COMPAGNIA DI GESÙ

JESUIT ORDER. – A religious order of Clerics Regular, founded by St. Loyola (v.) and approved by the Holy See in 1540. Its members are commonly called Jesuits. The earliest origins of the Jesuit Order date back to 1534, when St. Ignatius gathered in Paris a first group of carefully chosen companions, eager to devote themselves to the good of souls; it was later established in Rome in 1539. The fundamental points, collected in a brief Formula Instituti Societatis Iesu, were verbally approved on September 3, 1539, by Paul III, who the following year officially confirmed the new Institute with the bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae of September 27, 1540.

OUTLINE:

I. Organization

I. ORGANIZATION

1) The papal bulls of approval or granting of privileges. – 2) The Constitutions of St. Ignatius, preceded by a General Examination for use by candidates. Each of the ten parts of the Constitutions is accompanied by “declarations” (critical edition of the Constitutions in Monumenta historica S. I., vols. 63-65, Rome 1934-38; extensive historical and ascetical commentary: J. M. Aciardo S.I., Commentario a las Constituciones de la Compañía de Jesús, 6 vols., Madrid 1919-32). – 3) The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which, though not a legislative document, provide the animating spirit of the Jesuit Order (critical edition in Mon. hist. S. I., Madrid 1914). – 4) The Rules, among which a series, Summary of the Constitutions, is an extract of the most important ascetical passages of the Constitutions; the others, Common Rules and Rules of the various offices, detail in practical prescriptions the great ascetical principles. – 5) The Decrees and canons of the General Congregations; to these may be added the formulas or regulations for the celebration of the General and Provincial Congregations themselves. – 6) The Instructions and ordinances issued or commissioned by the Fathers General, especially multiplied by Fr. Acquaviva. Two of these had exceptional importance: the Directory on the manner of giving the Spiritual Exercises (final edition, Florence 1599; critical edition with the Exercises in Mon. hist. S. I., Madrid 1914) and the Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum S. I. (definitive text, Naples 1599; scholarly edition by Fr. Pachter in Mon. Germaniae Paedagogica, V, Berlin 1887; Italian trans. by Fr. Barbera, Padua 1942; not included in the volumes of the Institutum). The circular letters of the Fathers General to the entire Order are of a predominantly parenetic character. – For practical purposes, a compendium or Epitome Instituti Societatis Iesu was compiled (Rome 1689; reprints 1704, 1847, 1882). A complete revision of this was undertaken (1924) after the publication of the new Code of Canon Law.

The form of religious life followed by the Jesuit Order is that of the Clerics Regular, which originated in the 16th century (alongside the Theatines, Somascans, Barnabites, etc.) and abandoned many of the external observances of the older orders, instead emphasizing the apostolic practice of priestly ministry.

2. The Purpose

An innovation introduced by St. Ignatius was the length of formation and the gradual process of admitting new recruits to the Order, resulting in the distinction of categories or grades among the religious. After two years of novitiate with their “experiments,” the three simple and perpetual public vows elevate students to the rank of approved scholastics, true religious (“professed” in the common terminology of canon law), bound to the Order but not yet unconditionally bound by II. After studies in letters, philosophy, and theology (commonly separated by several years of teaching), and a third year of probation (another Ignatian innovation), the final vows confer definitive status: either solemn profession of four vows (the fourth being one of special obedience to the Supreme Pontiff), accompanied by five simple vows, or the rank of spiritual coadjutor formed with three ordinary public but simple (not solemn) vows. In current practice, solemn profession of only the three essential vows is an exceptional measure granted only in special cases. The Coadjutor Brothers (lay brothers) likewise undergo two years of novitiate (after the canonical six months of postulancy), followed by three simple and perpetual vows. After ten years, they make their final vows, becoming formed temporal coadjutors.

St. Ignatius desired for the Order a strict poverty, which led St. Pius V to recognize it as a mendicant order. Not only are individual members incapable, after final vows, of possessing private property, but even the professed houses—centers and heart of the Jesuit Order—cannot possess fixed revenues. On the contrary, formation houses and colleges are to be founded so as to more freely pursue their end. The professed houses were few in number, and although their influence was significant in certain cities (Rome, Naples, Paris, Lisbon, etc.), historically it was far surpassed by that of the colleges.

