almost 14,000 members. Antwerp alone had ten with some 3,000 members, which included Rubens. The Professed House in Antwerp provided twenty-six confessors on call for the adjacent church, where within the space of a year Jesuits administered communion 240,000 times. In Brussels over the course of fifteen years, the Jesuits gave spiritual comfort to 344 men as they prepared for their execution. Although Belgium itself had no overseas missions, the Jesuits there claimed a share in the merits of the English and Scots martyrsâEdmund Campion, Robert Southwell, John Ogilvie, and othersâbecause their schools educated these (and many other) English recusants.
In 1580 three English JesuitsâCampion, Robert Persons, and Ralph Emersonâentered England in disguise. They eventually were joined by others, but even by 1610 the number had grown to only fifty-two. Their situation, always difficult and dangerous,worsened considerably in 1605 when they were suspected of collusion in the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I. The âEnglish missionâ of the Jesuits ran into ever more difficulties, including opposition from other priests. Somehow it managed to continue and in an utterly unexpected turn of events to father a mission of great importance for the future of Catholicism.
George Calvert, first Baron of Baltimore, converted to Catholicism, at least partly due to the ministrations of the Jesuit Andrew White. His son Leonard wanted to colonize lands held by the family in the area of the Chesapeake Bay in North America. In so doing he also wanted to provide a refuge for Catholics where they might worship freely. He enlisted Andrew White and two other Jesuits to accompany the expedition, which was made up of both Catholics and Anglicans. On March 25, 1634, the colonists arrived on St. Clementâs Island in what was to become, first, the English colony of Maryland and then, after the American Revolution, one of the original thirteen states in the new United States.
Although the colony was founded on a principle of religious toleration, waves of bitter anti-Catholicism periodically broke out. Still, some Catholic families prospered and were regarded with respect and deference. The Jesuits, the only Catholic priests in the colony, continued to grow by small increments through entry into the Society of young men from Maryland itself. They worked to convert the ever diminishing number of aborigines and to minister to the relatively small Catholic population, which they did by providing them with mass, the sacraments, and basic catechesis. Compared to other overseas undertakings by the Society, Maryland was among the least venturesome and the least promising for the future.
THE SOCIETY OVERSEAS
Ever since the late fifteenth century, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians had sailed with the galleons of Portugal and Spain as they set out to explore and exploit âthe Indies,â the generic term of the era to indicate Asia and the Americas. The Jesuits came late on the scene but soon began to play an important and in some places a dominant role. Despite their massive commitment to the ministry of formal schooling, they never forgot that they were founded as a missionary order and that their professed members pronounced a special (Fourth) vow âconcerning missions.â
By the time Ignatius died in 1556, Jesuits had not only set foot in India, Japan, and Brazil but also in the Congo and were on their way to Ethiopia. The moving force behind these ventures was King John III of Portugal, and it was under his aegis and in his domains that the Jesuits first made their mark as missionaries. In Africa the Jesuits became engaged in five large areas: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, the Congo, and Cape Verde. Although from the days of Saint Ignatius himself, Jesuit hopes were high for bringing the Coptic church in Ethiopia into the Roman fold, they despite repeated efforts over a long period made little
In 1580 three English JesuitsâCampion, Robert Persons, and Ralph Emersonâentered England in disguise. They eventually were joined by others, but even by 1610 the number had grown to only fifty-two. Their situation, always difficult and dangerous,worsened considerably in 1605 when they were suspected of collusion in the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I. The âEnglish missionâ of the Jesuits ran into ever more difficulties, including opposition from other priests. Somehow it managed to continue and in an utterly unexpected turn of events to father a mission of great importance for the future of Catholicism.
George Calvert, first Baron of Baltimore, converted to Catholicism, at least partly due to the ministrations of the Jesuit Andrew White. His son Leonard wanted to colonize lands held by the family in the area of the Chesapeake Bay in North America. In so doing he also wanted to provide a refuge for Catholics where they might worship freely. He enlisted Andrew White and two other Jesuits to accompany the expedition, which was made up of both Catholics and Anglicans. On March 25, 1634, the colonists arrived on St. Clementâs Island in what was to become, first, the English colony of Maryland and then, after the American Revolution, one of the original thirteen states in the new United States.
Although the colony was founded on a principle of religious toleration, waves of bitter anti-Catholicism periodically broke out. Still, some Catholic families prospered and were regarded with respect and deference. The Jesuits, the only Catholic priests in the colony, continued to grow by small increments through entry into the Society of young men from Maryland itself. They worked to convert the ever diminishing number of aborigines and to minister to the relatively small Catholic population, which they did by providing them with mass, the sacraments, and basic catechesis. Compared to other overseas undertakings by the Society, Maryland was among the least venturesome and the least promising for the future.
THE SOCIETY OVERSEAS
Ever since the late fifteenth century, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians had sailed with the galleons of Portugal and Spain as they set out to explore and exploit âthe Indies,â the generic term of the era to indicate Asia and the Americas. The Jesuits came late on the scene but soon began to play an important and in some places a dominant role. Despite their massive commitment to the ministry of formal schooling, they never forgot that they were founded as a missionary order and that their professed members pronounced a special (Fourth) vow âconcerning missions.â
By the time Ignatius died in 1556, Jesuits had not only set foot in India, Japan, and Brazil but also in the Congo and were on their way to Ethiopia. The moving force behind these ventures was King John III of Portugal, and it was under his aegis and in his domains that the Jesuits first made their mark as missionaries. In Africa the Jesuits became engaged in five large areas: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, the Congo, and Cape Verde. Although from the days of Saint Ignatius himself, Jesuit hopes were high for bringing the Coptic church in Ethiopia into the Roman fold, they despite repeated efforts over a long period made little
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