OLIVA, GIAN PAOLO. — Eleventh Superior General of the Jesuits, born in Genoa on 4 October 1600, died in Rome on 26 November 1681. He entered the Society in 1616 and was rector of the Collegio Romano, Apostolic Preacher under Innocent X, Alexander VII, Clement IX
and Clement X, and vicar general, with the right of succession, of Fr. G. Nikel (1661); he became Superior General in 1664.
He possessed a firm hand beneath an amiable manner and displayed the utmost skill in those difficult times in removing every cause of dissension between the Society and the other religious Orders, which he always surrounded with loving respect; and in keeping his subjects firmly on the right path amid the delicate questions raised by the sovereigns of Europe (the regalian rights and the Gallican declarations of the clergy in 1682, in
France; the more or less political positions taken by certain Fathers in Spain, Portugal, Poland, and England), by the struggle for and against probabilism, and by the apostolic vicars in the missions. He was consoled above all by the growth and success of the missionaries and by the formation of excellent preachers (P. Segneri, G. P. Pinamonti, C. Texier, L. Bourdaloue, V. Huby, J. Maunoir, now blessed, A. Vieira, etc.).
(photograph Enc. Catt.)
OLIVA, ALESSANDRO — Tomb of Cardinal O. (second half of the 15th century) — Rome, church of S. Agostino, passage to the sacristy.
Domestic sermons (10 series, ibid. 1670–82). His eloquence indulges in the style and mannerism of the period, but it is solid, vigorous, and effective, and was always received with profound emotion by his listeners.
BIRL.: Sommervogel, V, 1884–92; IX, 729; A. Astrain, Hist. de la Compagnia de Jesús en la asistencia de España, VI, Madrid 1920, p. 102 ff.; E. Amann, s. V. in DThC, XI, 991–94; G. B. Scapinelli, Il memoriale del p. O. S. J. al card. Cybo sul nepotismo, in Riv. di stor. della Chiesa in Italia, 2 (1948), pp. 262–73. Celestino Testore