As is well known, obedience holds a privileged place in the spirit of the Jesuit Order, and St. Ignatius is one of its classical theorists. Characteristic is the fourth vow of the professed, of special obedience to the Supreme Pontiff regarding his “missions,” a vow that manifests, without exhausting it, the particular devotion of the Jesuit Order to the Apostolic See. The government of the Order is monarchical (with a capitular system) and centralized. The Superior General is elected for life by the General Congregation (all the provincials, plus two deputies from each province). The General Congregation, which alone possesses full legislative authority (even the General is subject to it), is not periodic (another innovation that was contested by members of older Orders accustomed to periodic Chapters), convening only in cases of exceptional gravity, usually upon the death of the General. The Assistants are elected by the Congregation to form the General’s ordinary council; they have special care for the affairs of an Assistance or group of provinces forming a certain geographical unit. All other appointments depend directly or indirectly on the General.

St. Ignatius wished to preclude his followers from seeking ecclesiastical prelatures and dignities. Professed religious of solemn vows, by virtue of a special vow, and others by virtue of their rules, cannot seek or accept them unless formally obliged by the Supreme Pontiff. The Jesuit Order has no Second Order (it always rejected the claims of several female Congregations that wished to call themselves “Jesuitesses” and refused the ordinary care of more recent Congregations, even if they had adopted much of St. Ignatius’s rule). Nor does it have a Third Order; the affiliated members of the Marian Congregations do not constitute one, though these have been the most common means of extending the apostolic action of the Jesuit Order among the laity.

II. Historical Development

The history of the Society of Jesus is clearly divided into two major periods (1540–1773; 1814 to the present day), separated by the suppression of the Society at the hands of Clement XIV, and reunited by the survival of a small group of Jesuits in Russia.

1) The first century is marked by a prodigious expansion, a generous impulse in all apostolic works, but already accompanied by strong opposition, not only in non-Catholic circles but also within Catholic environments. Under the generalship of St Ignatius (1541–56), apostolic activity first took the form of itinerant preaching: the few religious, summoned from all sides, especially by bishops, hastened to what was most urgent—the preaching, catechesis, controversies, and the work of ecclesiastical and religious reform. Two were sent by the pope to Ireland, others to Poland and Portugal, the best theologians to the Council of Trent. Then, with the influx of recruits and the founding of the first colleges (from 1548 onwards), the Society’s work became more stable, occupying key positions to stem the advance of Protestantism. Indeed, their activity then appeared as typical of the Catholic Reformation in the full and positive sense of the term, and in the same direction their pedagogical activity was now decisively oriented, though this had not been envisaged by St Ignatius at first except after many years. From the beginning, the Collegio Romano (1551), a seminary and model for others, and the Collegio Germanico in Rome (1552), for the renewal of the German clergy, held a special place.

Meanwhile, the Society had vigorously engaged in another field: in 1541, St Francis Xavier left Lisbon to found his first mission in India, reaching the Moluccas in 1546 and Japan in 1549, but dying in 1552 without being able to land in China. In 1549, India gave the young Order its first martyr, Antonio Criminali. Other missionaries were sent in 1547 to the Congo and in 1548 to Morocco; in 1549, Manuel da Nóbrega began a mission in Brazil, destined for great development. Towards the end of his life, St Ignatius agreed to send another group of his men to Ethiopia, with a patriarch or two bishops. At his death, the founder left a little over 1,000 religious, divided into twelve provinces, with nearly a hundred houses, and a solid position mainly in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Under the next two generals, James Laynez (1558–65) and St Francis Borgia (1565–72), the Society firmly established itself in Germany and France, taking an active part in the struggle against Protestantism (Canisius, Possevino, Auger, etc.). Borgia, the former viceroy of Catalonia, especially fostered the organic development of the missions (Mexico, Peru, etc.). In Rome, he undertook the construction of the Church of the Gesù and saw the birth of the Marian Congregations. After the generalship of the Belgian Everard Mercurian (1573–80), which closed the predominantly Spanish period in the life of the Order, the long government of the Italian Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615) truly marked a culminating moment in its history.

