Overview

How American Jesuits helped forge modern Catholicism around the worldAt the start of the nineteenth century, the Jesuits seemed fated for oblivion. Dissolved as a religious order in 1773 by one pope, they were restored in 1814 by another, but with only six hundred aged members. Yet a century later, the Jesuits numbered seventeen thousand men and were at the vanguard of the Catholic Church's expansion around the world. This book traces this nineteenth-century resurgence, showing how Jesuits nurtured a Catholic modernity through a disciplined counterculture of parishes, schools, and associations. Drawing on archival materials from three continents, American Jesuits and the World tracks Jesuits who left Europe for America and Jesuits who left the United States for missionary ventures across the Pacific. Each chapter tells the story of a revealing or controversial event, including the tarring and feathering of an exiled Swiss Jesuit in Maine, the efforts of French Jesuits in Louisiana to obtain Vatican approval of a miraculous healing, and the educational efforts of American Jesuits in Manila. These stories reveal how the Jesuits not only revived their own order but made modern Catholicism more global. The result is a major contribution to modern global history and an invaluable examination of the meaning of religious liberty in a pluralistic age.

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Reviews

McGreevy explains the twists and turns of [Jesuit] history and dissolves the apparent paradoxes. --Patrick Allitt, Weekly Standard Stunning in the breadth and depth of its international contextualization --Robert Emmett Curran, America Deeply learned and delightfully readable. --Catherine O'Donnell, Los Angeles Review of Books This book is a sensational eye-opener, even for me, a Jesuit for the past forty-six years.... [An] extraordinarily rewarding work. --James F. Keenan, Commonweal

Dissolved as a religious order by Pope Clement in 1773, the Society of Jesus was restored 41 years later by Pius VII. At the time of the restoration the order had only 600 aged members, yet a century later, the Jesuits numbered 17,000 men who were at the vanguard of the Catholic Church s expansion around the world. The story is admirably told by John T. McGreevy. --Jude Dougherty, The Wanderer [A] fascinating new book. . . . Readers of American Jesuits and the World will meet a remarkably captivating cast of characters who, despite their obscurity today, enjoyed wide spheres of influence and forged a shared legacy with powerful contemporary resonance. They will also get a taste for why the Jesuits are so intriguing and why they will continue to be so important for the life of the church in the 21st century. --James P. McCartin, Catholic New World An engaging analysis of how the Jesuits revived themselves and established Catholicism as a global enterprise. . . . McGreevy's investigation of issues including education, immigration, and nationalism is both important and timely. His book will be of great value to scholars and graduate students interested in the concept of freedom of religion in this era. . . . Overall, this book makes an important contribution to the field and is highly recommended. --Alison C. Fleming, Horizons Professor McGreevy has not so much written about American Jesuits venturing out from their continent, but rather produced a series of quite fascinating vignettes of nineteenth-century European Jesuits. . . . Readers . . . will discover much about what it was like to be a nineteenth-century American Catholic parishioner, about religious prejudice in the States, and about anti-Jesuit feeling. --Michael Walsh, The Tablet Written in an engaging style, McGreevy's book is the product of meticulous scholarship (sixty-six pages of endnotes), and includes helpful illustrations and maps indicating the migration of Jesuits to and from the United States. --Anthony Kuzniewski, Catholic Historical Review This book is a sensational eye-opener, even for me, a Jesuit for the past forty-six years. While I knew the oft-quoted rough denunciations of the Jesuits by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, I had no idea of how deep and pervasive American anti-Jesuit sentiments were--nor why they were so extreme, nor how they were overcome--until I read McGreevy's splendid work. . . . Groundbreaking. . . . [An] extraordinarily rewarding work. --James F. Keenan, Commonweal In a study stunning in the breadth and depth of its international contextualization, John T. McGreevy, through a focus on five emblematic developments in the late 19th century, has deftly captured this remarkable growth of the Jesuit institutional presence in the United States and its intellectual evolution from a countercultural body under siege to one 'at home' with American culture and institutions, while recapturing the global vision of its 19th-century founders. --Robert Emmett Curran, America McGreevy explains the twists and turns of [Jesuit] history and dissolves the apparent paradoxes. --Patrick Allitt, Weekly Standard McGreevy explores the global revival of the Jesuit order following its restoration in 1814. Portraying the Jesuits as a highly organized global missional organization, the author examines the unprecedented growth of the order after its restoration and describes how the Jesuits became a global force for modern Catholicism. . . . Based on an impressive array of archival research, this book provides a glimpse into the personal struggles Jesuits faced in the US. McGreevy delves deep into the unique individual stories that comprise the Jesuit global experience, making this well-researched book a surprisingly personal narrative. --Choice McGreevy's deeply researched work sheds significant light on the European Jesuits' role in shaping modern America. --Publishers Weekly This is an elegantly written and narrated study of an aspect of Jesuit history that scholars of American religion, of the North American foreign mission enterprise, and of Catholic institutional and social history will need to read. --Mark S. Massa, Reading Religion In six engaging chapters, Catholic historian McGreevy (history, Univ. of Notre Dame; Parish Boundaries) focuses on specific individuals or institutions in various parts of the United States and the Philippines as a way to examine the influence of American Jesuits on the wider world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and their interaction with American culture, especially church-state relations. . . . This work will draw in anyone interested in American religious history. --Library Journal There really ought to be better books about the American Jesuit experience, especially ones that move beyond educational case studies or the predictable crowd of well-travelled missionaries. In this panoramic and limpidly written study McGreevy sets a fine example. --Jonathan Wright, Catholic Herald John McGreevy has joined the global history parade with a book on a topic that is long overdue: American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global. This is a very enjoyable book to read as McGreevy paints five historical sketches of nineteenth century Jesuits, about whom too little is known and whose lives were fascinating, conflicted and important. --Michael Sean Winters, National Catholic Reporter [A] fascinating new book. . . . Readers of American Jesuits and the World will meet a remarkably captivating cast of characters who, despite their obscurity today, enjoyed wide spheres of influence and forged a shared legacy with powerful contemporary resonance. They will also get a taste for why the Jesuits are so intriguing and why they will continue to be so important for the life of the church in the 21st century. --James P. McCartin, Catholic New World

Author Information

John T. McGreevy is dean of the College of Arts and Letters and professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.

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