We Agreed

Pope Francis has a great smile. His preternaturally straight teeth and crinkly-happy eyes are prominently featured on the cover of the U.S. edition of his first book of writings, The Church of Mercy, which came out on Easter Sunday. Apparently, this was intentional. "His smiling face on the cover displays beautifully one of the major attributes he keeps talking about, which is joy," said Steve Connor, the director of new product development at Loyola Press. The small, Jesuit organization won the rights to print the book over several major publishing houses, he said, but that didn't necessarily change how the book was packaged. 

"One of the things we agreed to in getting the bid is that we wouldn’t change any of the language in book," he said. The collection, originally put together by the Italian professor Giuliano Vigini, was sanctioned by the Vatican, so the English-language version had to stay pretty much the same as the original text. "You don’t really have a lot of wiggle room to change what the book is about. How a major press would have done it is not much different than how we did it."

The one thing Loyola did have control over, though, was branding: How do you sell a book of theological reflections to a mass-market audience? Make it pretty, for starters. "We wanted a beautiful cover, making it attractive for a U.S. audience to read," Connor said. The look of the book was one of the only things the press could control, which makes each design decision seem more significant: the subtle patterns that look like they were modeled after couch upholstery, the round, friendly font, the palette of sepia tones. These were all thought out—as Connor said, "the muted colors give a sense of seriousness to the book."

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Jesuit Offset

The Jesuits in Cambodia have initiated a carbon offset programme in conjunction with the modest seedling nursery set up in Banteay Prieb, the Jesuit-run vocational school for people with disabilities, in late 2012. Primarily intended for Jesuits within the country, volunteers and visiting friends, the carbon offset programme provides an opportunity for air travellers to counterbalance the carbon emissions from their flights to or from Cambodia. “Hopefully, when our website is up and running this year, customers will be able to identify their trees and track their growth through periodically updated pictures. To date, we have 51 patrons, who have given a total of US$ 482.60 to the programme,” said Fr Gabriel (Gabby) Lamug-Nañawa SJ, who is part of the Ecology Programme team of Jesuit Service Cambodia. 

“The carbon offsetting program is merely a way to maximize the value of the trees we plant,” 

said Fr Gabby. “To be sure, we do not grow and plant trees in order to support a programme that offsets carbon emissions. Rather, we desire to plant as much trees and as many species as we can in communities that will care and protect them.” The growing of seedlings has now become an integral part of Banteay Prieb’s curriculum. In 2013, 22 agricultural students with disabilities spent three weeks of their school year in the nursery, learning about the techniques used in growing different native hardwood trees from seeds.

Link (here)

Greenuit

Jesuit High School was named a 2014 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School on Tuesday. After a nomination by the Oregon Department of Education and the Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative, the school was chosen along with eight other private schools and 39 public schools for the accolade.  

"We are thrilled to earn this high honor," said Paul Hogan, principal of Jesuit High School. "We are especially proud that our students and staff have changed our behavior and institutional practices in order to make a lighter imprint on the earth.” 

At Jesuit, this is put into practice through extensive recycling efforts, striving to use durable dishware for faculty and staff, reducing energy usage per student and increasing alternative forms of transportation with students and staff. In 2013, the school received the Oregon Pillar 3 Award for Education for Sustainability, followed by the Oregon Pillar 1 Award for Environmental Impacts in 2014. 

Link (here)

Multi Million Dollar Jesuit Residence At Marquette

A $5 million gift to the university from Ray and Kay Eckstein’s charitable trust will be used toward the construction of the new Jesuit Residence, Interim University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild announced in his State of the University address Tuesday. This donation will add to the $7.5 million the university received from an anonymous donor earlier this year. Only $2.5 million is now needed to complete the funding necessary to begin construction, which is currently set at $15 million. Margaret Callahan, interim provost and dean of the College of Nursing, said in an email that the steady influx of charitable donations is “remarkable.” “The speed with which Father Wild and our University Advancement team were able to raise these funds is a powerful statement for just how integral our Jesuit community is to the mission and identity of Marquette,” Callahan said. Wild said in the address that the Jesuit building is being funded completely through donations. The building, which will be constructed between Schroeder Hall and the Alumni Memorial Union, is planned to be environmentally friendly, will “emphasize the Jesuit commitment to higher education” and will underscore “the university’s identity and tradition as a Catholic, Jesuit institution.”