Elected at the age of thirty-seven, the new general was able to face with remarkable prudence and energy the serious internal and external difficulties. He succeeded in preserving unchanged the institute of St Ignatius, both against the alterations threatened by Sixtus V and against the intrigues of some discontented members who boasted powerful patrons, especially in Spain. Two Congregations specially convened (1595 and 1608) vindicated Acquaviva and restored peace of mind. Meanwhile, the Society of Jesus, which had become in France the target of repeated attacks, was arbitrarily proscribed after the Châtel affair (1594; it recovered its rights there in 1608). In Italy, obedience to the papal interdict led to its expulsion from the Republic of Venice (1606; it returned only in 1656). In the theological sphere, controversies with the Dominican Fathers over the *Concordia* of Fr Luis Molina (1588) led to the famous disputes in the Congregations *de Auxiliis divinae Gratiae* (1598–1607).

At the same time, Acquaviva was able to avoid what might have been a dangerous crisis of growth. Indeed, in thirty-four years, he saw his subjects increase from 5,000 to 13,000, established eleven new provinces, and accepted more than 200 new colleges. The Society penetrated into China with Fr Matteo Ricci, into the Philippines, Indochina, Constantinople, Canada, and Paraguay, where in 1609 the first of the famous reductions was founded; in Japan, the brightest hopes seemed justified. In Europe, through its colleges it secured a position of primary importance in humanistic and ecclesiastical education, while pushing its influence northward, where it flanked Protestant nations with the so-called “apostolic seminaries,” among others through the work of Fr Antonio Possevino. Guiding and regulating this intense dynamism, Acquaviva ensured religious observance through the dispatch of visitors and important circular letters; particularly noteworthy was his constant concern to maintain the primitive spirit in full vigour.

The Society of Jesus was then blessed with abundant fruits of holiness (Peter Canisius, Aloysius Gonzaga, Robert Bellarmine, Peter Claver, Bernardino Realino, etc.), and especially the grace of martyrdom was granted it abundantly: in Japan, the three martyrs of Nagasaki (1597) and several blessed; in India, a cousin of the general, Blessed Rodolfo Acquaviva and companions; in France, the Blessed Martyrs of Aubenas (1593); in England, the Blesseds Campion (1583), Southwell (1595) and companions, etc. Under Acquaviva’s government and partly through his efforts, the Society of Jesus developed its own ascetical and mystical literature, remarkable for the number of great treatises that are still classics, such as those by A. Rodriguez, Alvarez de Paz, Luis de la Puente, Antoine Le Gaudier, Francisco Suárez, etc. With a parallel effort in major publications, the Jesuit theological school took its place at the same time in post-Tridentine scholasticism; it suffices to mention the exegetes Francisco Toledo, Francisco Ribera, Benito Pereira, Benedetto Giustiniani, Giovanni Villalpando; the dogmaticians or controversialists Robert Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Gabriel Vázquez, Gregorio de Valencia, Diego Ruiz de Montoya, Luis Molina, Giacomo G. G. (1595).

2) With the generalship, scarcely less long, of the Roman Muzio Vitelleschi (1615–45), a quieter period begins, which in substance would last throughout the second century. The strong impetus of growth had now spent itself: it would take fifty years to gain two thousand members.

In France, however, the Society of Jesus shared in the brilliance of the “grand siècle.” After Pierre Coton (d. 1626), it counted among its members such men as Étienne Binet and François Annat; apostles like Julien Maunoir, Vincent Huby, and St Francis Régis (d. 1641); scholars like Denis Pétau, Jean Sirmond, and Philippe Labbe, who opened the learned tradition of the “Scriptores” of the Paris college; spiritual writers like Louis Lallemant, Jean-Joseph Surin, and their school. Then took place the epic of the mystic and heroic New France, with the eight martyrs of 1646–49—Jean de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues and companions, canonized in 1930. But in France too serious controversies arose, especially with the appearance of Jansenism. Even in the Low Countries, the Society maintained the flowering state it had reached under the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, and this is expressed in the Baroque splendour of the *Imago primi saeculi* (Antwerp 1640). A further witness, on a much higher plane, is the beginning in 1643 of the publication of the *Acta Sanctorum* by the Bollandists.

Under the following generals, Vincenzo Carafa (1646–49), Francesco Piccolomini (1649–51), Alessandro Gottifredi (1652), Goswin Nickel (1652–64), the alternation continued between the quiet and fruitful work of the colleges and the apostolic successes with their trials: in Poland at the hands of the Cossacks (1648–54; in 1657 they martyred St Andrew Bobola) and the Swedes (1655–60), in Ireland under Cromwell (1650), in England under Charles II (1666). In 1656 there appeared in Spain against the Society the *Theatrum iustitutum*, and in the same year in France the far more dangerous “pamphlet of genius,” Pascal’s *Lettres provinciales*; the struggle against the Jesuits’ “laxism” would now never cease.

