Saturday, August 22, 2009

How Many Jesuits Are There?


By Felix Raj, SJ

According to a recent Jesuit Documentation, No. 81, published from Rome, as of January 2001, there were 21,063 Jesuits in the world - 14,852 priests, 3,997 scholastics, and 2,311 Brothers.


The net loss from January 2000 is 320 members. Between January 2000 and January 2001, 500 men entered the Society of Jesus, 479 died and 339 left the order.


While the relative numbers of entrances and departures is consistent with the trend of the last few years, the number of deaths is higher.


The highest number of Jesuits in their 460-year history was in 1965 with 36,038 members, 20,301 Priests, 9,865 Scholastics and 5,872 Brothers.


The overall decline in number from 1965 to 2001 is 41%, of which the share of the brothers is 16.9%, scholastics' is 16.4% and priests' 7.7%.


In the last 35 years, the overall fall of brothers is 60.6%, scholastics is 59.5% and priests 14.7%.


The Jesuit Headquarters is situated in Rome: Curia Society of Jesus, Borgo S. Spirito, 4 – 00193 ROMA, Italy.


Superior General: Most Rev. Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbagh, SJ.


Link (here)


Blogger Note: The total number of Jesuits today is just under 20,000.

1 comment:

AP said...

The number now stands at around 17,000