve years). The U.S. and Latin America each have 14% of the total.

The abbreviation "S.J." after a person's name means that he is a member of the Society of Jesus.

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Solidarity

Solidarity deals with the “unity that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards.”  

“Solidarity” is a term dear to the Polish Pope John Paul II.  He used it often in his writings, especially in social encyclical letters like “The Social Concern of the Church” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis–1988) and “On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum” (Centesimus Annus—1991) and thus it passed into the vocabulary of Catholic church teaching.

President of Xavier University, Michael J. Graham, SJ, elucidated the term as follows: “It denotes a habit of being, if you will, a way that people are and stand with one another as they take on each other’s cares and concerns as if they were their own.  People who stand in solidarity with one another act upon their vocations as sons and daughters of the one God and share the circumstances of their lives; they take the advantages that they have been given and place them at the service of others who have not been similarly blessed.”

Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Jesuits from 1983 to 2008, stated that solidarity is learned through “contact” rather than through “concepts.” He continued to say that personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection.

Read more on the term "Solidarity"

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Spee Von Langenfeld, Friedrich (1595-1635)

German Jesuit; writer, defender of women "convicted" of being "witches"

Scholar, writer, composer of hymns used by both Catholics and Lutherans, and fighter with his every gift of intellect and rhetoric to expose the scapegoating of women as “witches” and to prevent their execution—burning at the stake.

In the midst of plague, famine, and war, a more terrible evil arose in Germany: a widespread mania for witch-hunting carried out by both church and civil authorities. Spee listened to women accused and “convicted” with confessions of guilt obtained under torture. And he accompanied them to their execution, convinced of their innocence. He was identified as author of the anonymous Latin tome Caution in Criminal Proceedings (1631). An attempt was made on his life; it left him with constant pain. Eventually his bold and incisive moves “halted the madness by exposing it for what it was, an amalgam of superstition, fear, malice, and injustice” (Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus). He died young caring for victims of the plague.

The biographical essay on Spee in Ronald Modras’ Ignatian Humanism (Loyola, 2004) is the best account available in English.

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Spiritual Exercises

Any of a variety of methods or activities for opening oneself to God's spirit and allowing one's whole being, not just the mind, to be affected. The methods — some of them more "active" and others more "passive" — might include vocal prayer (e.g., the Lord's Prayer), meditation or contemplation, journaling or other kind of writing, reading of scripture or other great works of verbal art, drawing, painting or molding with clay, looking at works of visual art, playing or listening to music, working or walking in the midst of nature. All of these activities have the same goal in mind—discontinuing one's usual productive activities and thus allowing God to "speak," listening to what God may be "saying" through the medium employed.

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The Spiritual Exercises

An organized series of spiritual exercises put together by Ignatius of Loyola out of his own personal spiritual experience and that of others to whom he listened. They invite the "retreatant" or "exercitant" to "meditate" on central aspects of Christian faith (e.g., creation, sin and forgiveness, calling and ministry) and especially to "contemplate" (i.e. imaginatively enter into) the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Ignatius set all of this down in the book of the Spiritual Exercises as a handbook to help the guide who coaches a person engaged in "making the Exercises." After listening to that person and getting a sense for where he/she is, the guide selects from material and methods in the book of the Exercises and offers them in a way adapted to that unique individual. The goal of all this is the attainment of a kind of spiritual freedom, the power to act — not out of social pressure or personal compulsion and fear — but out of the promptings of God's spirit in the deepest, truest core of one's being — to act ultimately out of love.

As originally designed, the "full" Spiritual Exercises would occupy a person for four weeks full-time, but Ignatius realized that some people could not (today most people cannot) disengage from work and home obligations for that long a time, and so it is possible to make the "full" Exercises part-time over a period of six to nine or 10 months — the "Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life." In that case, the "exercitant," without withdrawing from home or work, devotes about an hour a day to prayer (but this, like nearly everything in the Exercises, is adaptable) and sees a guide every week or two to process what has been happening in prayer and in the rest of his/her life.

Most of the time people make not the "full" Spiritual Exercises but a retreat in the Ignatian spirit that might last anywhere from a weekend to a week. Such a retreat usually includes either a daily individual conversation with a guide or several daily presentations to a group, as preparation for prayer/spiritual exercises.