A figure of strong prominence, the Genoese Giovanni Paolo Oliva, held a generalate (1644–81) that was full and troubled. He saw the emergence of strong personalities who occupy a place in the history of culture and politics: in France a Bourdaloue and a François de La Chaize; Everard Nidhard in Austria and Spain; Edward Petre in England; Mauritius Vota in Germany and Poland; in Portugal António Vieira; in Italy Paolo Segneri, Daniello Bartoli, Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino; in the missions men like Ferdinand Verbiest in China and St John de Brito in India. Yet difficulties arose from the attitude of some fathers toward the religious policy of their absolute sovereigns, especially in France under Louis XIV, and from the infiltration among the religious of an excessive nationalism that spread even to the Eastern missions. In England, the imaginary plot of the apostate Titus Oates cost the lives of a group of Jesuits, including the provincial Thomas Whitebread (1679); eight of them were beatified in 1929. In Italy, the Jesuits were embroiled in various controversies—Quietism, probabilism, and casuistry—that led to the condemnation of several propositions upheld by some of their moralists (decrees of Alexander VII, 1665 and 1666; of Innocent XI, 1679). The question of the oath that missionaries in the Far East had to swear to the apostolic vicars sent by Propaganda also gave rise to painful conflicts. Such difficulties, however, should not obscure the Society’s unabated overall achievements.

Noteworthy, among other things, is the flourishing development in France of spiritual retreats and in Italy of popular missions in the style of Segneri. In France, too, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form began, with the confidant of St Margaret Mary, Blessed Claude La Colombière (d. 1682).

The twelfth general, the Belgian Charles de Noyelles (1682–86), was paralyzed by contradictory demands: the rivalry between France and Spain. Louis XIV insisted that the houses of the Society of Jesus situated in his newly conquered territories be transferred to French assistance. Under the next general, the Spaniard Tirso González (1687–1705), the conflict worsened to the point that the king recalled all French Jesuits from Rome along with their assistant (1688) and forbade any correspondence with the general. Elected under pressure from Innocent XI, but without the preparation that comes from lesser government offices, Fr Tirso González plunged the Society into most painful situations. Even in Spain, he had seen his request to print a book rejecting the doctrine—certainly unofficial but widespread in the Society—of probabilism refused by Frs Oliva and de Noyelles. As general, he believed himself destined to uproot from his Order a doctrine he considered pernicious. When he sought to publish in Germany his *Tractatus succinctus* on the subject, he entered into a long and open conflict with his assistants and other prominent fathers, such as Paolo Segneri. After various vicissitudes, Fr González was finally able to publish in 1684 his *Fundamentum theologiae moralis*, and the Fifteenth General Congregation (1696–97) restored peace of mind.

Once internal unity was restored, the Modenese Michelangelo Tamburini (1706–30) faced other trials, such as the devastation wrought in several provinces by the War of the Spanish Succession and the wars in northern Europe, while in France the fathers were again at the center of the controversy over Jansenism and the bull *Unigenitus*; but the most painful trials came from the missions, as the centuries-old controversy over the Chinese and Malabar rites entered its final phase: the legation to the East of Patriarch Maillard de Tournon, the condemnations he issued at Pondichéry (1704) and Nanjing (1705), confirmed in Rome by Clement XI’s bull *Ex illa die* in 1710 (and after several other decrees, with the definitive condemnation of Benedict XIV, *Ex quo singulari*, 1742). Placed in a delicate position by the violent reaction of Emperor Kangxi, the Jesuit missionaries emerged from the ordeal with honor, and the generals were vindicated against the charge of disobedience to Rome. Yet the debate was distorted and fed to the general public through a mass of polemical pamphlets; this heated campaign had consequences in the campaign for the suppression of the Order.

Indeed, under the following generals—Françoise Retz (1730–50), the Milanese Ignazio Visconti (1751–55), the Genoese Luigi Centurione (1755–57), and finally the Florentine Lorenzo Ricci (elected 1758)—it becomes ever clearer that the struggle now bears upon the very existence of the Society of Jesus; converging upon it are the attacks of French and Italian Jansenists, of Gallicans such as the French parliamentarians, of the statesmen of the new generation of enlightened despotism, of the Voltairean and Encyclopedic philosophical currents, and of all those tendencies that, through them, aim to destroy the influence of the Church of Rome.