Link (here) to read the rest of the story at the Marquette Wire

Jesuit University Purchases Jesuit Residence From Jesuit Province

The province declared bankruptcy nearly three years ago, around the time that the group agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 people abused by Jesuit priests at schools in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the Catholic Church’s biggest sex-abuse settlements. At the time, the National Catholic Reporter reported that the province would pay $48.1 million and that the order’s insurer would pay the rest.

On Jan. 16, Seattle University paid the Jesuits $2.2 million for the Arrupe Jesuit Community Building, which is on campus at 924 E. Cherry St. SU had previously owned the land but not the building, which serves as a home to Jesuits.

The purchase will help Seattle University, a Jesuit-run institution, ensure the continued presence of “a vibrant Jesuit community on our campus and is consistent with the relationship between other Jesuit universities and their Jesuits,” SU spokeswoman Stacy Howard said in a statement. Pat Walsh, the spokesman for the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, said the sale is unrelated to the sexual-abuse settlement. The bankruptcy was over with several years ago, and the people who had claims against the province have been paid, he said. Money from the sale of the building will go into the province’s budget and could be used to fund the care of elderly priests, Walsh said, adding that Jesuits have been selling residence halls to Jesuit educational institutions.

Link (here) to Bizjournals

15 Million Dollars, Divided By 44 Jesuits Equals $341,000.00 Per Jesuit, For New Jesuit Residence

Marquette's current "Jes Res"

A $10 million gift from an anonymous benefactor will help Marquette University build a new residence at the center of campus for its community of Jesuit priests and boost need-based scholarships for students, Father Robert A. Wild, the university's interim president, announced Monday. Wild said $7.5 million of the gift would be used toward a new Jesuit Residence one block north of the existing building.

The project, which will cost a total of $15 million, also will allow the university to renovate the center of campus with more green space and less surface parking after the existing Jesuit Residence is eventually torn down. The project will be financed entirely from donations. The new building will be built in the 1400 block of W. Wells St., flanked by the Alumni Memorial Union and Schroeder Hall. Construction is to begin after another $7.5 million is raised. The remaining $2.5 million of the anonymous gift will be dedicated to need-based scholarships, a key priority identified in the university's strategic plan unveiled last May, according to Wild, who shared the news Monday in a letter to faculty and staff. In announcing the significance of the gift, Marquette officials made reference to Pope Francis, the first Jesuit to be elected pope. The Jesuits — the Society of Jesus — are the Catholic Church's largest religious order, and are known primarily as educators and advocates for service and social justice.

"Pope Francis has led by example in remarkable ways when it comes to connecting with the people, and our new, more visible and more accessible residence at the center of campus will help us to follow this same leadership style," said Father Jeffrey LaBelle, rector of the Marquette campus Jesuit community.

Marquette's Jesuit community is engaged in public works of service to the university and additional ministries in Milwaukee, including teaching, research and administration. By remaining at the center of campus, LaBelle said, the new facility will underscore the university's identity and tradition as a Catholic, Jesuit institution, and emphasize the Jesuit commitment to higher education. It also will be environmentally friendly, he said. "This significant gift is a tremendous investment in the future of our members of the Society of Jesus who make such profound academic and spiritual contributions to life at Marquette," Wild said. 

Equally as important, Wild said, "this generous contribution to support scholarships will help us to continue to provide a world-class, transformative education that is both accessible and affordable."

