Edmund Campion

Edmund Campion (b. 1540–d. 1581) was born in London and educated there and at Oxford, as a member of the newly founded St John’s College, a pillar of Mary Tudor’s Catholic revival. By the time he graduated Mary had been succeeded by Elizabeth I and Catholicism by an episcopally led form of Protestantism. Campion remained in Oxford, as tutor, lecturer, and orator, and was ordained as a deacon of the Church of England in 1569, but retained strong Catholic sympathies. In 1570 Elizabeth was excommunicated by Pius V and Campion retreated to Ireland. The following year he made his way to Douai in the Spanish Netherlands, where he recanted his Protestantism, and, in 1573, proceeded to Rome, where he entered the Society of Jesus. His Jesuit novitiate was undertaken in Brno, after which he taught in Prague. In 1579 he was chosen to undertake a mission to England, supporting those of his fellow countrymen who had remained loyal to Rome and endeavoring to convert those who had not. Together with Robert Persons (or Parsons [b. 1546–d. 1610]) and Ralph Emerson, Campion left Rome in April 1580. Arriving in England, he issued a challenge to debate doctrinal matters with leading Protestants. This was his so-called Brag. It was followed by the lengthier Rationes decem. All the while, he ministered in secret to the Catholic minority, until he was arrested at Lyford Grange, Berkshire, on 17 July 1581. During his imprisonment in the Tower of London he was granted his wish to debate with Protestant divines, but the four events were rigged against him. In November he was tried and found guilty of treasonable conspiracy against the queen, and on 1 December hanged at Tyburn with two other priests, Ralph Sherwin and Alexander Briant. He was beatified by Leo XIII in 1886 and canonized (as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales) by Paul VI in 1970. As this article confirms, Campion’s story is related in numerous Reference Works, expanded and/or placed in context in Overviews and examined in detail in Journals and Collections of Papers. For present purposes, his career is divided chronologically: up to 1570 under London and Oxford, 1570–1571 under History of Ireland, and the self-explanatory Mission to England, 1580–1581, which is subdivided into Primary Sources and Analysis. His afterlife is addressed under Legacy, first for the period 1581–1618, and then From Hagiography to Biography.

Jesuit Sanctity: Hypothesizing the Continuity of a Hagiographic Narrative of the Modern Age

The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.

Martyrs and Missionaries: Strategies of Jesuit Sainthood between the Suppression and the Restoration

This article explores the promotion of “Jesuit sanctity,” in the delicate passage between the suppression and the restoration of the Society of Jesus, as a reflection of the process of revival of the order. The strategies of sainthood that were fostered by the ex-Jesuits during the suppression and by the restored Society reveal fundamental information about the self-image that the order wanted to show to the world. These strategies emerge clearly from the activity of the General Postulation for the Causes of Saints of the new Society of Jesus, which in the nineteenth century focused in particular on two models of sanctity: martyrs and missionaries (and often martyred missionaries). Presenting important case studies of Francesco De Geronimo and Andrzej Bobola, this article investigates the reasons why the Society of Jesus promoted these typologies of sanctity in lieu of the trauma of the suppression, which emerges as “martyrdom” in Jesuit sources, and in the process of re-establishment of the order. It eventually explores how this “policy” of sainthood fits more broadly in the history of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Between Genoa and Milan: Giovanni Maria Visconti and His Hagiography of Anton Giulio Brignole Sale (1666)

Giovanni Maria Visconti, member of a prominent family of the Milanese patriciate, had an important career in his order as a teacher and spiritual director, and a valuable role in the internal government of the Society, between Milan and Genoa. After the death of Anton Giulio Brignole Sale, he was charged by his superiors with the task of writing a hagiographic biography of this famous man of letters and politician (son of a Genoese duke) who, after a long cursus honorum in the public offices of his republic and during a period of political crisis of the Genoese state, decided to end his career to become a diocesan priest, and, some years later, a member of the Society of Jesus. The work was published in 1666, with the title Alcune memorie delle virtù del padre Anton Giulio Brignole (Some memoirs of the virtues of Father Anton Giulio Brignole). It is an interesting book especially because the author, while describing Brignole Sale’s life and heroic virtues, also explained his transformation from the role of Catholic statesman to the role of religious preacher.

Conclusion: The Narrow Road to Martyrdom

The conclusion of this collection of studies endeavors to recapture five major questions that this special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies poses on the subject of martyrdom: Is this gesture a form of imitation of Christ (or imitatio Christi) or is it itself a sacrifice? How does it get rid of the shadow of suicide or voluntary death? How do the singularity of its experience and the community within which and in the name of which it is exercised articulate? Can martyrdom be defined as a renunciation of human love, and in this sense as the ultimate step in a process of conversion? How does martyrdom take its place in the writing of the religious history of the modern era, in particular, as far as the Society of Jesus is concerned, in the historiography of the nineteenth century? These five questions open this collection of essays to a field of research that remains to be pursued.

