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In the letter here, Ignatius offers a program to offset Protestant propaganda in German-speaking lands and in France. Ignatius’s program against heresy has three parts: the creation of a “summary theology” to be taught at all educational levels, the spread of Jesuit schools, and the writing of popular tracts to counter the Protestant literature. Although

Seriously ill, Francesco Mancini came from Sicily to Naples. He wrote to Ignatius, saying that for his own spiritual consolation he judged it better to stay with his Jesuit brethren there than with his family. The superior in Naples, Alfonso Salmerón, had believed that Mancini could not receive the proper treatment at the city’s college

Nicholas Floris (Goudanus) was a zealous apostolic Jesuit from Gouda in the Low Countries. To Rome, Floris lamented his spiritual dryness, specifically how he lacked the gift of tears. Juan Alfonso de Polanco, writing on behalf of Ignatius, relays to Floris the superior general’s assurance that sensible consolations are not essential to Christian holiness. “Keep

Hannibal Coudret was one of the early Jesuits sent to the college at Messina, the first to be founded explicitly and primarily for the education of lay students by members of the Society of Jesus. In many ways, it became a model for later Jesuit schools. Some of the humanistic-classical texts adopted for study in

After the Spiritual Exercises, perhaps until the publication and translation of his “autobiography,” the writings of Ignatius were perhaps best known for this letter, commonly known as the “Letter on Obedience” to the Province of Portugal. Generations of Jesuits heard it read at table once a month in their refectories. Ignatius writes here during a

King John III of Portugal requested that Diego Miró and Luis Gonçalves da Câmara serve as confessors for himself and his family. The two Jesuits firmly declined, considering such lofty posts to be incompatible with the Society’s prohibition against personal ambition. The men were also aware of the delicacy of the situation. Ignatius had recently

Appointed treasurer of the college at Coimbra, the austere Manoel Godinho (who had complained about the governing style of Simão Rodrigues) found his involvement in finances and lawsuits to be incompatible with the spiritual life. He appealed to Ignatius and received from him the following reply. Even “temporal business,” Ignatius notes, can be “spiritual and

Ignatius in the letter here offers warm encouragement to Jesuits who are suffering the effects of poverty. Such poverty often arose when benefactors who founded colleges for the Society did not fulfill their obligations or promises to support them. Regardless, Ignatius acknowledges that poverty can be a grace, as it lets “us have a real

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