Throughout his 15-year tenure as Marquette's president, and now as interim president, Wild has stressed the importance of access to higher education, significantly increasing money for student scholarship aid and creating scholarship programs specifically targeted at underserved populations. The $2.5 million dedicated to need-based scholarship aid will help ensure a Marquette education remains affordable and accessible to students, according to Wild, who has been the university's interim president since October but who had plenty of experience in the job prior to that. Marquette's current Jesuit Residence, endearingly known by students, faculty and staff as the "Jes Res," is in the 1400 block of W. Wisconsin Ave., across the street from Raynor Memorial Libraries. It houses 44 members of the Jesuit community at Marquette and was built originally as the Stratford Arms Hotel in 1916.

Link (here) to The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal

Xavier University To Cut 51 Jobs And 4 Million Dollars

Xavier University is laying off 31 employees and eliminating 20 additional, currently vacant positions in order to help balance its budget. University president Father Michael Graham announced the elimination of the 51 positions in a Tuesday email to the Xavier community. “Eliminating their positions to better secure our strategic future was a tough decision, one that I own,” Graham wrote. “I am sure that some will question whether we have compromised the Jesuit identity of Xavier University because the principle of cura personalis, the care of the person, is so very central to that tradition. I confess that I have pondered that myself. And yet, the Jesuit tradition has always sought to balance cura personalis with cura apostolica, the care and continuation of the work. It was in that balance that I made these difficult decisions.” Graham wrote in a May 30 letter that they layoffs would save $800,000 in fiscal year 2014 alone, which began July 1. The layoffs are part of $4 million in permanent cuts to the university’s budget, which will result in a balanced budget for the next year.

Link (here)

Repressed Memory

A child sexual abuse case involving a now-deceased El Paso priest was settled earlier this week. A suit was filed in 2011 against the New Orleans Province of the Jesuit Order and the El Paso Diocese by a former student and parishioner over an incident dating back several decades. Documents stated that the victim had repressed the memory of the abuse due to the trauma associated with it. The victim claimed that he was 8 to 12 years old when he was sexually abused by Father Alphonso Madrid when he was assigned to Sacred Heart Church and school. Madrid was assigned to Sacred Heart from 1970 to 1982, and before that, he was assigned to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Archdiocese of San Antonio from 1966 to 1970. 

Link (here) to KFOXTV

Fairfield University And The New England Province Agree On A 12 Million Dollar Abuse Settlement

Fr. Paul Carrier, S.J.

A $12 million settlement has been reached in the civil cases arising out of the sexual abuse by Douglas Perlitz on at least 

23 abandoned Haitian street boys who were being taught, fed and clothed in a three-phase program funded by wealthy Fairfield and Westchester County Catholics and promoted by Fairfield University, the Knights of Malta and the Society of Jesus, New England. The settlement ended three months of negotiations between lawyers for both sides. The settlement money comes from insurance policies and will be spread out over a series of years. 

It expected that a monitor will be appointed to dispense the money. Perlitz, who created the program he named Project Pierre Toussaint, is serving a 19-year, seven month federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to traveling overseas to engage in sex with a minor. His program, which began in 1997 with start up funds from the Knights of Malta, grew into a three phase program with an enclosed residential school that taught abandoned Haitian boys farming, carpentry, roofing, plumbing and other needed trades in one of the world's poorest nations. However, the program ended in 2009 when contributions dried up after the scandal became public.

Link (here) CT Post

The University of San Francisco Is The Most Under Ranked Jesuit Institution

Ranked #212 in our composite of  

U.S. News's college and university lists.

Ranked #82 in PayScale's mid-career salary list.

The University of San Francisco is a private Jesuit university that was founded in 1855. Even though it's not ranked very high at #106 on US News' list, students are drawn here for its great location right near the Golden Gate Bridge and for its small class sizes. The average mid-career salary is high at $92,400.

Note: Although U.S. News ranks colleges and universities separately, we combined these lists by doubling the ranking. Read the full methodology here.

