Ignatius and the Origin of the Jesuits

Renewal Movement

Introduction

By the 16th century, Europe was in the midst of a great religious upheaval. The once Catholic continent had been shattered by religious and political division, and the Reformation had grown. The once Catholic King Henry VIII had been given the title the Defender of the Faith by the Pope—but after being barred from obtaining an annulment and refusing to accept the Vatican’s position, Henry placed himself at the head of the Church of England.[footnoteRef:2] He was excommunicated in 1538. The Jesuit Order (Society of Jesus) would be officially founded two years later, and its main objective would be to defend and propagate the Christian faith. At a time when many were fighting over what this faith should be, the Jesuits stood apart as highly-trained and educated men willing to go anywhere to help bring clarity and light to people’s lives, whether in Europe, India, the Far East or the New World. Their order was a breath of fresh air in the Catholic. This paper will describe the Order’s history, its theology, practices, mission, impact and how this understand has application for my local church. [2: John Laux, Church History (Benzinger Brothers, 1933), 321.]

History

The Society of Jesus was the brainchild of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish military man of noble birth. His career in the military was derailed after a severe leg injury. During his recuperation he spent many months reading Scripture and becoming inspired to take a new path in life that would allow him to devote himself to God. St. Ignatius wanted the best and brightest of Europe to serve with Him. As a military man, he respected the idea that without training a soldier is worthless to an army. Thus, he believed that if his Order would have any utility to the Church at this time of crisis, the Order would need to have the sharpest minds and most virtuous men. He organized a small group of half a dozen followers, included Francis Xavier (who would later be a missionary in India and the Far East) and Peter Faber. These men came from the University of Paris. Together they went to the Pope to ask for permission to establish their Order and put themselves at the direct service of the Pope. Because of their high educational training and standing, the Pope saw that these young men were exactly what could help the Church as the Reformation was tearing communities apart, new lands were being discovered that would require teaching, and missions were still needed in the East so as to bring the Gospel to people who had not yet heard it. Ignatius and his fellow men wanted precisely this opportunity. They took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and thus became the Church’s elite squad of missionaries.

The mission of the Jesuits was simply this: St. Ignatius wrote in the Formula for the Order that his groups should:

“Strive especially for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public preaching, lectures and any other ministration whatsoever of the Word of God, and further by means of retreats, the education of children and unlettered persons in Christianity, and the spiritual consolation of Christ's faithful through hearing confessions and administering the other sacraments. Moreover, he should show himself ready to reconcile the estranged, compassionately assist and serve those who are in prisons or hospitals, and indeed, to perform any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good.”[footnoteRef:3] [3: Ignatius Loyola, “Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus,” 1540. https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/research/documents/1540_formula/]

This mission was a response to the growing confusion and frustration many Christians felt in Europe at the time. Since the 14th century there had been many who felt that the Church had lost its authority to lead souls to God. John Wycliffe had written two works, On Civil Dominion and On Divine Dominion[footnoteRef:4] that created many new questions for Christians regarding who they should follow. Luther had followed with his own criticisms of abuses in the Church and among clergy, particularly in areas where corruption was rampant.[footnoteRef:5] The Church convened the Council of Trent in the 16th century to address these problems—and it was the Society of Jesus that guided the Council so that it could bring clarity to the questions many people were having on the matter of what to believe and who to follow.[footnoteRef:6] Because there were so many different Christian sects appearing at this time, there was also much harassment and persecution. The name Jesuit was not one adopted by St. Ignatius or his group: it was used as a slur against them—but over time the name developed a favorable usage and it was informally adopted as a reference for the Society of Jesus.[footnoteRef:7] [4: Stephen Edmund Lahey, John Wyclif (Oxford University Press, 2008), 214.] [5: Craig Atwood, The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius (PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), lxxii.] [6: John Laux, Church History (Benzinger Brothers, 1933), 420.] [7: Thomas Campbell, The Jesuits (NY: Encyclopedia Press, 1921), 7.]

