The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Father Wladimir Ledóchowski was elected to the vacant post on 11 February, 1915. He was then only forty-nine years of age. He entered the Society in 1889, and in 1902, shortly after his ordination, was made provincial of Galicia, while in 1906 he was elected as assistant to Father Wernz. He is the nephew of the famous Cardinal Ledóchowski, whom Bismarck imprisoned for his courageous championship of the rights of Poland.

The new Society like the old has not failed to produce saints and at the present moment the lives of a very considerable number of those who have lived and labored in the century that has elapsed since the restoration are being considered by the Church as possible candidates for canonization.

The number of Jesuits who were under the colors as soldiers, chaplains or stretcher bearers or volunteers in the World War of 1914-1918 ran up to 2014, – a very great drain on the Society as a whole, which in 1918 had only 17,205 names on its rolls, among whom were very many incapacitated either by age or youth or ailment for any active work. Of the 2014 Belgium furnished 165, Austria 82, France 855, Germany 376, Italy 369, England 83, Ireland 30, Canada 4 and the United States 50. Of the 83 English Jesuits serving as chaplains, 5 died while in the service, 2 won the Distinguished Service Order, 13 the Military Cross, 3 the Order of the British Empire, 21 were mentioned in despatches, 2 were mentioned for valuable services and 4 received foreign decorations, – a total of 45 distinctions.

France calls for special notice in this matter. From the four French provinces of the Society 855 Jesuits were mobilized. Of these 107 were officers, 3 commandants, 1 lieutenant-commander, 13 captains, 4 naval lieutenants, 22 lieutenants, 50 second-lieutenants, 1 naval ensign, and 5 officers in the health services. The loss in dead was 165 Jesuits, of whom 28 were chaplains, 30 officers, 36 sub-officers, 17 corporals and 54 privates. The number of distinctions won is almost incredible. The decoration of the Légion d'honneur was conferred on 68, the Médaille militaire on 48, the Médaille des épidémies on 4, the Croix de guerre on 320, the Moroccan or Tunisian medal on 3, while 595 were mentioned in despatches, and 18 foreign decorations were received: in all 1,056 distinctions were won by the 855 Jesuits in the French army and navy (The Jesuit Directory, 1921). "What party or group or club or lodge," says a sometime unfriendly paper, the "Italia," "can claim a similar distinction?" Another of their distinctions is that Foch, de Castelnau, Fayolle, Guynemer and many more French heroes were trained in Jesuit schools. Finally, the French Jesuits performed this marvellous service to their country in spite of the fact that the government of that country had closed and confiscated every one of their churches and colleges from one end of France to the other, and by so doing had exiled these loyal subjects from their native land. To add to the outrage, they were summoned back when the war began, and not one of them failed to respond immediately, returning from distant missions among savages at the ends of the earth or from civilized countries that were more hospitable to them than their own for the defense of which they willingly offered their lives. Now, when the war is over, they have no home to go to.

In 1912, two years before the War, the Society had on its rolls 16,545 members. At the beginning of 1920 it had 17,250 members: 8,454 priests, 4,819 scholastics, 3,977 lay-brothers. The Society is divided into what are called assistancies. The Italian assistancy, which is composed of the provinces of Rome, Naples, Sicily, Turin and Venice, numbers in all 1,415 members. The frequent dispersions and confiscations to which this section has been subjected account for the small number. Thus, the Roman province has only 354, and Sicily has but 223. In the assistancy there are 748 priests, but the prospects of the increase of this category is the reverse of encouraging, for there are only 308 scholastics. The lay-brothers number 359. What has acted as a deterrent in Italy has, paradoxically, acted in a contrary sense in the German assistancy. Several of these provinces have been dispersed, but they aggregate as many as 4,329 members. Belgium is a strong factor in this large number, for it totals 1,279, of whom 672 are priests; the Germans, who have no establishment in their own country, but are scattered over the earth, have a membership of 1,210, of whom 664 are in Holy Orders. Austria has 356 on her register, Poland 464, Czecho-Slovakia 114, Jugoslavia 113, Hungary 212, while Holland has as many as 581.

The Waldeck-Rousseau Associations Law of 1901 not only confiscated every Jesuit establishment in France but denied the Society the right even to possess property. Nevertheless, unlike Italy the provinces of Champagne, France, Lyons and Toulouse show 2,758 names in their catalogues for 1920. They have 1,647 priests with 583 scholastics to draw on. The Spaniards are grouped in the provinces of Aragon, Castile, Mexico, and Toledo, to which has been added the Province of Portugal. This combination has 1,760 to its credit. Possibly the figures would have been larger had not the Revolution of 1901 brought about the exile of the Jesuits. The English assistancy which until recently included the United States, has now 1,622 members of whom 793 are priests and 544 scholastics: England 750, Canada 472 and Ireland 400. The assistancy of America has 2,892 members of whom 1,230 are priests with a future supply to draw on of 1,214 scholastics. The contingent of scholastics exceeds that of any other assistancy by more than a hundred. The province of California has 485 members, Maryland-New York, 1,080; Missouri, 1,022 and New Orleans, 305.

Besides its regularly established houses the Society has missions scattered throughout the world. Thus, in Europe its missionaries are to be found in Albania; in Asia, they are working in Armenia, Syria, Ceylon, Assam, Bengal, Bombay, Poona, Goa, Madura, Mangalore, Japan, Canton, Nankin, and South East Tche-ly. In Africa, they are in Egypt, Cape Colony, Zambesi, Rhodesia, Belgian Congo, and Madagascar, Mauritius and Réunion; in America, they are working in Jamaica and among the Indians of Alaska, Canada, South Dakota, the Rocky Mountains, the Pimería, and Guiana; finally in Oceania, they are toiling in Celebes, Flores, Java, and the Philippines. To these missions 1,707 Jesuits are devoting their lives in direct contact with the aborigines.