No religious order has spawned as much passion and controversy as the Jesuits. What is so fascinating about the Jesuits is how they responded to the modern world, and how they differed from the Dominicans and Franciscans and other medieval monastic orders. Why were they so despised? Why was the Jesuit order suppressed? Why were they persecuted? Why were they punished? Were they to blame for their troubles? We will ponder these questions using John O’Malley’s book on the Jesuits. We will reflect on: • The founding of the Jesuit Order by Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier in the 1500’s, blessed by Pope Paul III, soon after the Protestant Reformation. • How the Jesuits advanced Catholic education and colleges after the Council of Trent, and how Jesuits became expert fund raisers so poorer students would not need to pay tuition. • How the Jesuits started the modern retreat ministry based on Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. • The spiritual battles between the Jesuits and Protestants, and also the Catholic Jansenists. The extreme polarization of the times is illustrated by the Protestant work, Foxes Book of Martyrs. • How envy of the apparent wealth of the Jesuit Order caused many monarchs to seize Jesuit properties, leading to the dissolution of the Jesuit Order in 1773. • How the French Revolution seized church properties. After Napoleon was defeated, the Congress of Vienna in 1814 restored the monarchies, including the Pope, and the Jesuit Order, which had to be restarted from scratch. • Summary of Jesuit missionary ventures in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In China the efforts of Matteo Ricci were nullified when the popes refused to permit local Chinese rites for the celebration of the Mass. • The evolving position of the Jesuits and the Catholic Church regarding the poor in Latin America. How Jesuit priests were martyred in the El Salvador civil war, and how Pope Paul II confronted the Liberation Theology of Latin America. How the future Jesuit Pope Francis and Pope Benedict emphasized the need for the preferential love for the poor in the Latin American Aparecida bishop’s conference in 2013. YouTube video, © Copyright 2021: https://youtu.be/16HRnyenOVc Please support our channel by purchasing the books we discuss from Amazon, we receive a small associate’s commission: The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present, by Father John W. O'Malley https://amzn.to/3EJfD6c The First Jesuits Hardcover, by Father John W. O'Malley https://amzn.to/3sNcHDf Our Blog: http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/history-of-the-jesuits/

2. Today we will learn and reflect on the history of the Catholic Jesuit order, based
on the book by Father John O’Malley, the church historian known for his books on
the Vatican II and Trent church councils.
These are difficult questions to answer, and perhaps our questions and answers
will tell us more about ourselves than the Jesuits, but we must try.
In our thumbnail we included both the founder of the Jesuit order, St Ignatius
Loyola, and Pope Francis, who is the first Jesuit Pope.

3. At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used
for this video. Please, we welcome interesting questions
in the comments. Let us learn and reflect together!

4. YouTube Channel (please subscribe):
Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg
Blog: www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com
Be a patron: https://www.patreon.com/seekingvirtueandwisdom
© Copyright 2022
John O’Malley, History of the Jesuits
https://amzn.to/345YwyV
Kindle Edition
https://amzn.to/3sJa97e
https://amzn.to/3EJfD6c
https://amzn.to/3sNcHDf
https://youtu.be/16HRnyenOVc

5. The Jesuit order was formed in 1540 shortly before the Council of Trent was convened. The
founder, Ignatius Loyola, was a wounded soldier who decided to change careers and serve the
Church. He would become the soldier for Christ in the church militant, vigorously advancing the
cause of the church, defending the Catholic Church from its enemies.
How was Ignatius Loyola converted? He had served in the military for the small state of Navarre in
Spain. During a battle, a French cannonball shattered his legs, leaving him with a lifelong
limp. After several excruciatingly painful medieval operations he recuperated at the castle of
Loyola for many months, with two books at his bedside, excerpts from the Golden Legend on the
holy lives of Saints, and the Life of Christ by Ludolf of Saxony. He examined his life and prayed and
pondered whether he should be a limping soldier, or lead a life like St Dominic and St Francis.
Gradually he became convicted that God was calling him to a new life.

6. Ignatius of Loyola
Receiving the
Papal Bull from
Pope Paul III,
painted after 1743
by Johann
Christoph Handke

7. When Ignatius had recovered sufficiently, he set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but was waylaid
at a town near Barcelona, partially because of an outbreak of the plague. While living in a cave he
absorbed himself so deeply in a regimen of long hours of prayer and fasting and self-flagellation
the he fell into despair, even contemplating suicide. Eventually he shook off his despair and
relaxed his religious regimen.
Ignatius enrolled in the University of Paris, where one of his roommates was Francisco Xavier, who
would become the famous Jesuit missionary to India and Asia. After graduation ten classmates in
all, including Loyola, traveled about Italy and Rome, where their order, the Brotherhood of Jesus,
was approved by Pope Paul III.

