The Feast of a Founder Dr Michael Lobo dr.michael.l...@gmail.com
I have entitled this post "Feast of a Founder" as today is the feast of St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order -- more formally known as the "Society of Jesus" -- a congregation that has had a significant influence on the course of history not merely of Christianity but also of varied facets of civilization in general. The society has had an especially important role to play in the history of many Christian communities of India. Ignatius Loyola was born with the name Inigo Lopez to an aristocratic family in northern Spain in the first half of the 1490s (the exact year is disputed). This part of Spain, on the southern coast of the Bay of Biscay, is known as the Basque country -- and its inhabitants speak a language that is unrelated not just to Spanish but to the entire Indo-European family of languages. A soldier in his youth, Inigo's right leg was badly fractured at the Battle of Pamplona (1521) and he had to undergo surgical operations in an era that knew nothing of anaesthetics. It was during his convalescence that he experienced a spiritual awakening, which resulted in his making a pilgrimage to Rome and to the Holy Land. He became known as Ignatius of Loyola, Ignatius being the Latin form of Inigo, and Loyola being the name of his family estate (now a Jesuit shrine). The first half of the 16th century was a period of religious upheaval in Europe. Posterity has termed it "The Reformation", though this name is rather illogical as what happened was more in the nature of a Revolution. Commencing with Martin Luther of Germany -- who, angered by the sale of indulgences, publicly broke off from the papacy in 1517 -- the defections continued under the leadership of King Henry VIII of England, John Knox of Scotland, John Calvin of France, and Ulrich Zwingli of Switzerland among others. A single defection often serves as a catalyst for others (as this very form has experienced). It was in this critical period in the history of the Church that Ignatius formed a group of disciples (mainly Spanish students at the University of Paris, including Francis Xavier) who took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience to the pope, and dedication to a life of apostolic work. They initially called themselves Amigos en El Senor (Friends in the Lord). In 1540, Pope Paul III granted them formal recognition as the "Society of Jesus", a name that was deemed presumptuous by some critics. The early Jesuits founded schools throughout Europe, their teachers specializing in classical studies and theology. They played a major role in curbing the spread of Protestantism, a movement that became known as the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Finally, they also sent missions throughout the globe, including the newly discovered American continent. The first Jesuits arrived in India within a year of the foundation of the Society. It is mainly through their worldwide missions that the Jesuits left their imprint -- learning native languages, creating scripts for those languages which existed only in oral tradition, and compiling grammars and dictionaries. Their missions gradually extended to education and health care. Their first institution in Asia was St Paul's, Goa, founded by St Francis Xavier within a year of his landing in Goa in 1542. St Paul's offered classes in grammar and rhetoric and also housed India's first printing press. Though the buildings have now disintegrated, the gate still stands as a ruin. More ambitious was St Paul's, Macau -- founded in 1594. Macau (near Hong Kong) was a Portuguese colony and the college was founded as part of an understanding between the Portuguese government and the papacy. St Paul's, Macau, served as a base for Jesuit missionaries in the Far East. Over the course of time, its academic programme encompassed subjects such as theology, philosophy, mathematics, geography and astronomy as well as the Latin, Portuguese and Chinese languages. The college had to be closed in 1762, when the Portuguese made a decision to suppress the spread of Jesuit influence. In the 19th century the buildings were destroyed in a fire -- and it is now an architectural ruin, regarded by UNESCO as one of their heritage monuments. It is noteworthy that both these pioneering Jesuit institutions were named after St Paul the Apostle. This is presumably because the Jesuit missionary work in countries where Christianity was little known was somewhat analogous to St Paul's efforts to spread the word of Christ among the Gentiles (this being the general term in Biblical times to refer to all communities that were outside the 'civilized world'). But after the construction of St Paul's Cathedral, London, in the 17th century (actually a reconstruction of a church that was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666), St Paul became closely associated with Protestant culture and so the name naturally fell out of favour with the Catholics! Recently, I wrote how the rivalry between the European powers in the colonial era led to the creation of expressions such as French Leave and Dutch Courage. The more general rivalry between the Catholic and Protestant countries was even more intense -- comparable to the Cold War between the US and the USSR in the post-World War II era. I will mention just one amusing example to illustrate this point. Back in the time of Julius Caesar, astronomers had introduced the leap year to correct irregularities in the calendar and ensure that the Spring Equinox always occurred around March 21st. This became known