Recent studies have shown how inaccurately the Society of Jesus has been depicted, in the twenty or thirty years before its suppression, as being in a state of true spiritual and cultural decline. While some provinces struggled to maintain their numbers, others were abundant in subjects, and in 1756 a new Assistance was even created for Poland. The Eastern missions clearly bore the scars of the controversies that had just ended, but those in Spanish America would be struck by the royal ban of 1767 while they were at the height of their development; many merits were to be found there, with characteristic cultural contributions, among the missionaries of the German Assistance. The intellectual life of the Jesuits certainly did not escape the general conditions of the environment at the close of antiquity.

The regime was not rich in profound theological speculation. Yet precisely at this time, both in the schools and in literary activity, a lively interest arose in both the physical and natural sciences and in major historical research: it was the generation, to name but a few, of Boscovich, Lor. Ximenes, Crist. Mayer, Mass. Hell, as well as Tiraboschi, Morcelli, Lanzi and Zaccaria, Hartshein and Hansiz, Hervás and Burriel, Berthier and the other contributors to the Milanese de Trevoux. Following in the footsteps of the latter, whose periodicals had already begun in the early 1700s, other provinces, for example in Poland, now began to publish periodicals. Ascetic-mystical literature became more timid after the Quietist crisis, but alongside the traditional, solitary and abundant production intended by the Jesuits for the entire Christian people, writers now rehabilitated (Milley, Caussade, etc.) bear witness that true mysticism had never dried up. Indeed, the religious fervor, which was further stimulated by the development within the Company of Jesus of devotion to the Sacred Heart (with Fathers Croiset, de Hoyos, etc.), seems to have remained at a very satisfactory level, where eminent holiness was not lacking, as in other times; proof of this, in addition to many individual cases, is the continued demand for missions and austere ministries and the life of the great majority of the Fathers after the suppression.

The final assault against the Order began in Portugal. After a campaign of defamatory pamphlets and the execution of the elderly Father Gabr. Malagrida, the minister Pombal had all the Jesuits of Portugal, Brazil and India arrested and deported to the Papal States (1759-61). In France, taking advantage of the unfortunate bankruptcy of Father Ant. Lavalette in Martinique, the parliaments condemned the constitutions and doctrines of the Jesuits and closed their colleges (1761-63), forcing Louis XV to dissolve the Order throughout France (1764). The decisive intervention of Clement XIII and many bishops in favor of the persecuted came to nothing. The other Bourbon governments followed: in Spain, where Charles III, for reasons “hidden in his royal breast,” had all the Jesuits of the kingdom arrested on the same night (2-3 Apr. 1767) and deported to Italy, then in Sicily (1768) and Parma (1768). In the colonies dependent on the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, the expulsion of the missionaries of the Company of Jesus (1760-69) took on the proportions of a catastrophe, from which the work of evangelization took half a century to recover.

It is well known how the Bourbon courts then united to obtain from Clement XIII, who resisted all pressure, and then from Clement XIV, the total destruction of the Order, and how the Pope finally yielded by suppressing the Company of Jesus with the brief *Dominus ac Redemptor* (31 July 1773). If one understands well the intentions of the Pontiff, who, as he had the right to do, sacrificed a body too sorely tried in order to bring peace to the Church, one must nevertheless recognize that the preparation and execution of the measure were often marked by pettiness and brutality that were entirely superfluous.

While the secularized ex-Jesuits devoted themselves to ministries where they were allowed, or to a life of study (the imposing literary activity of the exiled Spanish Jesuits in Italy is justly renowned), and many shed their blood for the Church during the Great Revolution, certain political circumstances, which the Jesuits have always regarded as providential, saved a small portion of the Company of Jesus in White Russia (and at one time also in Prussia), where Catherine II prevented the canonical execution of the brief of suppression. The Order was slowly reconstituted there, taking back former members and receiving novices, especially after Pius VII officially recognized its existence (brief *Catholicae fidei*, 1801; the Jesuits of Russia had previously relied on oral approvals). The desire to see the Fathers resume their place, which had largely been left vacant, especially in the field of education, grew ever stronger, and after several other partial concessions, Pius VII finally restored the Company of Jesus throughout the world on 7 Aug. 1814 (bull *Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum*). Some elderly Fathers of great virtue, above all the Blessed Giuseppe Pignatelli in Italy and Father de Clorivière in France, were the precious links between the two phases of the Order.