Link (here) to Business Insider

Fordham Univerity Property Swap

A majestic Gold Coast mansion St. Ignatius Jesuit Retreat House in Manhasset used as a retreat house by

Jesuit priests for the last half-century is close to being sold, and a rare chapel inside where a future pope once prayed will be saved and given to Fordham University, the Roman Catholic order said Friday. The 87-room medieval-style mansion in Manhasset, considered one of the grandest on Long Island, went into contract about two months...

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Fr. John H. Reinke, S.J. "Fr. Donald McGuire, S.J. Positively Destructive And Corrosive."

Fr. John H. Reinke, S.J.

A 1970 letter written by the Rev. John H. Reinke, then-president of Loyola Academy in Wilmette, described "positively destructive and corrosive."

While the settlement doesn't name any priests accused of abusing minors who have not been previously disclosed to the public, it did name a number of Jesuit superiors who kept Fr. McGuire's crimes a secret and, the victims' attorneys said, which enabled him to abuse more young men. 

"Jesuits made choices time and time again that demonstrated willful indifference," said Jeff Anderson, the plaintiffs' attorney. "Not one Jesuit official has yet to be prosecuted for their complicity in these crimes." To date, lawyers have identified 28 men who have alleged abuse by Fr. McGuire from the 1960s until 2004. Eight have filed lawsuits.
Fr. McGuire's presence at the school as
Link (here) to Catholic Education Daily

Fairfield University And Fairfield Prep

Fairfield University and Fairfield Prep are so tightly bound into Fairfield's fabric that it seems like they've been here forever. In fact, having arrived in the early 1940s, they're relative newcomers to our colonial town. How did Fairfield end up with a centrally-located, 200-acre Jesuit campus? It's an intriguing story of the dispersal of a prominent Fairfield family, fortunes made and lost, and uncannily-timed, extraordinarily favorable transfers of real estate. The Society of Jesus has a centuries-long tradition of teaching. By the fall of 1941, there were two dozen Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States. But amid Fordham, Holy Cross and Boston College, the Jesuit New England Province envisioned a preparatory school and college in the greater Bridgeport area. The initial search for a suitable campus came up empty. But just then, word came that the heirs of Oliver Gould Jennings were selling Mailands, his 40-room mansion on 76 of the finest acres in Fairfield. In 1920, on the strength of an estimated $80 million fortune, Lashar built Hearthstone Hall, a lavish, 44-room English manor house on 105 acres right next door to Mailands. But Lashar's fortune went up in smoke in the 1929 stock market crash, and the few million dollars that remained was hardly enough to support a Hearthstone Hall lifestyle. After the real-estate taxes went unpaid for several years, the town seized the property -- almost to the day of the Jesuits' Mailands purchase. In early 1942, First Selectman John Ferguson approached the Jesuits with an offer they couldn't refuse. As reported in the April 1, 1942, Bridgeport Post, the Jesuits snapped up the Hearthstone Hall estate for back taxes and some fees, or $68,500. What could Ferguson have been thinking? Perhaps he didn't want the town to be saddled with maintaining the deserted estate; perhaps he foresaw the benefits of Fairfield becoming a college town. Whatever his reasoning, the sale was widely considered a giveaway, and contributed to Ferguson's failure to be re-nominated for another term. So, faster than you could say "Saint Ignatius of Loyola," the Jesuits owned a splendid 180-acre campus and what would become McAuliffe and Bellarmine halls. A few years later, for a stiff $28,500, the college added the 18-acre Morehouse property on the corner of Barlow and Round Hill roads. In 1989, an expanding Fairfield University acquired the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur convent, conveniently adjacent to the old Mailands property. In creating the Dolan Campus, it became the indirect beneficiary of the catastrophic decline of John Fox In the early 1950s, Mr. Fox, who once owned a controlling interest in Western Union, bought a 47-acre estate, complete with a 21-room mansion, which had been built for Oliver G.'s son, Lawrence. A costly adventure in the Boston newspaper business brought Fox to total ruin, and the Sisters took possession in 1959. Fox, a Harvard Law graduate and once-powerful tycoon, eked out a living playing piano in Boston waterfront bars until he died penniless and alone in 1985. The alternate fate of the grand estates from a past age that make up today's Fairfield University complex cannot be known. What would Fairfield be like if we had a corporate headquarters on North Benson Road or a hillside full of McMansions instead? Who knows. But the Jesuits, perhaps with some divine assistance, have delivered unto us a cultural and educational asset and a driver of the town's economy. With dissenting opinions duly noted from those of us enduring student misbehavior in the beach neighborhood, I think we're the richer for it.