Editorial: Current Challenges of Ignatian Pedagogy

The Jubilee Ignatian Year began on 20 May 2021 and it will last until 31 July 2022. In the jubilee year of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) celebrates the 500th anniversary of the conversion of St. Ignatius Loyola and the 400th anniversary of his canonization. The starting date of the jubilee is related to the anniversary of the event that took place in Pamplona on 20 May 1521, when a cannonball injured Ignatius during a battle. It altered the course of his life, marking the beginning of his conversion, and leading to the founding of the Society of Jesus. The date of the end of the jubilee coincides with the liturgical commemoration of St. Ignatius of Loyola, that commemorates the day of his death. The conversion of Ignatius was associated primarily with a change in his lifestyle. Once a vain nobleman focused on world success, he has turned into an ascetic and inner-motivated man. Under the influence of these experiences, Ignatius and his Companions founded an order and initiated the creation of a “new” spirituality.

The Idea of „Depth” in Ignatian Pedagogy in Face of some Tendencies of Digital Education

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to present some contradictory tendencies and draw attention to two phenomena that prove their contradiction. The first one is the missing dimension of depth of knowledge which suggests that the ubiquitous source of information and student awareness is not automatically a qualitative asset. On the other hand, the gradual digitalization of education increasingly indicates the fragmentation of such a teaching process. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The article intends to emphasize the importance of two pillars of Jesuit pedagogy, which historically date back to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and which were revived by the interpretations of two former superiors of the Society of Jesus, P. Arrupe and A. Nicholas. However, the present times seems to bring different goals in the perspective of digital media and professional profiling of the student. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article is structured as follows. In the first part, the author presents the conclusions resulting from research and measurements conducted in Slovakia in recent years, which aimed at examining students' skills in reading comprehension and indicates the growing support for the digitalisation of education in Slovakia, which the author (and not only he) perceives as highly contradictory. On the other hand, the article makes an attempt to counter the notions: the “reference to depth” and the integrity of the human being, more and more often mentioned in the literature. RESEARCH RESULTS: The present study is to demonstrate that Jesuit pedagogical appeal to the need for “integral” development of the person and “depth” is extremely actual in this field. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS: The aim of the study is to show the need to re-develop these threads of depth and integral development of the human being, along with other pillars of Jesuit education, and rethink its message.

BAROQUE AROUND THE CLOCK: DANIELLO BARTOLI SJ (1608–1685) AND THE USES OF GLOBAL HISTORY

ABSTRACTRight from its foundation in 1540, the Society of Jesus recognised the value and role of visual description (ekphrasis) in the persuasive rhetoric of Jesuit missionary accounts. Over a century later, when Jesuit missions were to be found on all the inhabited continents of the world then known to Europeans, descriptions of the new-found lands were being read for the entertainment as well as the edification of their Old World audiences. The first official history of the Society's missions in the vernacular, the volumes authored by Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685), played an important role in communicating a sense of the distinctiveness of the order's global mission. Referred to by Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) as the ‘Dante of baroque prose’, Bartoli developed a particularly variegated and intensely visual idiom to meet the challenge of describing parts of the world which the majority of his readers, including himself, would never visit.

Imágenes, alhajas, ornamentos y mobiliario de la Compañía de Jesús en Murcia. Inventario y distribución de sus bienes tras la expulsión de 1767

La expulsión de los jesuitas en 1767 supuso la puesta en marcha de un amplio sistema administrativo centrado en la gestión de las posesiones que habían pertenecido hasta entonces a la Compañía de Jesús. Una de los cometidos que tenían que llevar a cabo estos consejos estaba centrado en el inventariado y distribución de las alhajas y ornamentos que esta orden tenía en sus colegios e iglesias. En el caso de Murcia, el inventario efectuado para tal fin, ofrece una panorámica general del estado en el que se encontraba la Iglesia de San Esteban aquel año. Asimismo, la documentación conservada refleja el destino de algunas alhajas y ornamentos que, siguiendo las indicaciones reales, fueron divididas y distribuidas, quedando algunas en el templo original, pasando otras a las parroquias pobres y llegando otras al convento franciscano de Santa Catalina del Monte. En este artículo se analiza este inventario, así como la distribución de sus alhajas y ornamentos, conforme a lo que sucedió en otros territorios españoles, incluyendo el propio caso de Caravaca de la Cruz, con el fin de ofrecer una visión global. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 entailed the setting up of a broad administrative system focused on the management of the goods heretofore belonging to the Society of Jesus. Among the tasks that these councils were meant to accomplish appears the inventory and distribution of the silverware and ornaments that had been preserved by this order in its colleges and churches. In the case of Murcia, the executed inventory for that purpose offers an overview of the state of the Church of San Esteban in that year. Additionally, the documentation preserved reflects the destination of the silverware and ornaments: some of them were kept in the temple, some were sent to poorer parishes and some ended up in the Franciscan convent of Santa Catalina del Monte. This inventory has been analysed in this paper, as well as the distribution of its silverware and ornaments, according to what occurred in other Spanish territories, including the case of Caravaca de la Cruz, with the aim of offering a general picture.