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Authors: S. W. J. O'Malley
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might have been taken against them.
In India the Italian nobleman Roberto De Nobili (1577â1656) reached the city of Madurai in South India in 1606, and for most of the next forty years worked as a missionary there. Dismayed at the policy of forcing Portuguese names and customs upon converts, he decided to adopt the dress, customs, diet, and manner of life of the Hindu holy man. He was one of the first Europeans to learn Tamil and perhaps the first to write a theological treatise in that or any Indian language. His life was dedicated to the proposition that to become a Christian one did not have to become a European. He and his Jesuit successors, especially the Portuguese nobleman João de Brito (1647â1693), had limited success, due in part to their small numbers, but they were the pioneers that later generations emulated.
The Catholic mission in the East that had the most lasting success by far was the mission to the Philippines, which resulted in the only country in that part of the world with a population overwhelmingly Catholic. In 1581 Antonio Sedeño, who nine years earlier had founded the mission to Mexico, arrived in Manila with three other Jesuits. Within a decade some hundred Jesuits were working in several of the islands, cooperating with and competing with other orders that had arrived earlier. Through theseventeenth century, the number of men in the province hovered between about 100 and 130. Although the Jesuits made important contributions to the Philippine mission, they share the success with the other orders.
France was late in trying to establish an overseas empire, but in 1608 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City and thus New France. A small group of Jesuits led by Paul Le Jeune arrived in 1632 and within three years had founded in Quebec City the College of Our Lady of the Angels. The harshness of the climate, the indifference or hostility of the native peoples, and the primitive character of life even in the French settlements made this an especially difficult mission, and the Jesuits suffered terribly.
3
CONSOLIDATION, CONTROVERSY, CALAMITY
R eassured by the celebrations of their first century, the Jesuits moved with confidence into their second. Although the Japanese mission, a venture of which they had been particularly proud, ended in tragedy, that failure was an exception. In virtually every other place where they had established themselves, they seemed to move ever more deeply into the religious and cultural fabric and to give it characteristics distinctive of themselves. They consolidated and further developed enterprises earlier undertaken.
Perhaps no more graphic illustration of this phenomenon can be found than in the elaborate network of reciprocally supportive institutions that the Jesuits constructed in Spanish America. The network integrated their urban and rural enterprises into a system in which, though each enterprise stood on its own, it also provided benefits to the others. In the cities the Jesuits opened schools and constructed impressive churches. But their urban holdings extended much further and included hospitals, pharmacies, andretreat houses. In major cities such as Cusco or La Paz, they ran
tambos,
which were guesthouses or modest hotels where travelers might stay.
The larger schools, moreover, contained printing presses and housed extensive libraries with books published locally but also books imported from Europe on almost every imaginable subject. Some also operated astronomical observatories. The most celebrated school, San Ildefonso in Mexico City, whose construction was completed in the middle of the eighteenth century, was favorably compared with the schools of Spain, Italy, and France, but other schools in Spanish America equaled or almost equaled that standard of excellence. As in Europe, the schools became the major agent in mounting on a sometimes grandiose scale religious and civic celebrations, in which every stratum of society played a role.
In India the Italian nobleman Roberto De Nobili (1577â1656) reached the city of Madurai in South India in 1606, and for most of the next forty years worked as a missionary there. Dismayed at the policy of forcing Portuguese names and customs upon converts, he decided to adopt the dress, customs, diet, and manner of life of the Hindu holy man. He was one of the first Europeans to learn Tamil and perhaps the first to write a theological treatise in that or any Indian language. His life was dedicated to the proposition that to become a Christian one did not have to become a European. He and his Jesuit successors, especially the Portuguese nobleman João de Brito (1647â1693), had limited success, due in part to their small numbers, but they were the pioneers that later generations emulated.
The Catholic mission in the East that had the most lasting success by far was the mission to the Philippines, which resulted in the only country in that part of the world with a population overwhelmingly Catholic. In 1581 Antonio Sedeño, who nine years earlier had founded the mission to Mexico, arrived in Manila with three other Jesuits. Within a decade some hundred Jesuits were working in several of the islands, cooperating with and competing with other orders that had arrived earlier. Through theseventeenth century, the number of men in the province hovered between about 100 and 130. Although the Jesuits made important contributions to the Philippine mission, they share the success with the other orders.
France was late in trying to establish an overseas empire, but in 1608 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City and thus New France. A small group of Jesuits led by Paul Le Jeune arrived in 1632 and within three years had founded in Quebec City the College of Our Lady of the Angels. The harshness of the climate, the indifference or hostility of the native peoples, and the primitive character of life even in the French settlements made this an especially difficult mission, and the Jesuits suffered terribly.
3
CONSOLIDATION, CONTROVERSY, CALAMITY
R eassured by the celebrations of their first century, the Jesuits moved with confidence into their second. Although the Japanese mission, a venture of which they had been particularly proud, ended in tragedy, that failure was an exception. In virtually every other place where they had established themselves, they seemed to move ever more deeply into the religious and cultural fabric and to give it characteristics distinctive of themselves. They consolidated and further developed enterprises earlier undertaken.
Perhaps no more graphic illustration of this phenomenon can be found than in the elaborate network of reciprocally supportive institutions that the Jesuits constructed in Spanish America. The network integrated their urban and rural enterprises into a system in which, though each enterprise stood on its own, it also provided benefits to the others. In the cities the Jesuits opened schools and constructed impressive churches. But their urban holdings extended much further and included hospitals, pharmacies, andretreat houses. In major cities such as Cusco or La Paz, they ran
tambos,
which were guesthouses or modest hotels where travelers might stay.
The larger schools, moreover, contained printing presses and housed extensive libraries with books published locally but also books imported from Europe on almost every imaginable subject. Some also operated astronomical observatories. The most celebrated school, San Ildefonso in Mexico City, whose construction was completed in the middle of the eighteenth century, was favorably compared with the schools of Spain, Italy, and France, but other schools in Spanish America equaled or almost equaled that standard of excellence. As in Europe, the schools became the major agent in mounting on a sometimes grandiose scale religious and civic celebrations, in which every stratum of society played a role.
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