Ignatius had composed and revised his little book over a period of 25 or more years before it was finally published in 1548. Subsequent editions and translations — according to a plausible estimate — numbered some 4,500 in 1948 or about one a month over four centuries, the total number of copies printed being around 4.5 million. It is largely on his Exercises — with their implications for teaching and learning in a holistic way — that Ignatius' reputation as a major figure in the history of Western education rests.

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Spiritual Guidance/Direction

People are often helped to integrate their faith and their life by talking on a regular basis (e.g., monthly) with someone they can trust. This person acts as a guide (sometimes also called a spiritual friend, companion or director) for the journey, helping them to find the presence and call of God in the people and circumstances of their everyday lives.

The assumption is that God is already present there, and that another person, a guide, can help them to notice God's presence and also to find words for talking about that presence, because they are not used to doing so. The guide is often a specially trained listener skilled in discernment and therefore able to help them sort out the various voices within and around them. While he/she may suggest various kinds of spiritual exercises/ways of praying, the focus is much broader than that; it is upon the whole of a person's life experience as the place to meet God.

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Spirituality

The spiritual is often defined as that which is "non-material," but this definition runs into problems when applied to human beings, who are traditionally considered "body-spirits," both bodily and spiritual. In some modern philosophies and psychologies, however, the spiritual dimension of the human is denied or disregarded. And many aspects of our contemporary American culture (e.g., the hurried sense of time and need to produce, produce) make it difficult to pay attention to this dimension.

Fundamentally, the spiritual dimension of human beings can be recognized in the orientation of our minds and hearts toward ever more than we have already reached (the never-satisfied human mind and the never-satisfied human heart). We are drawn inevitably toward the "Absolute" or the "Fullness of Being" [see "God"]. Consequently, there are depths to our being that we can only just begin to fathom.

If every human being has this spiritual dimension and hunger, then even in a culture like ours, everyone will have — at least at times — some awareness of it, even if that awareness is not explicit and not put into words. When people talk of a "spirituality," however, they usually mean, not the spirituality that human beings have by nature, but rather a set of attitudes and practices (spiritual exercises) that are designed to foster a greater consciousness of this spiritual dimension and (in the case of those who can affirm belief in God) a more explicit seeking of its object — the Divine or God.

Ignatian spirituality with its Spiritual Exercises is one such path among many within Christianity, to say nothing of the spiritualities within other religious traditions, or those more or less outside a religious tradition. ("Peoples' spiritual lives [today] have not died; they are simply taking place outside the church [Jesuit General Congregation 34, "Our Mission and Culture"].)

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Starkloff, Carl (1933-2008)

American Jesuit; Native American dialogue partner, missiologist

Carl Starkloff worked with Native Americans in Canada and the U.S. for some 30 years. His rich experience yielded important and enlightening testimony from this cross-cultural dialogue. He describes his early experience of this ministry as a “tensive interaction.” Only when a fundamental equality of all partners was assumed did such conversations become true engagements of interfaith dialogue. “[F]or the first time [Native leaders] were being listened to as representatives of an authentic religious tradition” (Starkloff, “After September 11, 2001: Whither Mission?” In All Things (publication of U.S. Jesuit Social Ministries Office) [Fall/Winter 2001]. See also Hinsdale, “Jesuit Theological Discourse since Vatican II,” Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits [2008]).

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Superior General

Superior General is the title given to the world leader of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order. There have been 30 since the formation of the order, beginning with Ignatius of Loyola in 1541. Superiors general are elected for life by Jesuit delegates from around the world, gathered together in a general congregation. The current leader, elected in January 2008 during GC 35, is Adolfo Nicolás (1936- ), a Spaniard who had spent most of his Jesuit life in Japan and the Far East.

Go forth and set the world on fire.
Ignatius Loyola, SJ - 1st Superior General

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.
Pedro Arrupe, SJ - 28th Superior General

Solidarity is learned through contact rather than through concepts. When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change.
Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ - 29th Superior General

And then [living in a world as different as the Far East] has taught me to smile at the difficulties, at human imperfection, the human reality. In Spain I was a little intolerant, thinking in terms of order, of commands, because I thought of religion as fidelity to religious practices, and in Japan I learned that true religiosity is more profound, that one must go to the heart of things, to the depths of our humanity, whether we are speaking of God or we are speaking of ourselves and of human life.
Adolfo Nicolás, SJ - 30th Superior General

Superiors General (from Ignatius Loyola to Adolfo Nicolás)

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Suppression of the Society of Jesus

