How the Jesuits Charted the World(engelsbergideas.com) |
How the Jesuits Charted the World(engelsbergideas.com) |
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.
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.
an individual post says this, while generations uphold theism
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.
But the Conquistadors were just the first anyway, all the later colonizers were able to learn from them. So is all cool.
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?
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.)
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.