8. .

9. The Jesuits shares with the
medieval orders the vows
of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, but in addition
the Jesuits take a fourth
vow. O’Malley emphasizes
this fourth vow is not a vow
of loyalty to the pope, as
many think it, but rather
the fourth vow is a vow to
go on “mission anywhere in
the world, to be ready to
travel among the Turks, or
to the New World, or to the
Lutherans, or to any others
whether infidels or
faithful.”
Mural of Brazilian Jesuit Martyrs in St Ignatius Catholic Church, Paris

10. They looked to the pope to send them out on mission, or to the superior general of
the Jesuit order. The Jesuits also differed from the older religious orders in that they
did not wear a distinctive habit, they did not give up their family name, and they were
not be required to meet for group prayer several times a day.
The Jesuits started a modern ministry, the RETREAT, based on Loyola’s major work,
the Spiritual Exercises. Weekend retreats today are common, Jesuit retreats can be
longer, and are times of self-reflection similar to Loyola’s time of self-reflection when
he asked for God’s guidance. Many in the sixteenth century criticized these retreats
for under emphasizing the sacramental and penitential life and over emphasizing the
direct communication of the individual believer with God, which many felt was a false
mysticism. Indeed, Loyola’s Constitutions, the rule for Jesuits, does not prescribe
penances or austerities for the brothers.
In addition to their wide-ranging missionary ventures, the Jesuits were also deeply
involved in the establishment of schools and colleges. The Council of Trent focused
on the need for better education and to catechize the faithful and the clergy. The
Jesuits had the highest educational requirements for their brothers.

12. https://youtu.be/Thq1blvzWHs

13. Schools were frightfully expensive, even when the Jesuits were the
teachers, especially since the order did not want to charge tuition so
even the poorest could attend their schools. Consequently, the Jesuits
were forced to become experts in fund raising. O’Malley does not
mention this, but probably the Jesuits fell victim to the same tendency
in today’s non-profit organizations dependent on fund raising, where
the top executives need a large salary to fund a lifestyle sufficient to
circulate among the wealthy who needed to fund their schools. The
myth grew that all Jesuit orders printed money in their basements. So
their generosity to the students of the poor indirectly stoked the envy of
others.

14. Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba, Argentina

15. The Jesuits marched to wherever the Catholic Church and the pope needed them to
march. This was the era of the church militant, and the Jesuits were in the thick of the battle,
and their enthusiasm likely led to more misjudgments. O’Malley does not adequately
describe how violently polarized the Protestants and Catholics were at the time. A well-
known Protestant book of this era is Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, it contains one early church
example of martyrdom, the other stories are about Protestants martyred by Catholics. One of
the more memorable stories is how some Anabaptists were tied to a pier in the ocean at low
tide, slowly drowning as the tide came in. The accuracy of these stories are intensely
debated, but all of the stories cannot be totally false, and regardless of degree of truthfulness
of the stories, the fact that such a book would be so popular is testament how violently
vitriolic these times were.
Competition between the Jesuits and the more established orders like the Franciscans and
Dominicans could be just as intense as between Catholics and Protestants. In the eighteenth
century there were intense squabbles between the Jesuits and Jansenists. Jansenists were
strict Augustinians who believed that free will had little or no power in the sinner’s struggle
against original sin.

16. Illustrations, Foxes Book of (mostly Protestant) Martyrs

17. (REPEAT) The Jesuits were less extreme, quoting from O’Malley, “Jesuits and others
who ascribed to probalism taught that, in a conflict of opinion among respectful
theologians over the morality or immorality of a given act, the confessor was
obliged to give the penitent the benefit of the less rigorous option, even if that
opinion was regarded as less probable.”
In other words, the Jesuit philosophy is, Give the Sinner a break, erring on the side
of compassion for someone who is indeed voluntarily confessing their sins,
assume the best, assume that they are truly repentant, wanting to live a more
godly life.
Also, the Jesuits respected the pagan Greek and Roman classics, as part of their
educational endeavors, who abhorred the Jansenists; and the Jesuits favored more
frequent reception of the Eucharist, which Jansenists felt cheapened the
sacraments. To the Jansenists, “the Jesuits were compromisers who betrayed the
purity of the Gospel message and preached an easy road to salvation.” Some
Jansenists became obsessed with destroying the Jesuits.