Theology

St. Ignatius wrote the Spiritual Exercises to help people develop their spiritual life, and the Jesuits opened schools in Europe and wherever they went as missionaries. Their formation was based on classical education and theology. When Ignatius died in 1556, the Jesuits had more than 70 colleges on three continents. The Jesuits combined classical education with scholastic theology and the humanism of the Renaissance. Thus, they created a kind of hybrid approach that incorporated the various aspects of the contemporary educational world. The theology of the early Jesuits was consisted with the theology of the Church, but they were also suspected of heresy at times. Ignatius himself was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition because his approach to faith, practice, teaching and theology was so unorthodox.[footnoteRef:8] The theology of the Jesuits was mainly orthodox, particularly after the lifting of the suppression in the 18th century. For instance, at the Council of Trent, which the first Jesuits helped direct, the Church essentially reaffirmed the Nicene Creed—the belief in a Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the belief in Christ’s death and resurrection; the belief in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, the unity of the Church, and life everlasting. The only reason the early Jesuits were suspected of heresy by some Church authorities is that they engaged in rhetorical debates by attempting to appeal to the views of their audiences. While it was common practice among Protestant leaders like Luther, Calvin, Knox and Zwingli to adopt a hostile stance with respect to other Reformers, the Jesuits proceeded in a spirit of charity, often trying to understand the position of the audience to whom they were trying to speak, and then explaining how the theology of the Church was really no different from what the audience believed. The aim of the Jesuits was to win people to the Church, and they found that it was easy to do so by understanding the culture of the audience, their values, and then showing how similar cultural ideals and values could be found in the Church. The idea was that this made it easier for people to convert or come back to the Church than if the Jesuits simply went into a setting showering condemnation on various people for their beliefs. [8: CT, “Ignatius of Loyola,” Christianity Today, 2020. https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/moversandshakers/ignatius-of-loyola.html]

Debates did nonetheless still arise, like that between the Jesuits and the Jansenists in France. Blaise Pascal, the theologian philosopher who wrote Pensees, sought to create a bridge to overcome that divide, for example. The Jesuits were also viewed as a problem by British colonists in America, because the Jesuits were often in the way of their plans to expand the territory. In India and in Japan, the Jesuits were unwelcome by leaders, who viewed the religious missionaries as a threat to their power. Theologically speaking, the Jesuits put Christ at the head of society and saw it as their mission to preach this reality. They driving theological aim was to see all things in God.

However, with the arrival of the 20th century, many Jesuits started to take an interest in Liberation Theology. This was a new theology based on Marxist ideology, focusing more on equality and oppression than on spiritual salvation. The Jesuits of the 20th century thus differed a great deal from the early Jesuits. Liberation Theology was advanced by Jesuits like Juan Luis Segundo and Gustavo Gutierrez. This theology emphasized social action and even revolution. While other schools of theology in the various Christian churches were seeking ways to explain the modern world and man’s apparent disorientation and dislocation from God and justice, the Jesuit Liberation Theologians were seeking a theology of action. Segundo, for instance, was described as having “little time for the academic theology of the ‘death of God’ school: the problem, as he sees it, is not the death of God but the death of the theologian, his interpreter. The choice is in fact between two views of theology: theology as an academic profession, versus theology as a revolutionary activity.”[footnoteRef:9] It was particularly strong in Latin American countries, but it also came to impact the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Just as the Jesuits were there directing the Council of Trent in the 16th century, they were also there having an influence on Church teachings in the 20th century. Today, the Church has its first Jesuit pope in Pope Francis. [9: Kenneth Leech, “Liberating Theology: The Thought of Juan Luis Segundo,” Theology, 84, 700 (1981), 258.]

