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Pope Julius III was asked by Emperor Charles V to make Francis Borgia a cardinal. Borgia asked for Ignatius’s advice on whether to accept the position. In the following letter, Ignatius describes a three-day process of interior discernment that he underwent to determine his own position on the matter. In setting out what happened to […]

King Ferdinand I requested that the Jesuits come to Vienna in 1551. The success of the Jesuits in teaching there led to a discussion of the ways to restore the decayed faculty of theology at the University of Vienna, so as to provide Germany with educated Catholic priests. In this letter, sent by commission to

In this letter, Ignatius replies to a number of questions from Antonio Brandão, a Portuguese scholastic who had accompanied Simão Rodrigues to Rome. The original questions dealt with practical questions, some of which Ignatius addresses at the end of the letter by simply noting that they “are more dependent on circumstances.” Of note is Ignatius’s

At the request of Ignatius and on the occasion of the jubilee year, the senior professed members of the Society gathered in Rome at the end of 1550. During the ensuing weeks, while the men were discussing the draft of the Constitutions that he and Juan Alfonso de Polanco had prepared, Ignatius presented them with

Antonio Araoz, the nephew of Ignatius’s sister-in-law Magdalena, entered the Society early its history and devoted himself tirelessly to preaching and spreading the order in Spain, where he had been provincial since 1547. His health suffered, though, and after a series of fruitless attempts had been made to get him to moderate his labors, Ignatius

The letter below serves as one of the fullest outlines of the overall apostolic activity of the Jesuits in a city. The instructions come in three parts. First, the letter stresses how each member “provides the foundation for the others.” Virtuous behavior, right order, and using conversation and studies to draw people towards perfection were

In the summer of 1550, Ignatius offered a brief set of directions to his fellow Jesuits. He implores them to be “blind and prompt” in their obedience, prepared to leave any occupation on the instant, all for “God’s greater praise and the greater spiritual progress of all of us.” The instructions were sent by Juan

More commonly known by its Latin name (Exposcit Debitum), the papal approval of the Formula of 1550 has articulated the purposes of the Society of Jesus since it issuance by Pope Julius III. The formula was based on the Five Chapters of 1539 and of the Formula of 1540. For more on the history, content,

William IV, duke of Bavaria, appealed to Pope Paul III and to Ignatius to send several Jesuits as professors of theology to the University of Ingolstadt, an institution that had fallen into severe decline. Alfonso Salmerón, Claude Jay, and Pierre Canisius were chosen for the task. For them, Ignatius writes the following instruction, urging them

Early in 1548, Francis Borgia, duke of Gandía, made his profession in the Society of Jesus, but he did so in secret since he was not yet able to renounce his dukedom. Still, Borgia indulged his penchant for long hours of prayer and rigorous penance to the extent that he damaged his health. Ignatius himself