Link (here) to The Fairfield Citizen for the full story

Price Of Sodomy 19.6 Million Dollars

Fr. Donald McGuire, S.J.

Jesuit officials in Chicago will pay $19.6 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by six men who claim theyDonald McGuire, formerly of Oak Lawn, is serving a 25-year prison term after being convicted in Chicago in 2008 of federal charges that he brought a minor across state lines to engage in sex. He also was convicted in 2006 of molesting two boys in Wisconsin during the 1960s. were molested by a former priest and onetime spiritual advisor to Mother Teresa, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Monday.

“The amount of the settlement is reflective of the magnitude of misconduct by the top Jesuit officials,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the plaintiffs. 

The $19.6 million settlement against the Chicago Province for the Society of Jesus was reached in January.

Officials for the Jesuit order — the Roman Catholic religious order to which McGuire belonged — could not be reached for comment Monday evening. The plaintiffs range in age from their 20s to their 40s, and claim McGuire abused them when they were children between 1975 and the early 2000s, Anderson said. Some of the six plaintiffs were also victims in the criminal cases against McGuire, and Anderson says evidence uncovered for the civil lawsuits was turned over to prosecutors in Chicago and Wisconsin.

Link (here) to CBS Chicago

SEIU Union Victory At Georgetown

Georgetown University's part-time faculty members have overwhelmingly voted to form a union affiliated SEIU Local 500, which now represents more than three-fourths of the adjunct work force at colleges in the District of Columbia. "This victory will help improve conditions at Georgetown, but because we are joining adjuncts at other institutions across the region, the implications go far beyond Georgetown," Kurt Brandhorst, an adjunct instructor in the Georgetown philosophy department, said in an SEIU news release announcing the results of the vote. The union election did not cover adjuncts at the Georgetown University Law Center or the Georgetown University Medical Center.

with the Service Employees International Union, marking a major victory for the SEIU's effort to organize adjunct instructors throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Just under half of the 650 adjunct instructors eligible to vote on unionizing at Georgetown did so, and more than 70 percent of voters opted to form a collective-bargaining unit. With that vote, counted on Friday, Georgetown is set to join American University and George Washington University in having adjunct faculty unions affiliated with

The goal of the SEIU's regional organizing campaign is to bring adjuncts at enough area colleges into the union to put all colleges here under market pressures to improve adjuncts' pay, benefits, and working conditions. 

The SEIU also has unionized adjuncts at Montgomery College, a public institution with campuses in three of Washington's Maryland suburbs, and is considering campaigns at other colleges in the area. Last month it began a similar regional organizing campaign in Boston, and it said it is considering another one in Los Angeles. The effort to organize adjuncts at Georgetown was made easier by the Roman Catholic university's decision not to oppose the campaign. "They were not just neutral but very cooperative throughout the entire process," Christopher Honey, a Local 500 spokesman, said on Friday in an interview. "They really upheld their social values."

Link (here) to The Chronicle of Higher Education

Endowments, S.J.