The early years of the restored Order, under the generals Taddeo Brzozowski (1805, d. in Russia in 1820) and Luigi Fortis of Verona (1820-29), resemble its early days in the 1500s: it was likewise a “heroic period,” rich in exceptional personalities in the field of action, but the shortage of personnel to meet the needs of the times likewise led to a rush to satisfy the most urgent demands. Added to this was the problem of integrating the venerable survivors of the “old Company” with the new recruits, a touching zeal in preserving old traditions, and perhaps even, from the beginning, a wider harvest of persecutions and expulsions. The role that Acquaviva had played in the 1500s was taken up in the 1800s by the general J. Philip Roothaan (1829-53), a Dutchman, who fully restored the normal functioning of Ignatian institutions, particularly in the formation of religious. His special merits included the renewed study of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the vigorous revival of missionary activity adapted to modern conditions.

Both he and his successor, the Belgian Peter Beckx (1853-87), witnessed repeated persecutions striking most of the provinces. To give a brief summary for the entire century: the Jesuits were expelled in 1818 from Belgium (under the Dutch), in 1820 from Russia; in 1828 their colleges were closed in France; in 1834 and 1835 they were expelled from Portugal and Spain; in 1847 from Switzerland after the Sonderbund War; in 1848 they were dispersed and expelled from Italy, Austria and Galicia; in 1850 from Colombia and Ecuador; in 1868 they were expelled again from Spain; in 1872 from Germany during the *Kulturkampf*; in 1873 many houses in Italy were confiscated, especially in Rome (the generals resided in Fiesole from 1873 to 1892); they were again dispersed in France in 1880 and 1901, expelled from Ecuador in 1879, from Portugal in 1910, and dissolved in Spain in 1932-36. The persecution, which was mostly legal, sometimes turned bloody, as in Spain (1822, 1836, 1932-35), in Paris (1871), in Mexico (Father Pro in 1927), not to mention the martyrs in the missions (in China in 1860, 1900-1902; in Syria 1859-60; in Madagascar 1883 and 1896).

With the modern generals, the Swiss Anton M. Anderledy (1887-92), the Spaniard Luigi Martin (1892-1906), the German Franz X. Wernz (1906-1914) and especially during the long and fruitful government of Father Wladimir Ledochowski (1915-42), the Company of Jesus attained the development and complexity of works that it presents today and that far surpass what had been its apex before the suppression.

As of 1949, it numbers 29,973 religious (15,018 priests) divided into 8 Assistancies and 55 independent provinces or vice-provinces. A sixth of them (4,650 religious, of whom 2,859 priests) are in the missions, which remain one of the principal activities of the Order. The most flourishing of these, before the very recent events that now threaten some of them, were in the Near and Far East those of Syria and Japan, several in India and China with large colleges and universities, those of Java and the Philippines, and in Africa those of the Congo and Madagascar.

In missions as in provinces, the ministry of education has retained a position of primary importance; in addition to colleges, there are not a few flourishing universities, mainly in the United States and in the missions. In many countries, a significant part of educational effort is devoted to the formation of the clergy, not only in missions but also in Rome (the Gregorian University with its Biblical and Oriental Institutes and several of the national "Colleges"), and in the rest of Italy (regional seminaries), in Spain (Comillas), Austria (Innsbruck), and in both Americas. Alongside the care of their own students, this contributes to the abundance of literary production in the field of sacred sciences.

For half a century, the ministry of closed spiritual retreats has taken on a new and impressive development, now comprising more than 170 houses for retreats, mostly intended for specialized groups; workers' retreats are but one part of social apostolate, which now absorbs many young forces. The old work, so effective in the ancient Compagnia di Gesù, of the Marian Congregations, now appears as one of the forms of Catholic Action, particularly fruitful in Spain, Austria, and the United States. Characteristic of the "new" Compagnia di Gesù and one of its most distinctive contributions is the Apostleship of Prayer (founded at Vals in 1844) with the Eucharistic Crusade.

Among the most modern means of apostolate, the press in the Compagnia di Gesù disposes of more than 1,700 periodicals, ranging from simple propaganda bulletins to specialized journals covering the most diverse branches of knowledge; to these is now added radio apostolate.

The General Curia, where the Superior General resides (M.R.P. Gio. B. Janssens since 15 Sept. 1946), is located in Rome, Borgo S. Spirito, 5.

Edmondo Lamalle