as the Julian calendar. But in fact the solar year is not precisely 365.25 days; the correct figure is closer to 365.24ΒΌ days, so that the Julian calendar would show an irregularity of three days every four hundred years. In the 16th century an Italian astronomer named Aloysius Lilius proposed a correction in the calendar, whereby century years (such as 1700, 1800, and 1900) should not be leap years unless divisible by 400 (such as the year 2000). This correction was officially sanctioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and became known as the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was immediately adopted in all the Catholic countries. But the Protestant nations -- though their astronomers were doubtless aware of its accuracy -- did not follow suit. The Protestant countries preferred to disagree with nature rather than agree with the pope! Today, the Gregorian calendar is followed worldwide. Now to return to the story of the Jesuits. In North America, during the colonial era, the Jesuits were not welcomed in the so-called "Thirteen Colonies" (that would eventually combine to form the pioneer United States), as these were essentially Protestant immigrants from England. But they formed several missions in the portion of North America known as "Nouvelle France" (now French-Canada and the mid US all the way south to Louisiana). Unlike the Spanish conquistadors, who crushed the native Indians in South America, and the British immigrants of the Atlantic Coast, who despised the native population, the Jesuits in Nouvelle-France were comparatively respectful of the American-Indian way of life, even to the point of conforming with them while residing among them. But though their North American missions featured elementary schools, it was not practicable to start a college comparable to St Paul's at Macau -- and there were numerous instances of conflicts with rebellious Red Indians. Some of the Jesuit missionaries who died in these conflicts were later canonized. In South America, the Jesuit missionaries adopted a somewhat different approach, forming settlements, wherein native Indians lived communally and shared their agricultural skills, while in return the Jesuits taught them crafts such as carpentry, leather tanning, and manuscript preparation. And while these settlements may have had their individuality, each had a similar organizational plan. At the centre would be the village plaza with a statue of the mission's patron saint -- also a church, school, and a small hospital. The historical events described above occurred mainly in the 17th century. In the 18th century Jesuit missionary activity went into a decline, partly because the political powers in Europe were becoming resentful of their growing influence, control of education, as well as wealth and power. The government of Portugal formally suppressed the Jesuit order in 1759, all their assets being confiscated by the crown. France followed suit in 1764 and Spain in 1767. Finally Pope Clement XIV declared the order closed by a papal bull of 1773. A little digression: When the Marquis de Pombal, Prime Minister of Portugal, formally pronounced the expulsion of all Jesuits from Portugal in 1759, five seminarians -- Br Moreira, Don Pacheco, Domingo Gonsalvez, Leon Texeira, Paul de Rosario, and a Spanish friend Francisco Fernandez -- set sail for India. At the time there was already a fledgling Portuguese-Indian community living along the Arabian Sea coast. The seminarians probably married women from this community. The Fernandez, Gonsalvez, Pacheco, Rosario, and Texeira families feature in my Genealogical Encyclopaedia; descendants are variously settled. Despite the closure of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement in 1773, the Jesuits who had sworn obedience to the pope (among other vows) continued to work in countries such as Russia and Prussia whose rulers disregarded the dictates of the pope. In fact from 1773, until the order was re-endorsed by Pope Pius VII in 1814, the Rector of the Jesuit College at Polotsk in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the de-facto Superior General of the Order. Also, interestingly, the Protestants of the fledgling United States, where the Jesuits had never been welcome, had a sudden change of heart now that the Order had been abolished by the pope. A Jesuit named John Carroll became the first Catholic bishop of the young republic -- and he founded Georgetown University at Washington DC in 1789. The Jesuits who founded this University in 1789 were perhaps wise not to name the institution after one of their pioneers or a Catholic saint. Georgetown is a colony of Washington DC that was founded in 1750 and presumably named after the then king of England George II. It is indeed ironic that with the exception of the Pontifical Gregorian University, which was founded in Rome by Ignatius Loyola himself, the oldest Jesuit university in the world that is still in existence is Georgetown -- founded in an essentially Protestant country at a time when the Jesuits were no longer recognized by their own church. During this period the Pontifical Gregorian University was run by the diocesan clergy of Rome but it was returned to the Society of Jesus when Pope Pius re-established the order in 1814. The period following the 1814 restoration was marked by rapid growth, especially in the United States -- which witnessed the creation of Saint Louis University (1818); Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama (1830); St Xavier's College, Cincinnati, Ohio (1831); Fordham University, New York (1841); College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts (1843); St Joseph's College, Philadelphia (1851); Santa Clara University, California (1851); Loyola College, Maryland (1852); St Ignatius Academy, San Francisco (1855); Boston College (1863); Canisius College, Buffalo, New York (1870); Loyola University, Chicago (1870); St Peter's College, Jersey City, New Jersey (1872); Detroit College (1877); Regis College, Denver, Colorado (1877); Creighton College, Omaha, Nebraska (1878); Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1881); John Carroll University, Ohio (1886); Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington (1887); University of Scranton, Pennsylvania (1888); Seattle College (1891); Loyola University, New Orleans (1904); Rockhurst College, Kansas City, Missouri (1910); Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles (1911); Fairfield University, Connecticut (1942); Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York (1946); Wheeling College, West Virginia (1954). Of these, Saint Louis University has the distinction of being the world's oldest university west of the Mississippi River. This area was not part of the United States at the time it declared Independence from Britain in 1776; it was purchased from the French in 1803 for $ 15 million and doubled the size of the fledgling country. And Santa Clara University was founded when the state of California was in its infancy, just a year after the historic Gold Rush attracted thousands of immigrants and California was accorded statehood. The first US Jesuit college to be named after a saint was St Xavier's College at Cincinnati (St Louis University was named after the city of this name in Missouri). Canisius College was named after St Peter Canisius, a 16th century Dutch Jesuit. Regis College, Denver, was named after St John Francis Regis (1597-1640), a French Jesuit who spent most of his life serving the marginalized. Creighton College -- now a university -- was named after the philanthropist who left a bequest for its foundation. Marquette University was named after the 17th century French-American Jesuit missionary and explorer Fr Jacques Marquette (1637-1675). John Carroll University was named after the first US Catholic bishop (who founded Georgetown University in 1789). Gonzaga University was of course named after St Aloysius Gonzaga. Seattle College is said to have been named after a Red Indian chief, from whom the city of Seattle also gets its name. Le Moyne College was named after the 17th century French-American Jesuit missionary and explorer Fr Simon Le Moyne (1604-1665). Nearly all these institutions were originally for male student only. The first to admit girl students was Marquette University in 1909. Le Moyne was founded as a co-educational institution in 1946. By 1972 all the Jesuit institutions in the United States had become co-educational, the last to admit girl students having been the Holy Cross College, Massachusetts (which had been founded in 1843). Some of the institutions founded as colleges have since attained university status. St Xavier's College, Cincinnati (founded in 1830), and St Ignatius Academy, San Francisco (founded in 1855) were both elevated as universities in 1930 -- becoming Xavier University and the University of San Francisco. Seattle College was accorded university status as Seattle University in 1948; St Joseph's College, Philadelphia, in 1978; Regis College, Denver in 1991; Loyola College, Maryland, in 2009. And Detroit College is now the University of Detroit Mercy. The college was founded in 1877 and when elevated to university status in 1911 it was still an all-male institution. In 1941 the Sisters of Mercy opened Mercy College of Detroit. The two institutions eventually merged in 1990 as the University of Detroit Mercy. Since their Restoration in 1814, the Society of Jesus also began to renew their missions in other parts of the world. This was a time when the countries of Asia, Africa, and South America were all under colonial administration -- and it was logical to entrust their spiritual welfare to the Jesuit provinces of the administering countries. During the 1830s the French province of the Society of Jesus founded missions at Syria (1831), Pondicherry (1837), and Algeria (1838) -- and in parts of southern Africa later in the 19th century. The mission at Pondicherry -- which eventually became the Madura Province -- has the distinction of founding the oldest Asian Jesuit college of the restored society. This is St Joseph's College, Trichinopoly -- actually started at Nagapatnam, about 100 miles south of Pondicherry on the Bay of Bengal. In 1839 the Syrian Mission started a school in Beirut. This was promoted to the status of a university in 1875. St Joseph's University, Beirut, probably has the distinction of being the oldest university in the Middle East that is still in existence. As the Syrian mission was in the hands of the French Lyon province of the Jesuits, St Joseph's University, Beirut, became a bastion of France's francophonie policy. In the 19th century the Philippines were still under Spanish administration -- and the Jesuit Province of Aragon, Spain, were entrusted with re-opening missions in the area. They arrived there in 1859 and that same year founded the Ateneo de Manila. The words 'ateneo' is a Spanish form of Athenium (in ancient Greece, the sanctuary of Athena, frequented by poets and scholars). It was elevated as a university in 1901. The situation in 19th century India was more complex with the three major presidencies of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras -- as well as some other provinces -- being governed by Great Britain, some areas under French or Portuguese administration, and other areas under native rulers. Goa, in theory, had been an independent Portuguese Jesuit province since the time of St Francis Xavier, but its activities were dormant. The French province of Toulouse founded the Madura Mission (1837) -- and St Joseph's College, Trichinopoly (1844) -- which catered to Madras Presidency. But England had no Jesuit province -- and in the late 1850s, the Jesuit provinces of Belgium and Upper Germany were authorized to open missions at Calcutta and Bombay respectively. Both these missions opened colleges dedicated to St Francis Xavier, but simply named St Xavier's College. The districts of Canara and Malabar on the southern west coast of India were both part of Madras Presidency, its Christian population being under a single diocese (then called vicariate) of Mangalore. Originally a mission of the archdiocese of Goa, the Holy See had made it an independent vicariate in the 1840s under the jurisdiction of French and Italian Carmelites. But these orders were concerned mainly with missionary work rather than education -- a nd ever since the foundation of the Jesuit missions of Calcutta and Bombay in the late 1850s, the leading Catholic families of Mangalore made repeated petitions to Rome to transfer the vicariate of Mangalore to the Society of Jesus. It took two full decades for their request to be sanctioned. Mangalore was assigned to the Venice-Milan province of the Jesuits; they sailed from Bombay by the SS Alabama on 27 December 1878 and landed in Mangalore on the 31st. The new administration at Mangalore opened a new college in 1880 and chose to dedicate it to a Jesuit saint of their own province -- Luigi Gonzaga -- who died at the age of 24 in 1591 while caring for the victims of an epidemic. Aloysius is the Latinized form of Luigi. In Italy there are schools and at least one college (at Bologna) dedicated to San Luigi, that date back to the 17th century (though they may possibly be named after St Louis IX (1214-1270), a French king who was canonized for his leadership in two crusade and for his philanthropy to the poor). But the oldest educational institution to bear the Latin form of the name, St Aloysius, appears to have been St Aloysius College, Glasgow -- also Jesuit -- which was founded in 1859. Though designated as a college, it was started as -- and still remains -- a high school. Two other high schools named "St Aloysius College" followed -- in London and in Sydney (Australia) -- in the 1870s -- but St Aloysius College, Mangalore, is the first institution of this name which is actually a college. Gonzaga College in Washington State, USA, was founded in the late 1880s (attaining university status in 1912). And so at the turn of the century there were four major Jesuit colleges in India -- at Trichinopoly, Calcutta, Bombay, and Mangalore -- all run by different European provinces. The German Jesuits, who ran the Bombay mission, were placed in a most awkward position during the Great War (World War I). Some were interned, others repatriated; but the mission and the college survived under Jesuits from other European provinces -- and even from the Philippines. Though the presidency capital cities of Calcutta and Bombay had Jesuit colleges in the 1860s, the third presidency capital had to wait until 1925 for the Madura mission to found its most famous institution -- Loyola College, Madras. This was the first college in India dedicated to the founder of the Society of Jesus. Founded by the French Jesuit Fr Francis Bertram S.J., Loyola College is probably the first Catholic college in India whose name does not commence with the word 'Saint'. It has generally been a tradition for the names of Catholic educational institutions to commence with this word, though non-Catholic Christian institutions are often named after their founders or pioneer benefactors (for example Wilson College, Bombay, started by Rev John Wilson in 1832, was named after him, probably after his death). The other prestigious Jesuit institution of southern India -- St Joseph's College, Bangalore -- though founded in 1882, passed into Jesuit hands only in 1937; it was earlier run by the Foreign Missions Society of Paris. A little digression: during the 1940s, two brothers hailing from a D'Souza family of Kinnigoly, about 20 miles north of Mangalore, simultaneously held the position of Rector/Principal at St Joseph's College, Bangalore, and Loyola College, Madras. They are Fr Boniface D'Souza and Fr Jerome D'Souza, the two eldest in a family of five children -- four sons and a daughter -- all of whom chose religious careers. Their father had died in 1933 but their mother Seraphine was honoured with the papal award of Pro Ecclesia for having gifted all her children to the church. Fr Jerome was elected to the constituent assembly of India in 1946, and thrice represented India at the Indian delegation to the U.N.O. There are currently over 50 Jesuit colleges in India -- generally named in honour of St Joseph or one of the three Jesuit saints: Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Aloysius Gonzaga. There are many other Jesuit saints, of course, but in India it is these three that naturally come to mind. Interestingly, Indian Jesuit colleges specializing in philosophy and theology often bear Indian names such as Jnana-Deepa or Vidyajyothi. The number of Jesuit schools in India runs into the hundreds -- and here the choice of names is wider. Campion schools commemorate St Edmund Campion (1540-1581), an English Jesuit who was martyred for his championing of Catholic doctrines in a country that was staunchly Anglican. De Nobili schools commemorate Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656), an Italian Jesuit missionary in southern India, who was one of the first Europeans to adapt to Indian ways of life, for example, shaving his head and wearing dhoti and sandals. De Britto schools commemorate St John de Britto (1647-1693), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary in southern India, who likewise inculturated into the Indian way of life, especially in his diet; he was martyred after objecting to the polygamy practiced by a local prince. He has been termed the St John the Baptist of India, partly because of the similarity between their names, but chiefly because of the parallel between their martyrdoms (St John the Baptist was executed by Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, as he denounced the king for divorcing his wife and then marrying the divorced wife of his own half-brother). before concluding, I would once again like to return to the two founders of the order, Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier. Both were canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. Since then there have been numerous churches dedicated to them. Those dedicated to St Francis Xavier almost always make use of his full name to avoid confusion with St Francis of Assisi. Those dedicated to St Ignatius Loyola are generally called "St Ignatius Church", though there is also a saint of this name who lived in the first century AD -- St Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, about whom little is known except that he is the reputed author of a series of letters that provide some information about early church history. According to legend, these letters were written while he was being escorted by Roman soldiers from Antioch to Rome, where he was martyred. They were distributed to the people he met en route. In the 19th century Jesuit educational institutions dedicated to these two pioneers also tended to be known as St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier, but over the decades nomenclature in terms of the surname alone (with no prefix of St) slowly gained popularity. To speakers of English, the name Loyola possessed the additional appeal of suggesting loyalty. Loyola University, Chicago, started out as St Ignatius College in 1870 but was renamed Loyola University in 1909. When St Xavier's College, Cincinnati, was elevated to university status in 1930, the prefix 'St' was dropped -- and it is now just Xavier University. In India, though most schools and colleges dedicated to St Francis Xavier have retained the prefix 'St', specialized institutes tend to use 'Xavier' only -- for example Xavier Institute of Engineering, Mumbai; Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar; Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ranchi; and, of course, Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, which is the oldest of all and was founded shortly after Independence. In India today, the names 'Loyola' and 'Xavier' have become almost synonymous with institutions of higher learning. A point of interest is that whereas the expression "St Xavier" sounds quite natural, the expression "St Loyola" sounds decidedly odd. This is simply a matter of custom or usage. The original Loyola and Xavier were the family estates or townships in northern Spain where Ignatius and Francis were born. As mentioned at the start of this article, St Ignatius Loyola was born with the name Inigo Lopez. And St Francis Xavier was born with the name Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta. I will now conclude with a touch of humour. Back in the 1960s, on the 31st of July, a master at St Aloysius Elementary School, Mangalore, asked his pupils "Whose feast is it today?" Prompt came a response from one little boy: "Louella's feast"! The little boy was in fact not that far off the mark. In Latin and the Romance languages, every syllable of a word or name tends to be distinctly pronounced. For example, if the word 'joy' were Latin, it would probably be pronounced like the English pet name 'Joey'. After the foundation of St Aloysius College, Mangalore, the name Aloysius gained popularity. Today, at least in India, it is generally pronounced in three syllables as A-loy-shis. But the traditional Latin pronunciation is of five syllables -- somewhat like A-lou-is-e-us. The Italian Jesuit pioneers in Mangalore who founded St Aloysius College would no doubt have employed the Latin pronunciation -- and in the early years of the 20th century boys who bore the name Aloysius tended to use the pet form 'Louis'. But in the 1930s, the management of the college was handed over to the native Mangalorean Jesuits -- and by the time of Independence the three-syllable pronunciation had became standard. During the 1950s and 1960s, boys christened Aloysius preferred to use the pet form 'Loy'. Likewise, the pronunciation of the name Loyola in Spanish would probably be something like Lou-e-ola, which to persons brought up in an English culture would seem to possess a distinctive feminine touch. Recently, I have almost made it a habit of concluding each of my mails by attaching a piece of music. I have not thus far attached any romantic song, but in commemoration of "Louella's Feast", I will sign off with an attachment of Pat Boone's 1957 recording of the romantic song Louella. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3BluTapTxY ### Circulated earlier via Dr Lobo's list.