Liberation Theology has played an important role among the Jesuit movement in the past century. Segundo is a major player in that movement and sees Christ as a revolutionary: in his view, the Jesuit Liberation Theologians have “rediscovered an essential feature of Christian theology by applying the teachings of justice and equality to the political realm: ‘Jesus seems to go so far as to suggest that one cannot recognize Christ, and therefore come to know God, unless he or she is willing to start with a personal commitment to the oppressed’.”[footnoteRef:10] This focus on equality, political power, and even Marxist dialectic, has made the Jesuits somewhat controversial in the past decades. However, the Jesuit movement has certainly shaped the Church in many ways, from its origins to now. [10: Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 81.]

Practices

The Jesuits began as a mendicant order, taking a vow of poverty. This means they were like the other mendicant orders in the Church, such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans. They did not set out with the intention of becoming rich but rather of working for the Church in order to protect Her in a very distressing time in its life. With so many people falling away from the Church because of the bad examples of clergy and the fighting among other leaders and Christians, the Church was in a very weak position. The Jesuits, led by St. Ignatius, saw it as their mission to live the life of Christ every day so as to be the good example that people needed. This is what they saw would help spread faith and devotion. At the same time, they committed to study, rhetoric, and argument in order to back up their good examples with good words that could be viewed as logical and consistent. Today Jesuits provide for themselves financially by operating schools around the world. For instance, Xavier University in Ohio (named after one of the original members of the Society of Jesus) is a Jesuit college. Others like it can be found across the US and other parts of the world. Jesuits are thus heavily involved in education; they also are involved in writing and in other works.

Initially, one of the main practices of the first Jesuits was the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. This was typically conducted as part of a month-long retreat, in which the participant lived in silence and meditated on the life and passion of Jesus, while thinking about how to make changes to his life so as to live more in accordance with the will of God. The Spiritual Exercises focused on the teaching that Christ came to save men from sin, but that men needed to cooperate with God’s grace in order to be saved. God would not save anyone against his will. The Spiritual Exercises gave the individual the necessary time to get away from the distractions of the world, contemplate, prayer, and meditate on the life of the Lord, Whom all Christians were meant to follow and after Whom Christians were expected to model their own lives. Ignatius focused the Spiritual Exercises also on the discernment of spirits so that individuals could more easily tell what kind of spirit was motivating them in their decision-making, whether it was a good spirit from God or a bad spirit from oneself, from the world, or from the devil.[footnoteRef:11] The practice of having retreats was one that Ignatius particularly benefited from, as it was his own little retreat from the world that gave him the opportunity to study more intimately the doctrines of the Faith, to pray, and to contemplate his own life in God. [11: Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises (Newman Press, 1951), 10.]

In the early days when the main theology of the Jesuits was more orthodox, the movement created schools in Europe and abroad. The Jesuits were a main force in converting Native Americans in the New World, particularly where the French and Spanish settled. And they have more or less maintained a presence in countries (save for their time of brief suppression in the 18th century). In the 20th century, some Jesuits took up the practice of revolution, particularly in Latin America. One of the early fathers of what became Liberation Theology, Bartolomeo de Las Casas, saw the cruelty with which Spaniards in the New World treated the Native Americans. He recommended that Christian leaders should act as “fathers and shepherds to their people” and serve as “the noblest and most virtuous of beings.”[footnoteRef:12] [12: Bartolomeo de las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” 108. ]

Mission

Today, the mission of the Jesuits depends upon the orientation of the Jesuit. Some focus on teaching, while others focus on activism. Some hold and preach at retreats. Some are active in the upper echelons of the Church, as Francis I is. For those who still hold to Liberation Theology, they follow in the path of the Boff Brothers, who viewed it as their role to overthrow capitalism in favor of socialism. So there is a wide mix of missions among Jesuits. There are still Jesuit missionaries in other parts of the world, just like there are still Jesuit educators and activists. Some focus on explaining the teachings of Christ, and some focus on promoting the socialist ideal at the social and political and economical level.