Various theories have been put forward to explain the suppression of the Jesuits: the Enlightenment critiques of Diderot and Voltaire, the process of secularization that culminated in the French Revolution, the Society’s own supposed misdemeanors - alleged laxity in moral teaching, erroneously supposed enormous wealth from the missions in South America, missionary work in the non-European world that made too many concessions to local cultures, the order’s supranational character in a Europe made up of increasingly national churches. Yet, as Jonathan Wright, a reputable independent scholar puts it, “striving for some over-riding explanation of the Jesuits’ destruction is a mistake. No single explanation fits the facts of the various national suppressions [Portugal in 1759, France in 1764, Spain in 1767]. . . [E]ach of the national suppressions has to be explained as a discrete political event, governed by particular grudges and aspirations.” Finally, under extreme pressure from the Bourbon monarchs, the new pope, Clement XIV, signed the papal “brief” of suppression in the summer of 1773. It seemed, said the pope, as if “I have cut off my right hand.”

Many of the former Jesuits suffered, not just the loss of their school buildings and other properties, but exile and worse, though some thrived as members of new orders or as diocesan priests (in the U.S., John Carroll became the first bishop and the founder of Georgetown College - now University). In Prussia [temporarily] and in Russia [through all the years of suppression] the corporate Society lived on because the rulers refused to promulgate the pope’s brief of suppression. The Russian Society of Jesus was given official papal recognition in 1804. And when in 1814 the world-wide order was restored, various national and local communities of Jesuits began their existence by affiliating with the Society there.

During the forty to fifty years of suppression, the upheaval of the French Revolution took place and in its aftermath the turn of Europe back to the stability of conservative politics and religion. And the Society itself, in spite of operating in a very cautious manner, unknowingly lost some of its understanding and practices of the living spiritual tradition going back to the founder Ignatius (1491-1556). They would not be recovered until well into the 20th century.

See Wright, "The Suppression and Restoration," Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (2008).

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Sustainability

Sustainability is “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (from The Brundtland Report - A United Nations sponsored study of the relationship between economic development and the environment published as "Our Common Future" in 1987).

At the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference in October 2006, 12 presidents agreed to launch the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. Since then, a number of Jesuit university presidents have signed the Commitment, including Michael J. Graham SJ who stated, "As a Catholic, Jesuit University, it is Xavier's responsibility to undertake issues which have an impact not only on our campus, but on all of today's society."

Initiatives at Jesuit universities:

See 2-minute video clips on Sustainability issues.

See a powerpoint on Ignatian Spirituality & Sustainability by Annette Marksberry.

View Sustainability and Catholic Higher Education: A Toolkit for Mission Integration which is published by eight national Catholic organizations, including the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Read "The Place of Sustainability and the Environment within Roman Catholic Thought" a speech by Michael J. Graham, S.J., President of Xavier University, given on Sustainability Day, November 7, 2011.

See ecology.

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

 

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Jesuit Terms T

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre (1881-1955)

French Jesuit; paleontologist; one of the great minds of the 20th century

Paleontologist and proponent of a poetic synthesis of the evolutionary perspective of modern science with the Christian worldview. Precursor of today’s ecologists in their respect and love for the Earth.

Exiled to China in 1923 (he was there for the better part of 23 years) to prevent his teaching and lecturing on evolution, he could not have gone to a better place. There—along with participating in scientific expeditions in Central Asia, India, and Burma—he was a member of the team that discovered Peking Man, another link of evidence in the chain of human evolution.

The last years of his life Teilhard lived in New York elaborating a kind of new anthropology. Most of his non-technical writings were kept from publication and only appeared, without church approval, after his death. The Human Phenomenon (new translation by Sarah Appleton-Weber 1999), The Future of Man (1959), The Divine Milieu (1960) and other works called forth an extraordinary response from many quarters; they also engendered much controversy.

In these non-technical works, he used scientific data, but the method was not science. Rather it was poetic and visionary.

See the superb biography by Ursula King Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin (Orbis, 1996).

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Tertianship

The stages of Jesuit formation

The last phase of a Jesuit's (early) formation. It takes place only after several years of full-time (ordained) ministry. The name comes from the Latin word for "third" and so this stage is sometimes called "third probation" (the first two years of probation being the Novitiate years back at the beginning of Jesuit life). The Tertian once again makes the 30-day Spiritual Exercises under individual guidance and often spends some time living and working among the poor. T-ship lasts anywhere from a semester to a whole academic year or, in a common contemporary adaptation, two consecutive summers. Given today's longevity, it often becomes important for a Jesuit to pursue some further formation later in life and in an ongoing way.

