How the Jesuits Charted the World | Hacker News Reader

How the Jesuits Charted the World

engelsbergideas.com

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It’s important not to lump Jesuits in with other groups, or discount all Jesuits in history because of the actions of some. Things I heard growing up in Protestant circles may have biased me towards writing off the Jesuits, but a few years ago I read the 21st century book Heroic Leadership which was written by a Jesuit seminarian who took a surprising turn into investment banking and worked his way up to managing director before retiring to work on several charity endeavors. The book tries to help people in the business world learn from Jesuit principles since he felt the annual 360 interviews and other corporate programs were so hollow in comparison to the routine personal reflection and deeper annual self-examination he learned from the Jesuits.

Anyway, along the way he told numerous stories from over the centuries as Jesuits were trailblazers into building connections in China, India, Japan and the Americas. They would learn the local languages and culture, believing understanding and respect was vital when crossing into other lands. Their founder didn’t want them cloistered and spending the bulk of every day in prayer, believing instead that Jesus’ final commandment was to be taken seriously and they needed to get out and about. Nearly 5 centuries ago, he wanted all Jesuits to be so free of ties that with only 48 hours’ notice they could board a ship to sail around to the other side of the world.

There are many stories of them defending the rights of local people in colonized lands. The Spanish colonists had only dirt streets and wooden buildings in Asunción when Jesuit towns among nearby native Americans had cobblestone streets and stone buildings and were teaching Native American children in schools. The Jesuits pleaded with the Pope via letters that the Native Americans were fully human and Portuguese raiders should be stopped, but by the time the Pope’s cease and desist could reach the Portuguese those towns were destroyed. Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro acted in a movie about these tragedies. For all the faults of some Jesuits, many others gave their all for peoples around the world when it was a foreign concept to many other people to be genuinely loving instead of condescending to other ethnicities.

I went to Jesuit high school and we had to watch "The Mission" (the Jeremy Irons movie) almost as often as Dead Poet's Society. That and "Romero". The good thing about it, though, is that the Jesuits at that school were performatively endorsing liberation theology, which is not something you can say for Catholicism writ large.

Not Braveheart and Forrest Gump?

"The Mission" did not impress me. The Jesuits of that century did not train up teddy bears.

I doubt it impressed many of the high school sophomores in the room, but it's interesting that a prominent Jesuit high school was so willing to cast the greater Catholic church as a genocidal villain. And whatever you want to say about the Jesuits of the 1700s, the work they did in the 1960's-80's is hard to dunk on.

I agree and think the Jesuits are one of the best things to emerge from the Roman Church in ages. There are/have been problems with the Jesuits as with any other big, influential organization, but I think as a whole they deserve our respect for their piety (even if they're wrong about theism), erudition, and bravery in traveling the world in the early modern period. They've been called God's Marines for a reason, like a soldier tasked with establishing a beachhead, they suffered miserably for their mission. Speaking truth to power in defense of the colonized and powerless has generally been another of their dangerous practices

They published a Mandarin translation of Galileo's Starry Messenger and notes on sunspots within about 15 years of Messengers' first publication in Italy. They were successful in converting Japanese by not attempting to replace Japanese culture wholesale. The arrival of the Dominicans, the Dutch, and the end of the civil wars put a bloody stop to that, but their temporary success does demonstrate the efficacy of their methods. They stood up to National Socialism (among many others).

They also tried to defend Catholicism in England (and indeed ministered to cryptocatholics who weren't buying what Henry and Liz were selling). They became a stereotype arch-villain of the English propaganda of the era called the Black Legend. It's largely mixed with the historical truth in the modern popular imagination of the anglosphere by now (viz. Dan Brown) . It alleges that the Spanish were treacherous idolaters, fond of torture and so on. The Spanish indeed were rabid imperialists and religious bigots, but not to a unique degree for the age. The Jesuits were the ones being tortured in England for (religiously) aiding the silenced and powerless.

This tendency hasn't really changed. Liberation theology and its less extreme brethren have largely been products of Jesuit theology. At times it seems like they're among the few Catholics who read whole catechism (there are some surprisingly progressive ideas in it) and don't focus to great excess on sex and abortion.

It is important to remember the failings of the Church too.

> (even if they're wrong about theism)

an individual post says this, while generations uphold theism

Thank you for cautioning others not to over-generalize and discount Jesuits in history.

I know someone who has been a Jesuit in the last 10+ years and was ordained a few years ago. At present, the order still encourages education, intellectual pursuits, service to others and learning other's cultures/languages. A number of Jesuits entered religious life with previous experience in many ordinary professions such as teachers and bankers. During the formation, the seminarians work in less privileged places around the world. The most enlightening aspect of the formation admission process is that the superior, using 3rd party medical professionals, ensure that all prospective seminarians have been in excellent mental health.

My Spanish surname is a lasting legacy of the Jesuits deciding to rename (by sword or by reward) entire villages during the 16th century. https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/05/the-jesuits-in-the-philippines/

English (or Americans) colonizers would have wiped out your entire village. They haven’t even considered you human (like the natives of Australia).

This is a whataboutism apologia, which is cool. But the English mainly "lucked" out by settling into pre-agriculture (or post-agriculture) places with very small number of natives. Where there are many, like in Canada, New Zealand and even CONUS, the English (and most protestant colonizers) were much more willing to live and let live compared to Catholics.

But the Conquistadors were just the first anyway, all the later colonizers were able to learn from them. So is all cool.

Sure, Protestants were much more likely to let natives alive, that’s why Native Americans were exterminated (e.g. broken treaties with natives) and moved to reservations and South American natives were considered people in the XVI century by the Catholic Monarchs.

Umm, that system, the encomienda, was undoubtedly slavery. That it resembled pre-colonial rule does not absolve the Spanish Empire from recognizing it. Everyone knew it was a death sentence, clear enough when they sent English “Lutheran dogs” into the mines, too.

You’re both arguing about revising history when plainly the rule is this: if the colonizer let you live (or even encouraged breeding) it was to extract labor.

Does anybody have reliable information on the political influence excerted by this organization? I hear that it is significant, and that the principles of benevolence are quickly forgotten during power play.

Specifically I am wondering what career paths are closed off to non-jesuites, in practice because we all know how nice the theory appears to be?

Jesuit political influence was probably at its height with liberation theology in Latin America 1960-1989. This was effectively ended with the assassination of leading Jesuit intellectuals by a US-trained army battalion in 1989 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_murders_of_Jesuits_in_El_...).

Do you mean influence in the sense of how often they are mentioned in media? I heard Bill Clinton is Jesuit.

What a charming rumor! He did attend a Jesuit university, but somehow didn't make time for the rather extensive training the Jesuits undergo. But now I'm going to have to make an effort not to refer to him as "Bill Clinton, S.J."

This is a joke, right? Jesuits are ordained (and therefore unmarried) Roman Catholics. Bill Clinton is none of those things.

They were extremely influential during the Counter-Reformation. By comparison, their influence in Latin America was limited.

I think it's too bad this article got posted on a day when I'm assuming relatively few people are on HN, since it's an interesting story.

One doesn't have to approve of the history European colonialism, religious imperialism, etc., to find this adventuring academic religious order interesting and significant.

(Disclosure: attended a Jesuit parish school, and am not religious, but picked up some intellectual and humanist values from there.)

The suppression of the Jesuits occurred without a theological explanation from the Vatican. I would say that whatever the Jesuits did seemed to contradict the requirements of colonialism and religious imperialism.

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