Ultimately, the Jesuits assert that the general mission of their Order is to promote reconciliation between God and man and all people as neighbors. They emphasize personal prayer, community life, spirituality, and charity. They focus on evangelization, missionary work in developing nations, and especially on conducting the work of the Church, whatever it is and wherever it may be. The Jesuits are seen as the ones who are best suited to understanding other cultures and explaining how those cultures can have a place in the Christian fold. They are the ones tasked with going out into the streets, mixing with the people, and inviting them to be children of God. At the same time, their mission has been whatever the Pope has wanted it to be. The original Jesuits put themselves at the pope’s service. The Pope wanted Jesuits to direct the Council of Trent. He wanted some to go to India to evangelize there. He wanted some to go on further East to Japan and China. When the Pope became concerned about the Order, He suppressed it except for in the Polish region, and the Jesuits obeyed this command. When the Pope decided to reinstate the Order a few years later, the Jesuits did not protest or scold the office, but rather showed that they were ready to jump back into action. In this way, they have been the main force of the Pope, going where he sent them, and obeying his commands. It is only the Liberation Theologian Jesuits who have demonstrated more of an individualism in that their focus is on fighting against oppression and capitalism and helping others to work towards what they regard as social justice.

Impact on the Church and World

The impact of the Jesuits on the Church and on the world has been tremendous. From the first, they had a big effect on the Reformation. They helped to spearhead the Church’s Counter-Reformation by directing the Council of Trent and then by going into countries where religious problems were the most pronounced, such as in Germany where Lutherans and other Reformers opposed the Church. The Jesuits viewed the situation with an even eye and saw that many of the Christians of the various sects were people of good will and that the main problem was simply that they did not have very good shepherds to guide them. They noted that if only there were one or two good priests among them, the problems of confusion and violence would recede on their own.[footnoteRef:13] Because the number of Jesuits was small, and the needs of many were great, the Jesuits were sent out in small groups on missions to foreign lands. They extended their impact to India, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They converted many to Christ, established schools, and grew their order. [13: John Laux, Church History (Benzinger Brothers, 1933), 430.]

Over the centuries, the Order remained much the same, but in the 20th century, changing currents in the Church caused some new developments to take place. The Jesuits began wearing the typical dress of other priests, while others abandoned the priesthood altogether in order to promote the work of socialism. The Jesuit impact on the world has been to bring education and Christ to people who might otherwise never have received either. In other parts of the world, Jesuits—particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries—have worked for social justice and have even promoted revolution to overthrow capitalist governments. In some cases, this has led to violence and more aggressive reactions from entrenched regimes. So the impact of the Jesuits has been up and down. For the Church, the Jesuits helped to bring clarity and guidance during a period of great confusion and instability. For the world, the Jesuits have created schools across numerous continents and have brought many people into the Faith. The Jesuits have left their mark on theology, society, economics and politics, particularly when it comes to Liberation Theology. After all, it was De Las Casas, who first saw the need for Christians to treat native peoples as equals rather than as slaves if there was going to be any type of conversion. Throughout the world, there are many converts to Christianity who would not be so today had it not been for the missionary work of the Jesuits. So this movement has certainly been helpful for both the world and the Church.

Application for My Local Church

My local church is St. Luke United Methodist Church in Mexia, Texas. From my perspective, the Jesuit movement is indicative of the calling that some receive to make a big change to their lives in order to grow in grace and come to love God more fully. Wesley understood the need to grow in grace and in Christ, and it was part of the method of salvation that allowed this to happen. The early Jesuits appear to have a good sense of how to apply learning and structure in order to give a good example to others of how a Christian should behave.

What is most helpful in terms of application is the fact that the Jesuits emphasized education for their Order. St. Ignatius did not just go out into the streets to obtain followers. He went to the very best students at the University in Paris and recruited them to his Order. He wanted the brightest minds because he knew that in order to help others come to God, the members of his movement had to be thoughtful, intelligent, well-trained, virtuous, and able to make good arguments. He wanted to win people over to Christ using logic and personal examples of virtue. He did not people in his movement who could not measure up, academically speaking or in terms of the necessary character and deportment.