See also Novitiate, First Studies, Regency, and Theology

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Theology

The stages of Jesuit formation

The fourth stage of a Jesuit's formation and education consisting of 3 years of theological studies and supervised ministry leading to the professional degree of Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and in a 4th year study for an advanced master's degree or further ministerial work. Ordination, for those going on to priesthood, usually takes place after the third year. In contrast to the practice before Vatican Council II, the Jesuit brother now goes through the same stages pursued by a "scholastic" (one headed to priesthood), with minimal adjustment because he won't be ordained.

See also Novitiate, First Studies, Regency, and Tertianship

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Theology

The examination of the nature of God, God's relation to the world, and rational inquiry into religious questions. The word "theology" comes from two Greek words that combined mean "the study of God."

Theology on the Internet
A Resource from the Xavier University Library

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Traub, George (1936- )

American Jesuit; teacher, mentor, and author

George W. Traub, SJ, has spent nearly 25 years fostering a greater understanding of Jesuit mission and identity and has spent more than 35 years in Jesuit education. Currently he is Executive Director of the Center for Mission and Identity at Xavier University. He is the author of  An Ignatian Spirituality Reader (Loyola Press), A Jesuit Education Reader (Loyola Press), and Do You Speak Ignatian?. He is also the author of much of "Jesuit A to Z" including the 60 Jesuit biographies here on Jesuit Resource.

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

 

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Jesuit Terms U

Universidad Centroamericana (UCA)

For more information concerning the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador and the events surrounding them, see The Martyrs of the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA).

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Universities and Colleges

Homepages

See Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

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

 

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Jesuit Terms V

Valignano, Alessandro (1538-1606)

Italian Jesuit; architect of inculturation for Japan and China

For 33 years Alessandro Valignano served as “visitor” to the Jesuit missions in India, Japan, and China, consolidating the work begun by Francis Xavier.

Convinced that Jesuit missioners must dissociate themselves from the marauding ways of western adventurers, he drew up the following mission principles:

A deep sympathy and respect for the intellectual and spiritual values of the [peoples]; the most perfect command possible of the language; the use of science as a step in the introduction of the faith; the development of the apostolate of writing and conversation; special concern for the cultivated classes on whom the government . . . depended; and the primacy of supernatural virtue (Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus [1986]).

In 1582 a gifted 30-year-old Italian scholar, scientist, and linguist named Matteo Ricci arrived in China. He became the epitome of Valignano’s principles.

Concerning Japan, Valignano convinced Pope Gregory XIII to grant the Jesuits exclusive rights to evangelize the country—on the grounds that Jesuit (largely Portuguese) and Franciscan (Spanish) mission principles and activities were so vastly different that the Japanese would take Christianity for nothing more than bickering sects. This wise caution was confirmed when 23 years later the Franciscans did come and were soon suspected of being a fifth column for a Spanish attack on Japan. The result was the great persecution of 1597.

Schutte, Valignano’s Mission Principles for Japan (1980-85).
Ross, “Alessandro Valignano: The Jesuits and Culture in the East” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773, ed. John O’Malley (1999).

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Vatican Council II

Convoked by Pope John XXIII to bring the Catholic Church “up to date,” and continued by his successor Paul VI after John’s death, this 21st Ecumenical (i.e.. worldwide) Council (1962-1965) signaled the Catholic Church's growth from a church of cultural confinement (largely European) to a genuine world church. The Council set its seal on the work of 20th century theologians that earlier had often been officially considered dangerous or erroneous. Thus, the biblical movement, the liturgical renewal and the lay movement were incorporated into official Catholic doctrine and practice.

Here are several significant new perspectives coming from the Council: celebration of liturgy (worship) in various vernacular languages rather than Latin, to facilitate understanding and lay participation; viewing the Church as "the whole people of God" rather than just as clergy and viewing other Christian bodies (Protestant, Orthodox) as belonging to it; recognizing non-Christian religions as containing truth; honoring freedom of conscience as a basic human right; and finally including in its mission a reaching out to people in all their human hopes, needs, sufferings as an essential part of preaching the gospel.