There are 79 private colleges with endowments of more than $250 million that charge low-income students  We found 17—about eight percent of four-year Catholic colleges in the U.S.—that had endowments larger than $250 million in FY 2010. Not one of the 17 appears on Burd’s lists of most charitable colleges for low-income students, measured by percent of students receiving federal Pell Grants and the average cost of attendance (net price) for each low-income student in the 2010-2011 academic year an average net price over $10,000; 51 that charge over $15,000; and 26 that charge over $20,000. That prompted The Cardinal Newman Society to look specifically at Catholic colleges.

.The Jesuits’ Saint Louis University had an even larger endowment—more than $700 million in FY 2010—and yet charged low-income students an average of $23,842.  And Boston College, with one of the nation’s largest endowments of nearly $1.5 billion,still charged needy students an average of $13,128. 

But six wealthy Catholic universities appear on Burd’s list of institutions with relatively low percentages of Pell Grant recipients and high net price for the neediest students—including three Jesuit institutions,despite the Jesuits’ traditional emphasis on social concerns. At Santa Clara University in California, Burd reports, the average price charged to low-income students was a whopping $46,347—more than150 percent of their families’ annual income. And yet Santa Clara’s endowment (more than $600 million) was among the largest 100 for private colleges in the U.S.

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society

A Million Dollars An Acre

Now that the prospective buyer of Mount Manresa Jesuit Retreat House has been identified as one of Staten Island's most prolific developers, the key question is: What will become of the iconic 15.4-acre property astride the Staten Island Expressway? Savo Brothers, the Prince's Bay development company that's in contract to buy the site for $15 million, isn't saying just yet. Neither is the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, the property owner. Representatives of both parties declined comment Thursday, citing a confidentiality clause in their contract agreement. But their silence concerns many who fear that the site, adjacent to narrow Fingerboard Road, will be glutted with townhouses or other dense development. 

Link (here) to SILive

Jesuits To Sell Million Dollar Nestucca Sanctuary

A locked gate on the edge of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge is about as close as most people get to the secluded bay front acreage beyond. And that's the way it's been for nearly 75 years. Now, that's about to change. The 93-acre Jesuit-owned Nestucca Sanctuary is up for grabs in a sealed bid auction set to end at 5p.m. Wednesday.  "It's a unique property, so an auction seemed the way to go," said Bill Lockyear, chief financial officer for the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province. The move to sell the sanctuary is a part of trend within the Society nationally, and comes as retreat use within the church has declined, Lockyear said. The Jesuits developed the site in the late 1930s to be used by novitiates as a place of study and reflection. It continued to be used in that manner for about 50 years until they converted it to a retreat facility for groups inside and out of the church. It's been fairly empty for about five years, Lockyear said. The drive to the property winds through the refuge, past deer and geese, wetlands and meadow, then up and over the headland and down again through dense forest of Sitka spruce, Alder and Hemlock. A two-story wood lodge perches about 50 feet above Nestucca Bay with more than a mile of shoreline, and views to the north of Haystack Rock and to the south of the Pacific Ocean. There are rooms for 14 in the main lodge, plus a dormitory and four cabins, adding up to accommodations for 38. There is also a tiny reflecting pool with nearby seating. A bid of $1,295,000 is the price the seller is obligated to sell at, though they could opt to accept a lower bid. 

Link (here)

Jesuits And Tobacco

A Jesuit was asked whether it was licit to smoke a cigar while praying, and his answer was an unequivocal “no.”  However, the subtle Jesuit quickly added that, while it was not licit to smoke a cigar while praying, it was perfectly licit to pray while smoking a cigar.  —St.Holger’s Cigar Club

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries the Jesuits developed large tobacco plantations in Central and South America and held financial interests in retaining revenues from them. Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians had similar arrangements in Central America.

During this time, the Jesuits, fond of their snuff, were accused by their Protestant and secular opponents, without any evidence that I have found, of carrying poisoned snuff about their persons and offering it to those they attempted to assassinate. “Jesuit snuff,” this imaginary stuff came to be called. The fear surrounding it appears to have been most intense after tens of thousands of barrels holding fifty tons of Spanish snuff were captured from Spanish ships in Vigo Bay in 1702 by English admiral Thomas Hopsonn and found their way into the British market.