18. The Jesuits were less extreme, quoting from O’Malley,
“Jesuits and others who ascribed to probalism taught
that, in a conflict of opinion among respectful
theologians over the morality or immorality of a given
act, the confessor was obliged to give the penitent the
benefit of the less rigorous option, even if that opinion
was regarded as less probable.” Also, the Jesuits
respected the pagan Greek and Roman classics, as part of
their educational endeavors, who abhorred the
Jansenists; and the Jesuits favored more frequent
reception of the Eucharist, which Jansenists felt
cheapened the sacraments. To the Jansenists, “the
Jesuits were compromisers who betrayed the purity of
the Gospel message and preached an easy road to
salvation.” Some Jansenists became obsessed with
destroying the Jesuits.
Peter Claver ministering to African slaves at Cartagena

20. The Jesuits were accused of arrogance, some saw their very name, the Brotherhood
of Jesus, of symbolizing arrogance. The Jesuits were confessors to much of the
royalty of Europe. Their perceived wealth, their ties to the Pope, real or imagined,
their identification with the monarch, their popular preaching, their excellent
education, all these factors only increased the envy of many. One unfortunate
lesson of the Protestant Reformation was that if a prince or king converted to
Protestantism, he could easily increase his wealth by seizing church properties. In
medieval Europe the pope and princes were constantly battling over who would
control investitures of church officials, in this contest the pope had moral authority,
while the monarchs had temporal authority in their large armies. Like slow moving
dominos, the Jesuits were banned in one kingdom at a time, their properties seized,
until the pope was forced in 1773 to formally abolish the Jesuits. The Jesuits would
survive in Russia and Poland under the protection of Catherine the Great, and under
the radar in America.

21. Motín de Esquilache, Madrid,
attributed to Francisco de Goya (ca.
1766, 1767)
From Wikipedia: Contemporaries in
Spain attributed the suppression of
the Jesuits to the Esquilache Riots.
When an angry crowd converged
on the royal palace, king Carlos
fled. An account says that a group
of Jesuit priests appeared on the
scene, soothed the protesters with
speeches, and sent them home.
The monarch and his advisers were
alarmed by the uprising, which
challenged royal authority, and the
Jesuits were accused of inciting the
mob and publicly accusing the
monarch of religious crimes.

22. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars devastated the Catholic
Church, all church properties and lands in France were auctioned off. Two
successive popes were imprisoned in France. In the aftermath of defeat of
Napolean, Congress of Vienna in 1814 restored the monarchies to their
thrones in Europe, including the pope, and soon thereafter the order of the
Jesuits was resurrected. There was institutional memory of the Jesuit order,
but very few Jesuits from before the bans were still alive, so the order had
to start from scratch. Most everywhere they were before the Jesuits tried to
re-establish their schools, seminaries, printing presses, and churches, but in
places like France they were banished three more times in the anti-clerical
climate of the times.

23. Liberty Leading the People, by Eugène Delacroix, 1830
French Revolution
Battle for the Town Hall, Jean-Victor Schnetz, painted 1833

24. O’Malley also tells the story of the Jesuit missionary
activities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia in particular. In
Paraguay around 1700 the Jesuits were able to organize
the Indians into large settlements called reductions, even
obtaining royal permission for the natives to bear arms to
battle marauders seeking to enslave them. But this
permission was soon revoked and the natives were
disarmed, and eventually the reductions were dissolved
entirely.

25. Church from the reduction of San Ignacio Mini in Argentina.

26. Also, around 1700 the Japanese and Chinese missions had some successes, and
some martyrdoms, depending partly on who was emperor. The Chinese emperor
was friendly to Matteo Ricci and the Jesuits. Matteo Ricci lived at the royal court as
a guest of the emperor, learned Mandarin and Confucian philosophy, and created a
Chinese rite for the mass. However, two popes forbade the Chinese rites and also
the adaptation of elements of Confucianism into the local church, which was the
beginning of the end of the Jesuit missionary venture in China. Permitting local rites
and customs would be part of the Vatican II reforms many centuries later.
Since they were so heavily involved in higher education and in publication of
theological journals, the Jesuits were deeply involved in the intellectual Catholic
ferment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that would lead to the
reforms of Vatican II. Many of Loyola’s spiritual works gained greater circulation. A
Congregation of Jesuit leaders issued a decree encouraging ecumenism with other
religious traditions. A Jesuit Refugee Service was established as a Jesuit ministry.

27. Chinese astronomers at Beijing Ancient
Observatory using more accurate instruments
brought to them by Jesuits, installed in 1644. Matteo Ricci

28. There was some tension with Pope John Paul II, who grew up
under communism, and the Latin American Jesuits, who because
of their struggle for their poorer parishioners sympathized with
liberation theology, which attempts to synthesize Marxist and
Catholic thought. Their support for the poor did not endear them
to the ruling regimes, and during the civil war in El Salvador the
army martyred six Jesuits, including a Jesuit university
president. Pope John Paul II came to be a major supporter of the
Jesuit order. The Jesuits mirror the Catholic Church in its
membership, three quarters of Jesuit recruits now come from
outside Europe and North America, a truly global order.

