Search Results for: Lete

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, […]

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

Ignatius addressed this “Letter of Perfection” to the flourishing scholasticate at Coimbra, in Portugal. Though the scholasticate prospered with vocations and zeal, the latter was at times quite indiscreet. Concerned observers felt that Simão Rodrigues, the Portuguese provincial, was too compliant in allowing the scholastics to become “fools for Christ,” in such manifestations as self-flagellation and

Bernardino Ochino, elected vicar-general of the newly founded Capuchin Order in 1538, had become a prominent Catholic preacher before converting to Protestantism and fleeing to Geneva in 1542. His defection was a great shock, and several attempts were made to reconcile him to the Catholic Church. In this letter, Ignatius asks Claude Jay to make

Ignatius offers this letter, combining firmness with humility, as a response to Nicolás Bobadilla’s outspoken protests against Ignatius’s regulations concerning letter writing. Ignatius confesses to a blunder (addressing a letter to Bobadilla in a king’s palace rather than the court) and asks for correction in such circumstances. “For this is my desire in this life,”

King John III of Portugal was the early Society of Jesus’s strongest royal supporter. All the more painful to the Society, then, was a serious quarrel that broke out between the Portuguese king and Pope Paul III after the latter appointed the former ambassador of Portugal as a cardinal. The king responded by recalling his ambassador

In this document, part of his instructions for the legates to Ireland (Alfonso Salmerón and Paschase Broët), Ignatius advises the men on how best to deal spiritually with the variety of persons they would encounter while also telling them to also avoid direct involvement in money matters. His instructions differ according to the legates’ different

The following text is the “Formula of the Institute” composed by St. Ignatius and his first companions in 1539 as a kind of charter or mission statement for the new Society of Jesus. It was inserted with minor revisions into the 1540 bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae, in which Pope Paul III formally approved the foundation

This document, a chapter from the Part IX of the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, articulates the desired qualities in the Jesuits’ superior general. Though the Constitutions were not approved until the first General Congregation of 1558, the first Jesuits elected Ignatius as their superior general in April 1541. Ignatius collaborated with Juan Alfonso

In the following letter, Ignatius offers instructions to how Diego Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, and Claude Jay, whom he had sent to the Council of Trent at the order of Pope Paul III, were to deal with others there. He advises the three men to “be slow to speak, deliberate and loving” on matters before the