Jesuit Relations

Jesuit Relations annual reports and narratives written by French Jesuit missionaries at their stations in New France (America) between 1632 and 1673. They are invaluable as historical sources for French exploration and native relations and also as a record of the various indigenous tribes of the region before the influence of settlers and missionaries had changed them. Published originally in Paris in annual volumes, they were translated and edited by R. G. Thwaites (73 vol., 1896-1901).

Bibliography: See bibliography by J. C. McCoy, Jesuit Relations of Canada, 1632-1673 (1937, repr. 1973).

Jesuits, name given to members of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, founded by Ignatius Loyola (1534). Originally conceived as a band of spiritual soldiers to convert the Moslems, the order has been distinguished for its missionary work and scholarship. The Jesuits were powerful in the Spanish, French, and Portuguese possessions in the Americas, and were associated with the Calverts in founding Maryland. Among the notable French leaders were Marquette and Jogues, among the Spanish was Kino, and the Belgians included De Smet. The Jesuit Relations, translated by R.G. Thwaites (73 vols., 1896–1901), includes reports and narratives of the missionaries in New France. Among the learned institutions that they founded in the present U.S. are Georgetown University (1789) and Fordham (1841). A famous historical account is Parkman's The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century.

Jesuits The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius Loyola and approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. It offered total obedience to the papacy and was prominent in the effort to recover ground lost to the church by the Reformation. Mary Tudor, though a devoted catholic, mistrusted the order and did not invite it to England. But the deterioration of relations between Elizabeth and the papacy, culminating in the bull of excommunication of 1570, changed the situation. William Allen had already founded a seminary at Douai and about 100 catholic priests had made their way back to England by 1580, living an undercover existence, hiding in priest holes, and protected by the old catholic gentry. In that year, two Jesuit priests landed—Campion and Parsons. Their mission lasted only a few months but gave an important boost to the morale of English catholics. Campion was soon apprehended and executed in December 1581: Parsons left for the continent and never returned. The events of the rest of the decade—powerful French and catholic influence in Scotland, plots against the queen's life, the threat of the Armada—combined to strengthen anti‐catholic feeling in England. But the culminating disaster for English catholics was the Gunpowder plot of 1605, which resulted in the capture of Henry Garnett, Jesuit superior in England for nearly 20 years. Though he claimed that he knew of the plot only through the confessional, he was executed as a traitor. For decades, ‘Jesuitical’ became a term of abuse, signifying mental reservation, prevarication, and casuistry. But, in the long run, the Enlightenment proved more damaging to the order than downright persecution. The Jesuits were accused of undue pliability in their zeal to proselytize and the order was wound up by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 after France, Spain, and Portugal had all moved against it. Though reconstituted in 1814 by Pope Pius VII, the circumstances which had made Jesuits so hated were no longer in existence. The English province of the order was re‐established in 1829. Although fierce bursts of anti‐catholic feeling were still possible, particularly at the time of ‘papal aggression’ in 1850, the role of the Society of Jesus was no longer a national bugbear.