Of equal importance with these new perspectives is the style or genre in which they were delivered. The documents of earlier councils always had a negative tone; they listed errors to be corrected and condemned anyone who held them. The documents of Vatican II, in contrast, were written in a positive tone, in keeping with the “pastoral” approach that Pope John had called for in his initial remarks to the gathered bishops. These documents addressed not just Catholics, but all people; and they urged ideals that many could embrace.

There were at times heated interventions from the floor and a good deal of maneuvering behind the scene. Yet in the end a huge majority of the bishops voted to approve each of the documents in turn. The conviction and determination of those in the tiny minority, however, did not go away with the closing of the Council. To this day Catholics are seriously divided on the question of Vatican II, some ("conservatives") considering it to have failed by giving away essentials of tradition and others ("liberals") feeling it has been too little and too imperfectly realized.

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

 

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Jesuit Terms W

Ward, Mary (1585-1645)
Pioneer for Women in ministry; "venerable"

Born in 1585 into a devoted Catholic family in Yorkshire, from childhood Mary Ward knew religious persecution, not unlike trouble spots in today’s world: raids, imprisonment, torture, execution. Frequently separated from her family for her own protection, Mary was inspired by their steadfast heroism. At age fifteen, she felt called to become a religious. Since religious communities had been dispersed decades previously in England and on the continent, cloistered life was the only option for women at that time. She left England to become a Poor Clare. Through special graced insights, God showed her that she was to do something different and would manifest God’s glory. Leaving the Poor Clares, she worked in disguise to preserve the Catholic faith in England before founding a community of active sisters in 1609 at St. Omer in present-day Belgium. Without cloister, she and her companions educated young women, helped persecuted and imprisoned Catholics, and spread the word of God in places priests could not go. The Sisters lived and worked openly on the continent, but secretly in England to nurture the faith.

At one time, she was imprisoned in England for her work with outlawed Catholics. Many who knew her, from bishops and monarchs to simple people, admired her courage and generosity. In days before Boeing 747’s or even Amtrak, she traveled Europe on foot, in dire poverty and frequently ill, founding schools in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Austria, and in today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia. Criticized and maligned for her efforts to expand the role of women in spreading the faith, she was imprisoned by Church officials who called her a dangerous heretic. Her work was destroyed, her community suppressed, and her sisters scattered. Never abandoning her trust in God’s guidance, she died in York, England, in 1645 during the Cromwellian Civil War. To the end, she trusted totally that what God had asked of her would be accomplished in the future.

Mary Ward taught by example and words. Act “without fear… in quiet confidence that God will do his will in the confusion.” Her unwavering fidelity to “that which God would” was nourished by deep contemplative prayer. To Mary, God was the “Friend of all friends.” She lived her fidelity with cheerfulness and a passion for truth. What may seem to us ordinary was startling in her time: she had no pattern to follow when she established her community for women, except the life and work followed by the Jesuit men. She sought to empower women to fulfill whatever part God called them to play, as did the women in the Acts of the Apostles, as women concerned for the poor. Mary and her companions established free schools, nursed the sick and visited prisoners. Even her Protestant neighbors attested to her love for the poor and her perseverance in helping them. Her concept of freedom for her community, externally from cloister, choir, habit, and rule by men, and internally in the ability to “refer all to God,” enabled her to live undeterred by adversity, never deviating from the way God called her. She invited her followers to “become lovers of truth and workers of justice.”

Not until 1909 did the Church finally recognize Mary Ward as founder of the IBVM. She was a pioneer for women’s role in Church ministry and a woman ahead of her time in shaping apostolic religious life as we know it today. Mary Ward expected much and believed with all her heart that, “Women in time to come will do much.”

In December 2009 Pope Benedict XVI recognized Mary Ward as a woman of “heroic virtue” and conferred on her the title “venerable.”

Copyright 2005 by the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, IBVM. All Rights Reserved
Reprinted with permission.

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Western Conversations

Each fall, six western Jesuit universities sponsor a conference called Western Conversations in Jesuit Higher Education bringing faculty delegates together for in-depth discussions on important topics related to the Jesuit Catholic educational mission. Participating institutions include Gonzaga University, Loyola Marymount University, Regis University, Santa Clara University, Seattle University and the University of San Francisco.

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Women

See Juana, S.J.

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Women, Ignatius of Loyola and

See Monsterrat, Our Lady of.

