From the desk of the pastor for March 8, 2026

The Lord be with you! In the last several articles, we have focused on how the Church developed in America, then in Ohio, and finally in Brooklyn. We are going to return to the broader historical context of the 18th century. In the later half of that century, the Society of Jesus almost ended.

European monarchs — particularly in Portugal, France, and Spain — had grown deeply suspicious of the Jesuits by the mid 18th century. Their influence over the Holy Roman Emperors during the 30 Years War was obvious to all of Europe, and the Jesuits had only gained influence since then. Jesuits also controlled vast wealth, ran profitable enterprises in South America (most famously in Paraguay), and weren't shy about involving themselves in political affairs.

The breaking point came in Portugal. In 1759, the powerful minister Marquis de Pombal accused the Jesuits of plotting against King Joseph I following an assassination attempt. It was almost certainly a fabricated pretext, but it was enough. Portugal expelled every Jesuit from its territories, seizing their properties and sending thousands of priests into exile. France followed in 1764, then Spain in 1767. One by one, Catholic monarchies turned on the order they had once championed.

The situation in France deserves special attention as the theological issue of free will and grace played a special role. The Jesuits had long and correctly maintained that Jansenists misunderstood the Faith. The Jesuits’ theological victories in the 17th and 18th centuries created much ill will in France. After Portugal expelled the Society, the Jansenists and their allies rallied the French Parliament against the Jesuits. Pressure mounted from below and eventually King Louis XV ordered them out.

With Europe's most powerful Catholic rulers working against the Jesuits, Pope Clement XIV faced an impossible choice: defend the Jesuits and risk a catastrophic break with France, Spain, and Portugal, or sacrifice the order to preserve political peace. In 1773, he chose the latter. His papal brief Dominus ac Redemptor formally suppressed the Society of Jesus, dissolving an organization of roughly 23,000 members with the stroke of a pen. It was a remarkable capitulation — a pope dismantling one of the Church's own great institutions not for theological reasons, but because kings demanded it.

In a twist of history, the Jesuits survived in the two places where the Pope's writ didn't fully run: Protestant Prussia and Orthodox Russia. Both Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great refused to promulgate the suppression, allowing Jesuit communities to continue operating. In 1814, with Napoleon defeated and Europe reshaping itself, Pope Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus. The very countries that had forced the suppression now sought its rebirth seeing the Jesuits as staunch defenders of the Faith and order in general.

What works lasts. The Jesuits made a return because their order was designed well for the modern world. May we have the humility to recognize in our lives that passing trends and contemporary politics are never as important as they seem. Ad majorem Dei gloriam!

In His Sacred Heart,

Fr. John