Search Results for: van der Loo

On July 31, 1973, Pedro Arrupe, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, spoke to the 10th International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of Europe gathered in Valencia, Spain. Because of the “new awareness in the Church,” Arrupe concedes in these remarks that a graduate from Jesuit schools and colleges had not been properly educated to […]

Before the delegates to the 31st General Congregation set out “for the four corners of the world,” Pope Paul VI welcomed the Jesuits to the Sistine Chapel. His remarks urge the delegates “to renew in [their] hearts in an almost palpable and solemn way the sense of the apostolic mandate that characterizes and strengthens your

Pope Pius XII wrote the following apostolic blessing to Jean-Baptiste Janssens, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Ignatius. The pope urges those in the Society to “carry forward with untiring earnestness, especially in the spiritual sphere, all your activities, your ministries and everything by

In July 1940, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Society of Jesus, Pope Pius XII issued the following apostolic letter to Wlodimir (Włodzimierz) Ledóchowski. Pius notes to the superior general how the Catholic Church “is deeply indebted to your religious society for its glorious record of service.” The letter chronicles some

Mutio Vitelleschi, born to a noble family in Rome in 1563, entered the Society of the Jesus only after securing permission from Pope Gregory XIII. The Jesuits elected Vitelleschi their sixth superior general in 1615. His generalate saw worldwide expansion in missions and in membership to some 15,000 men but also an increase in the

Francis Borgia, in this letter to the Jesuits in Aquitania, in the southwest of France, provides advice on how best to preserve the spirit of the Society of Jesus. The order’s “rapid growth” reminded Borgia of how “the little grain of mustard,” once “fixing its roots” and “sending forth its branch and steam,” could become

Fluvio Androzzi was already a priest when he made the Spiritual Exercises under the direction of Diego Laínez and entered the Society. Almost immediately, he embarked upon a life of successful ministries. Androzzi was one of the Society’s earliest spiritual writers, and his works, published posthumously, appeared in many editions and translations. In this letter,

Emerio de Bonis was a twenty-five-year-old scholastic strongly troubled by temptations against chastity. He had been in the Society for five years and felt overly uncertain about himself. He revealed his state of soul to Ignatius. De Bonis received the following reply from Ignatius, written on his behalf by Juan Alfonso de Polanco. Ignatius calls

The local inquisition in Venice forbade any priests under the age of thirty-six from hearing women’s confessions. The Society of Jesus, however, enjoyed the right, by papal authority, to hear anyone’s confession. Ignatius did not want to press the dispute publicly. So he arranged that for the only Jesuit in Venice above the minimum age

A Neapolitan woman had started a home for six or seven abandoned girls, whom she brought to the Jesuit church for the sacraments. She rented a house next door to the Jesuits, where the girls’ windows looked onto the men’s rooms. When she refused to move, the Jesuit superior, Alfonso Salmerón, threatened to deny the