Posted by St. Ignatius Loyola/Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, as well as commemorating the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Ignatius was born to a Catalonian family in 1491. He became a soldier, but in 1521 at a siege in Pampeluna he received a severe wound to his leg which meant that he had to abandon his military career. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life. While he was recovering from his injury he read some devotional books. He was so inspired by them that he became religious and devoted the rest of his life to serving the Church. He went first to Monserrat and then to Manresa. At Manresa he lived a severely ascetic lifestyle. It was at this time that he developed the “Spiritual Exercises” for which his name has ever since been associated with. This particular devotional practice involves meditation on a particular scene in the life of Jesus in which the person imagines that he is himself present at the actual event. Conscious of his lack of education Ignatius also sought to study. The ecclesiastical authorities were very suspicious of him, as this was the period of the Reformation and those interested in renewing the devotional life were often suspected of Protestantism. He was brought before the Inquisition but managed to convince them of his orthodoxy. Leaving Spain, he studied at the University of Paris. It was here that, with seven other companions, he laid the foundation of what became the Society of Jesus (in the crypt of Montmartre, on the 15th August, 1534). In 1540 the new order was approved by Pope Paul III. In addition to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, they took a fourth concerning missions, as well as to be bound to the closest allegiance to the Papacy. Whereas one of his companions, St. Francis Xavier, became a pioneer missionary in India and the Far East, St. Ignatius remained in Rome for most of the rest of his life and devoted his energies to strengthening devotion among the faithful and regaining ground that had been lost to the Protestant Reformation. It was for this purpose that he founded the German College in Rome and this played a critical role in strengthening Catholicism in Germany at a time when it was losing ground to Protestantism. He died on this day in 1556.
The Jesuit order that he founded is probably the most distinctive development of the Counter Reformation. At a time when many who were despairing of the corruption and laxity within the Church were turning to Protestantism, St. Ignatius and the Jesuits showed that the cause of reform and renewal was entirely compatible with Catholicism. The Jesuits were to be the most important order in missions in South America, in India, in Japan and in China. Their strength was that they were better at adapting to the local context than other orders, and often helped to protect the native peoples from exploitation in countries that were colonised. The most notable example of this were the Jesuit communities in Paraguay in South America. In India the pioneer in adapting Christianity to the local culture, Roberto de Nobili was a Jesuit, as was Matteo Ricci in China. Unfortunately, these experiments were not always well received in the Church. The Papacy finally came down against the Jesuits in the controversy over Chinese rites in the eighteenth century. Under pressure from the civil powers the Jesuits were dissolved by the Papacy in the later eighteenth century. Recognising that a mistake had been made they were restored by the Papacy in the early nineteenth century.
In Europe they were the order who proved most effective in reversing the advance of Protestantism, especially in southern Germany, Austria and Poland. Their success lay in the importance that they attached to education. Even the most severe critics of the Jesuits had to concede that they were probably the best educators and they produced great champions of the Catholic cause.
Unfortunately, not all the accomplishments of the Jesuits were positive. The importance that St. Ignatius and the Jesuits attached to unquestioning obedience to ecclesiastical authority led them to champion Ultramontanism (the belief that the Pope rather than the Councils of the Church was the final authority) and this finally triumphed over the older more conciliar model of ecclesiastical authority at the First Vatican Council in 1870. In the eighteenth century they had been the main instigators of the attempt by the Papacy to suppress the ancient liberties of the Church in Utrecht which led to the unresolved schism with the Old Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands. The root of the problem arguably lies in a statement of St. Ignatius himself that he would accept black to be white if the Church taught it. This statement of extreme Ultramontanism cannot be reconciled with the Orthodox Catholic adherence to that which is held everywhere, always and by all. It means in effect that the faithful should follow the personal agenda of the reigning Pope without question, even if it is contrary to what the Church has traditionally taught. It is used in our own day by those who wish to suppress the traditional Roman rite, who in effect claim that black is now white because that it what the Church at the present day now teaches. It may be said that the present Bishop of Rome (himself as Jesuit) shows many of the worst characteristics of the Jesuit order without their distinctive virtues.
It is important to emphasise that in canonising a particular saint the Church is not saying that all their distinctive views were correct or should be followed. Rather, we honour saints as those whose lives showed genuine sanctity, despite their individual failings. Thus, if not all that St. Ignatius and the Jesuit order has done may be said to be positive, this should not be allowed to detract from their great achievements both in the mission field and in Europe. They were certainly faithful to their fourth vow of devoting their energies to the mission of the Church. They were not deterred by the success of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. They furthered the expansion of the Church in the mission field and were often the greatest defenders of the native peoples from oppression by the colonial settlers.
Let us pray that we will be inspired by the zeal of St. Ignatius today and seek to advance the mission of the Church in our own time and place.