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

 

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Jesuit Terms X

Xavier, Francis (1506-1552)

One of the first companions at Paris; missioner to India and Japan; saint

Native like Ignatius of the Basque territory of northern Spain, Francis became a close friend of Ignatius at the University of Paris, came to share Ignatius' vision through making the Spiritual Exercises, and realized that vision through missionary labors in India, the Indonesian archipelago and Japan. He was the first Jesuit to go out to people of non-European culture. And as he moved from his early missionary endeavors in India to his later ones in Japan, it seems that the implications of what we call inculturation started to dawn on him.

In Spanish, the name is often spelled "Javier."

In the Footsteps of Saint Francis Xavier
Mark Antulov

Francis Xavier: A Contemporary View of His Life and Work
Debra Mooney, Xavier University

St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) on the Catholic Information Network
Kate O'Brien

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Xavier University

Cincinnati, Ohio

Quick Facts
  • Founded in 1831
  • Private, coeducational university
  • Provides a liberal arts education in the Catholic, Jesuit tradition
  • The third-largest independent institution in Ohio
  • Sixth-oldest Catholic university in the nation
  • One of 28 Jesuit colleges and universities nationwide
Notables
  • U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges issue ranks Xavier No. 2 among 142 master's-level colleges and universities in the Midwest. Xavier has ranked in the report's top 10 for 10 straight years.
  • Xavier was named one of the "Best 366 Colleges in America" by The Princeton Review.
  • The Williams College of Business is listed as one of the "Best 290 Business Schools" in the nation, according to The Princeton Review's guidebook of business schools.
  • Xavier is ranked as the most desirable institution to attend among 139 master's-level colleges and Universities, according to a survey of college-bound students by Carnegie Communications.
  • Xavier's freshman retention rate of 88 percent exceeds the national average of 75 percent.
  • Xavier's five-year medical school acceptance rate of 80 percent for applicants to enter vs. national acceptance rate of 46 percent.
  • The average rate of graduation for student-athletes (approximately 80 percent) ranks among the best in the nation.
  • International study opportunities are offered in more than 16 countries; service learning semesters offered Nicaragua, Ghana, India, Nepal and urban Cincinnati.

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

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms Y

Terms Y

Youth Comments

Comments on Jesuit Education

The community of Jesuit education provides opportunities for students to look after their mind, body and well-being through reflection, thought and involvement with others. We are pushed towards greatness.
Max Spread

Selflessly giving and placing others before ourselves in any possible way is our call of duty.
David Lorentz

Rather than having a part of my life devoted to serving others, I am working to make everything I do be service of others.
Betsy Hoover

As a biology major, my studies in the intricacies of our world have caused me to reflect upon a divine presence in our midst. I can see the fingerprints of God touching not only the macroscopic world, but also the world under the microscope.
Ashley McMaster

In order to function, you must have food, shelter and clothing. In order to fulfill your full potential, you require much more – most of which tend to be ideas that are forgotten by an active college student... It is important to set aside a regular time for personal reflection
Joseph Van Deman

Still, after each of these failures, not only have I grown as a leader and person, but I have avoided making the mistakes that caused these failures in future endeavors.
William Buckley

The quotes are taken from Go Forth and Set the World on Fire – Student Life in the Jesuit Tradition.

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

Terms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | View All

Jesuit Terms Z

Zipoli, Domenico (1688-1726)

Italian Jesuit scholastic; baroque composer and musician; missioner to Paraguay “Reductions"

As a young man, Domenico Zipoli studied with Alessandro Scarlati and other recognized masters. At the age of 28 he joined the Jesuits and a year later went to serve in the Paraguay mission. There he did his greatest work in music for the native people. After only nine years on the mission, he died, not yet ordained.
The Boston College Jesuit musicologist T. Frank Kennedy has devoted considerable attention to Zipoli. See, for example, “Music and the Jesuit Mission in the New World,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits (Autumn 2007).

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Zucchi, Nicolas (1586-1670)

Italian Jesuit; designer of one of the earliest reflecting telescopes

An Italian astronomer and professor who designed one of the earliest reflecting telescopes by constructing an apparatus which uses a lens to observe the image focused from a concave mirror. With this telescope, Zucchi discovered two belts of the planet Jupiter and examined the spots on Mars (1640). This was the model for many of the later designs by scientists such as James Gregory and Isaac Newton. Zucchius Crater on the moon is named in his honor.

A list of Jesuit scientists

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