Yale University Press has published Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits, 1554-1791 by Dale K. Van Kley, professor emeritus at the Ohio State University.
Van Kley argues how “Reform Catholicism, not a secular Enlightenment, provided the justification for Catholic kings to suppress” the Society of Jesus, “a society instituted by the papacy.” According to the publisher, Van Kley’s book is “the only single volume in English to make coherent sense of the series of expulsions that add up to what was arguably the most important religious event in Europe of the time, resulting in the secularization of tens of thousands of Jesuits.”
Van Kley has written previously on the suppression of the Society of Jesus, including
- “Plots and Rumors of Plots: The Role of Conspiracy in the International Campaign against the Society of Jesus, 1758–1768,” in The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context: Causes, Events, and Consequence (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015).
- “Jansenism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits,” in Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660–1815 (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006).
More information about this new book is available at: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300228465/reform-catholicism-and-international-suppression-jesuits-1554-1791