Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu), commonly known as the Jesuits, is a religious order of men in the Catholic Church (the Roman Catholic Church). A religious order is a community whose members take vows of poverty, chastity (celibacy), and obedience (submission to superiors) and live together. The Jesuits place special emphasis on foreign missions and higher education. Among Protestants, the order is widely known as the body that led the Catholic response to the sixteenth-century Reformation.

Background

In the first half of the sixteenth century, Protestantism spread across Europe through the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther and others. Within the Catholic Church, too, calls for renewal grew louder. During his pontificate Pope Paul III approved several new religious orders, and in 1545 he convened the Council of Trent. The Society of Jesus emerged within this movement. Its founder, Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), was a native of the Basque region of Spain. While studying in Paris, he guided his companions through the Spiritual Exercises, a method of spiritual formation he had developed, and gathered around him those who shared his vision.

Development

• August 15, 1534: Ignatius and six companions, including Francis Xavier and Peter Faber, took vows at Montmartre in Paris and began their community.
• September 27, 1540: The Society became a formally recognized religious order by a bull of Pope Paul III. The following year, in 1541, Ignatius was elected its first Superior General.
• 1547: The first Jesuit college was founded. By the time of Ignatius's death in 1556, some forty schools are reported to have been established.
• 1549: Francis Xavier arrived in Kagoshima, Japan, marking the beginning of the mission to East Asia.
• 1599: The educational handbook Ratio Studiorum was published, establishing the educational system of Jesuit schools.
• Late sixteenth to mid-eighteenth century: Matteo Ricci, Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Ferdinand Verbiest, and others carried out missionary work in China while introducing Western sciences such as astronomy and geography. In 1603 Ricci published The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu Shiyi), a catechism in Classical Chinese, in Beijing. This approach of proclaiming the gospel while respecting local culture is known as accommodationism.
• July 21, 1773: Under pressure from European monarchs, Pope Clement XIV issued Dominus ac Redemptor ("Our Lord and Redeemer"), suppressing the Society of Jesus.
• August 1814: Pope Pius VII restored the Society by papal bull. Thereafter the Jesuits grew rapidly, with their work centered on running schools and universities.

Outcomes and Influence

Early members such as Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius took the lead in revitalizing the Catholic Church in Europe. In education, the Jesuits have founded and operate 226 universities in some one hundred countries.

The order also has deep ties to Korea. Books written in Classical Chinese by Jesuit missionaries in China entered Joseon under the name "Western Learning" (Seohak) and provided intellectual stimulus to the scholarly community of late Joseon, which was then dominated by Neo-Confucianism. In 1784 Yi Seung-hun was baptized in Beijing by the Jesuit Father Jean-Joseph de Grammont, an event that led to the founding of the Korean Catholic Church. This did not, however, result in the Jesuits themselves entering the Korean Peninsula. From the nineteenth century through the period of Japanese colonial rule, the Paris Foreign Missions Society was responsible for the mission in Korea, which is cited as one reason the Jesuits arrived in Korea relatively late. Today the Korean Province of the Society of Jesus is located on Sogang-daegil in Mapo District, Seoul, and maintains a close relationship with Sogang University.

Assessment

The Catholic Church regards the Society of Jesus as an order that has contributed greatly to the renewal of the Church, to education, and to missions. Historians use two names for the Catholic movement of this period: "Counter-Reformation," when emphasizing the response to Protestantism, and "Catholic Reformation," when emphasizing internal Catholic renewal. The Jesuits are treated as a leading example from both perspectives. Among Protestants, the Jesuits have long been viewed as the core force of Catholicism arrayed against the Reformation. The eighteenth-century suppression shows that the Society came into conflict with the power of European states. Its accommodationist mission in East Asia has drawn attention as an effort to respect local cultures. In Joseon, meanwhile, Western Learning was received but also provoked criticism.