Ledóchowski, Włodzimierz

LEDÓCHOWSKI, WŁODZIMIERZ. - Twenty-sixth general of the Society of Jesus, b. at Loosdorf (Austria) on 7 Oct. 1866, d. at Rome on 13 Dec. 1942. He was a page at the court of Emperor Francis Joseph and attended the "Theresianum" in Vienna; he studied law at the Seminary of Tarnów, philosophy at the Gregorian in Rome, as a student of the German College. A Jesuit in 1889, he completed his studies; then from 1897 he was a writer and subsequently rector of the residence and of the College Maximum of Kraków and provincial of Galicia. In 1906 he was elected "Assistant" for Germany; on 11 Feb. 1915, general of the Order. As such he always lived in Rome, except for a brief stay at Zizers (Switzerland), during the period of World War I (1915-18).

During his government he promoted with zeal and firm constancy a great series of works, in which he showed a marvelous intuition of the needs of the times and of the character and gifts of his subjects to respond to them. He brought to completion the revision of the law of the Society according to the new CIC; he inculcated the study and the following of St. Thomas Aquinas, wisely determined and clarified according to the spirit of the Church; he ardently promoted the Marian Congregations, the work of the Spiritual Exercises, the Apostleship of Prayer, the increase and aid of the missions; he favored in every way popular and scholarly publishing activity to defend the Church and to oppose a barrier to deviations of any sort. Under him, the Society was entrusted with the Oriental Institute and the Russicum College; the General Curia and the Gregorian received new premises. The statistics show that his government was one of the most fruitful: in 1915 the assistancies were 5, the provinces 27, the members 16,946; in 1941 the figures were respectively 8, 50, 26,588; the missions entrusted to the Jesuits (rose) from 29 to 46; the missionaries from 971 to 3785. At his death, the educational activity comprised, not counting the missions, 15 universities, 421 secondary institutions with 138,800 pupils; the literary activity: 1112 periodicals in 50 languages and innumerable works. The most significant novelty was that of admitting and granting the faculty to a good number of his men to profess the Oriental rite. To this should be added the beautiful crown of saints and blesseds, whose proclamation took place, among them St. R. Bellarmine, St. P. Canisius, the Sts. Canadian-American Martyrs, the b. C. La Colombière, the b. G. Pignatelli and numerous martyrs of England and Scotland.

Celestino Testore