At the same time, Jesuit missionaries introduced the snuff they loved to China’s capitol during the Manchu dynasty, about 1715. For some time, Chinese converts to Catholicism were called “snuff-takers” by their countrymen and handled the manufacture and selling of snuff in Beijing. Many Tibetan Buddhist monks are still quite fond of snuff.

The Jesuits were not alone among the mendicant orders in their love of snuff. Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, also wrote A Sentimental Journey throughFrance and Italy in 1768, in which he described an incident—edifying and humbling to him—of exchanging snuff boxes with a poor friar. But during the 19^th century, the fashion of using nasal snuff faded away, and cigar, pipe, and then cigarette smoking replaced it. Literary sources show that taking snuff was more and more left to the old and the poor, and to certain conservative clergy who persisted with their snuff rather than switch to smoking.

Jesuits To Reduce Provinces Down To Four In The United States

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Curiously enough, while I was in Atlanta making my retreat, the General of the Society of Jesus, Very Reverend Adolfo Nicolás, changed the boundaries of the New Orleans and Maryland Provinces.  South Carolina and Georgia, previously part of the Southern Province, will, on January 1, 2013, come under the jurisdiction of the Maryland Province.  This change is part of the realignment of the American Jesuit provinces that will occur in the next decade.  

Although individual Southern Jesuits have long worked in South Carolina, Jesuit presence in Georgia has been more of a corporate presence.  In 1887 the bishop of Savannah offered the New Orleans Mission a former seminary, Pio Nono College, for use as a house of formation if the Jesuits would agree to staff a local parish.  The Jesuits came to St. Joseph’s parish in Macon, where they stayed more than seventy years.  Pio Nono College became the novitiate and juniorate, until a totally destructive fire in 1921 led to the removal of the house of formation to St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. 

In Augusta the Jesuits ministered at Sacred Heart parish for almost seventy-five years.  During the first twenty years, the Society of Jesus conducted Sacred Heart College, a high school.

  In suburban Atlanta the mother of Father John Schroder, S.J., one of our retired Jesuits, donated the family’s summer estate on the Chattahoochee River to the New Orleans Province for use as a retreat house.  For six decades Ignatius House has offered the Spiritual Exercises to the people of Georgia and has provided the Archdiocese of Atlanta and individual parishes a place for prayer and meetings.  This ministry will continue with the Maryland Jesuits.

Eventually there will be four Jesuit provinces (administrative divisions) in the United States instead of ten.  The entire east coast, except for Florida, will be one province, with the combining of the New York, Maryland, and New England Provinces.  The south central United States will consist of the Missouri and New Orleans Provinces, including Florida.  The north central section will be composed of the Chicago, Detroit, and Wisconsin Provinces.  The Oregon and California Provinces will make up a western province including Alaska and Hawaii.

Our province has shrunk in size in other decades as well.  North Carolina, part of the Maryland Province since the nineteen thirties, was once a stark mission region staffed by Southern Jesuits.  Even Oklahoma, now attached to Missouri, was once Southern Jesuit territory.

The Maryland Jesuits once had the most unusual legal name in the United States: the “Roman Catholic Gentlemen of Maryland,” dating from the Suppression of the Jesuits in 1773.  Those priests in the Colony of Maryland incorporated themselves under that title to prevent the expropriation of Church property.  As of now, we Southern Jesuits have the most unusual legal title, the “Catholic Society for Religious and Literary Education.”

As our Jesuit journey continues, let us remember that all of us—all of us—are on pilgrimage from the Lord to the Lord.  Let us pray for one another especially at the Sunday Eucharist.  Please pray for us Jesuits as we seek to serve the Lord and the Lord’s Church.

In the Risen Lord,

Fr. Donald Hawkins, S.J., Pastor
Link (here)