29. Roses' Garden at UCA, El Salvador. The place where : Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio
Martín-Baró, Segundo Montes, Juan Ramón Moreno, Amando López, Joaquín
López y López, Elba Ramos y Celina Ramos, were killed on November 16, 1989

30. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope, and in this video on Pope Francis we
also discuss, Aparecida, the Latin American bishops meeting, where the
future Pope Francis and the then Pope Benedict spread the message of
Aparecida, Do Not Forget the Poor.
In a slide from this video, we learn that Aparecida proclaims:

31. https://youtu.be/jF-fsMvYsak

32. Aparecida’s message: “Do not forget the poor.”
Aparecida used a typical expression of the
theological and pastoral tradition of Latin
America: “the preferential option for the poor
and the marginalized.” Aparecida proclaims,
“Today, we want to confirm and promote the
option of preferential love for the
poor. Concern for the poor is not optional.”
Pope Benedict summarizes a primary Latin
American theological reflection: “the
preferential option for the poor is implicit in
the Christological faith in the God who became
poor for us, to enrich us with his poverty.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/trail-aparecida

33. What can we say about the Jesuits? They are a modern religious order
seeking its way in an often hostile modern world. Their glories and their
failings mirror the spiritual lives of all modern believers in an unbelieving
modern world. The Jesuits believe in rigorous education, to lift the
church out of ignorance, trying to strike a balance between reason and
faith, scientific inquiry and tradition, the temporal and the eternal. We in
the west do not live in a world where we hear church bells ring to remind
us to pray multiple times a day, so we must always make an effort to fit
God in our lives. We must strike a balance between humility and zeal, all
too often we must discern when it is time to turn the other cheek and
when it is time to overturn the tables of the money changers.

34. These ponderings on the history of the Jesuits brings to my mind the only talk I
remember from the Promise Keeper weekends I attended many years ago. This
pastor was giving a talk on the spiritual malaise pastors often suffer after laboring
in the ministry after a dozen years. He said that he was given a name of an older
preacher who often helped those ministers stuck in the doldrums catch the wind
of the Holy Spirit in their sails again. This older preacher asked him if there were
any trysts or romantic entanglements, as there was little he could do in those
situations. He was assured that this was not the case, and so he was invited to fly
in and spend a few days with him in prayer and fellowship.

35. https://youtu.be/02MWE1ANlWo

36. He was told that often a successful minister will in the beginning have some early
years of success, the ministry is exciting, the many souls he wins for the Lord brings
deep satisfaction and a true sense of accomplishment. He asked him how his prayer
life was, how much time he spent in contemplation and study with the Lord, for its
own sake, not so much to prepare for the next Sunday’s sermon. For the Lord never
cares so much for your accomplishments, for it is through the grace of God were able
to accomplish anything, indeed we cannot even breathe if it were not for the breath
of God breathed into our lungs, we cannot live without our heart beating every
second. How fleeting are life and its accomplishments! But God cares deeply on
whether we Love Him, whether we spend time in prayer and pondering on His Word,
whether our walk with the Lord is the central path in our short lives here on Earth.

37. SOURCES: John O’Malley wrote this history of the Jesuits up to the present, and also
an earlier book on the history of the Early Jesuits, we will probably do another video
on this second book later.
There are many excellent histories of the Jesuits, if I strove to do a comprehensive
study of the Jesuits, I would include more sources. But I do know that Father John
O’Malley is an intellectually honest biographer and historian, and I know he does
not seek to publish a triumphalist propaganda history of the Jesuits.
In early 2022 we will have a video on Vatican II, for which John O’Malley’s What
Happened at Vatican is a primary source and is a delight to read.

38. YouTube Channel (please subscribe):
Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg
Blog: www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com
Be a patron: https://www.patreon.com/seekingvirtueandwisdom
© Copyright 2022
John O’Malley, History of the Jesuits
https://amzn.to/345YwyV
Kindle Edition
https://amzn.to/3sJa97e
https://amzn.to/3EJfD6c
https://amzn.to/3sNcHDf
https://youtu.be/16HRnyenOVc

39. To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
YouTube Description has links for:
• Script PDF file
• Blog
• Amazon Bookstore
© Copyright 2021
Blog and YouTube Description
include links for Amazon books
and lectures mentioned, please
support our channel with these
affiliate commissions.
Links to blog: https://wp.me/pachSU-iX

40. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/