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How the Jesuits re-emerged after forty years of suppression
In 1773, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus. For the 823 Jesuits living in the Low Countries, it meant the end of their institutional religious life. In the Austrian Netherlands, the Jesuits were put under strict surveillance, but in the Dutch Republic they were able to continue their missionary work. It is this regional contrast and the opportunities it offered for the Order to survive that make the Low Countries an exceptional and interesting case in Jesuit history.
Just as in White Russia, former Jesuits and new Jesuits in the Low Countries prepared for the restoration of the Order, with the help of other religious, priests, and lay benefactors. In 1814, eight days before the restoration of the Society by Pope Pius VII, the novitiate near Ghent opened with eleven candidates from all over the United Netherlands. Barely twenty years later, the Order in the Low Countries – by then counting one hundred members – formed an independent Belgian Province. A separate Dutch Province followed in 1850. Obviously, the reestablishment, with new churches and new colleges, carried a heavy survival burden: in the face of their old enemies and the black legends they revived, the Jesuits had to retrieve their true identity, which had been suppressed for forty years.
Contributors: Peter van Dael, SJ (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & Pontifical Gregorian University Rome), Pierre Antoine Fabre (École des hautes études en sciences sociales Paris), Joep van Gennip (Tilburg School of Catholic Theology), Michel Hermans, SJ (University of Namur), Marek Inglot, SJ (Pontifical Gregorian University Rome), Frank Judo (lawyer Brussels), Leo Kenis (KU Leuven) Marc Lindeijer, SJ (Bollandist Society Brussels), Jo Luyten (KADOC-KU Leuven), Kristien Suenens (KADOC-KU Leuven), Vincent Verbrugge (historian)
Leo Kenis is emeritus professor of church history and the history of theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. His research focuses on the modern and contemporary history of Catholic theology.
Marc Lindeijer SJ is member of the Bollandist Society in Brussels. Before that, he worked in Rome for the causes of the saints of the Society of Jesus. He publishes on modern sanctity and on church history, with a focus on the Jesuits.
INTRODUCTION
Leo Kenis and Marc Lindeijer SJ
SURVIVED
The Quick Downfall and Slow Rise of the Jesuit Order in the Low Countries
Marc Lindeijer SJ, Jo Luyten and Kristien Suenens
SURVIVAL
The ‘Suppressions’ of the Society of Jesus in the Gallo-Belgian Province
Michel Hermans SJ
“Contulit hos virtus, expulit invidia” The Suppression of the Jesuits of the Flemish-Belgian Province
Joep van Gennip
The Fate of the Jesuits of the Gallo-Belgian Province after 1773
Michel Hermans SJ
The Jesuits of the Low Countries and the Society of Jesus in Russia
Marek Inglot SJ
SURVIVORS
Restoration in One Country? The Strange History of Balthazar de Villegas’ Mémoire sur le rétablissement des Jésuites
Frank Judo
The Post-Concordatory Vicissitudes of Joannes Vrindts (1781-1862) Priest in Search of an Identity, Jesuit at Heart
Jo Luyten
Pierre-Antoine Malou-Riga (1753-1827) A Part-time Jesuit?
Vincent Verbrugge
“Aptus ad gubernandum” The Formation of Fr Jan Roothaan in the Principles and Practices of Good Governance of the Restored Society of Jesus (1823-1829)
Marc Lindeijer SJ
REVIVAL?
‘Jesuits’ as Promoters of Female Religious Congregations in Belgium (c. 1800-1870)Continuity or Discontinuity?
Jo Luyten and Kristien Suenens
“A great swarm of nocturnal raptors shrieking horribly” Negative Images of the Jesuits in the Netherlands between the Restoration of the Order and the Establishment of the Dutch Jesuit Province, 1814-1850
Joep van Gennip
Jesuit Churches in the Netherlands in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
Peter van Dael, SJ
CONCLUSION
Jesuits in the Low Countries from the Modern to the Contemporary EraResources for a New HistoryPierre-Antoine Fabre
Appendix
Catalogue of Jesuits in and from the Low Countries, 1773-1830
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Colophon
Der vorliegende Band stellt an den Beginn eine Gesamtdarstellung der Geschichte des Ordens in den Niederlanden von 1773 bis 1850 und bekommt so den Charakter eines Handbuchs, was dessen Erwerb nicht nur für Fachkreise empfiehlt. Ein solcher Überblick ist gerechtfertigt, weil der letzte von 1940 stammt. Darauf folgen die Veröffentlichungen von elf Tagungsbeiträgen zu den Themen survival, also über die Schicksale von Jesuiten nach der Aufhebung und über Initiativen für einen Neuanfang, survivors, über vier Persönlichkeiten, die sich für den Aufbruch verdient gemacht hatten, und revival, der Beschäftigung mit innovativen Elementen der sonst als Restauration bezeichneten Epoche. Den Abschluss bildet eine historiographische Reflexion von Pierre-Antoine Fabre (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris). In einem Appendix finden sich ein wertvolles Verzeichnis der Ordensangehörigen aus den Niederlanden zwischen 1773 und 1830, eine umfangreiche Bibliographie und ein Personenregister. […] Durch die Arbeit der Herausgeber übersteigt das Werk die Qualität eines Tagungsbandes und bietet Einblick in den gesellschaftlichen Wandel in Religion und Mentalität an der Wende vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert.
Paul Oberholzer, SZRKG/RSHRC/RSSRC 114 (2020) 389–462, DOI: 10.24894/2673-3641.00074