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How the Jesuits Charted the World
- WoahNoun 5y ago
- obviousAs 5y ago
- tejtm 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago> In America their mission is correcting Native Americans with "Indian schools". It may be possible, but is certainly difficult, to imagine a more flagrant abuse of the word “is”.
- klarwiekb 5y ago
- tommcshwa 5y agoAnd then converting them
- boomboomsubban 5y agoCatholic Indian schools still exist, now usually with something like a token hour class after Mass dedicated to their ancestors culture. Still called Indian schools, still disgusting.
- tejtm 5y agoIt may also be probable that you were not flagrantly abused by nuns in mandatory cataclysm classes. I was not so lucky, but unlike my classmates, at least I did not get beat again at home when parents learned I had angered the nuns by asking (admittedly loaded) questions. But "is" is no less than exactly what I carry now. Thank you for you for reaching out to broaden your horizons.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> It may also be probable that you were not flagrantly abused by nuns in mandatory cataclysm classes. I’m not sure what bearing that has on a factual understanding of the current mission of the Jesuit order (which whatever other present or past offenses it can legitimately be blamed for, abuses committed by nuns in “cataclysm” classes is a pretty big stretch) in the North America.
- tejtm 5y agoah spellcheck; "catechism" No longer being sure is a good start, keep it up it you can.
- yeetaccount4 5y agoI dislike religious people, generally speaking, but Catholics in the PNW are the source of a lot of reliable historical accounts of tribal groups. I’m somewhat resentful, but they did good work recording linguistic data. Better than the miners would have done. Just saying.
- klarwiekb 5y ago
- cloudedcordial 5y agoJesuits is one of the forward-looking and outgoing Catholic orders. They work on topics that both non-believers and believers could agree. Matteo Ricci was fluent in Chinese culture and language. Jean de Brebeuf learned aboriginal language and culture in the present day's Canada. Many other orders have not been so much on going to foreign places and are pretty insular to the unfamiliar.
- wolverine876 5y agoIf we're talking about abusing and killing people, how do we weigh the factors of "reliable historical accounts" and "good work recording linguistic data"?
- yeetaccount4 5y agoIt’s not about weighing anything, they simply left something useful for posterity. Their observations and record keeping has helped preserve some scraps of indigenous culture that would have otherwise been lost, even to surviving members of tribes today. That’s a good thing, even if missionaries did more bad than good overall.
- wolverine876 5y ago'My house burned down' 'Now you have some nice charcoal for BBQs.'
- klarwiekb 5y ago
- arkj 5y agoIn my part of the world the jesuits had done a lot of good by starting schools.
- tommcshwa 5y agoThe motive behind their good schools, is just to prove their superior culture... Make non-Christians familiar with Christianity and western culture, make them admire them... And then convert people.. the school also provide jobs for people who are converted.. Jesuits are just doing crusades but in a more psychological and cunning ways... And I say this from broad experience and insider knowledge.
- naruvimama 5y agoI have heard this very often. The queen of England did not send ship loads of gold to do charity work in the colonies. The native tax payers to this day pay the salaries including the priests who work as principals or head masters. The land is almost always ill gotten, by force or on 99 year lease for $1. And in many parts of the world these schools were started explicitly to breed subjects loyal to the colonizers, Macauly's children.
- arkj 5y agoI have heard your argument too often from outsiders but never from anyone who actually studied in these schools. Luckily, I don't know any queen sympathizer among my friends who passed out from Jesuit institutions neither do I know anyone who converted. One thing I do know is that their schooling helped them to get jobs and get out of poverty when the software revolution happened. I am not well versed in European history but common sense tells me a conversion collusion between the protestant British Queen and Catholic Jesuits has more probability to be a fiction.
- 5y ago
- neilv 5y agoI think it's too bad this article got posted on a day when I'm assuming relatively few people are on HN, since it's an interesting story. 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.)
- ttyprintk 5y agoThe suppression of the Jesuits occurred without a theological explanation from the Vatican. I would say that whatever the Jesuits did seemed to contradict the requirements of colonialism and religious imperialism.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- stephenhuey 5y agoIt’s important not to lump Jesuits in with other groups, or discount all Jesuits in history because of the actions of some. Things I heard growing up in Protestant circles may have biased me towards writing off the Jesuits, but a few years ago I read the 21st century book Heroic Leadership which was written by a Jesuit seminarian who took a surprising turn into investment banking and worked his way up to managing director before retiring to work on several charity endeavors. The book tries to help people in the business world learn from Jesuit principles since he felt the annual 360 interviews and other corporate programs were so hollow in comparison to the routine personal reflection and deeper annual self-examination he learned from the Jesuits. 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.
- tptacek 5y agoI went to Jesuit high school and we had to watch "The Mission" (the Jeremy Irons movie) almost as often as Dead Poet's Society. That and "Romero". The good thing about it, though, is that the Jesuits at that school were performatively endorsing liberation theology, which is not something you can say for Catholicism writ large.
- throwaway4858 5y agoMy Spanish surname is a lasting legacy of the Jesuits deciding to rename (by sword or by reward) entire villages during the 16th century. https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/05/the-jesuits-in-the-philippines/ https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/05/the-jesuits-in-the-philippines/
- elnatro 5y agoEnglish (or Americans) colonizers would have wiped out your entire village. They haven’t even considered you human (like the natives of Australia).
- inawarminister 5y agoThis is a whataboutism apologia, which is cool. But the English mainly "lucked" out by settling into pre-agriculture (or post-agriculture) places with very small number of natives. Where there are many, like in Canada, New Zealand and even CONUS, the English (and most protestant colonizers) were much more willing to live and let live compared to Catholics. But the Conquistadors were just the first anyway, all the later colonizers were able to learn from them. So is all cool.
- elnatro 5y agoSure, Protestants were much more likely to let natives alive, that’s why Native Americans were exterminated (e.g. broken treaties with natives) and moved to reservations and South American natives were considered people in the XVI century by the Catholic Monarchs.
- ttyprintk 5y agoUmm, that system, the encomienda, was undoubtedly slavery. That it resembled pre-colonial rule does not absolve the Spanish Empire from recognizing it. Everyone knew it was a death sentence, clear enough when they sent English “Lutheran dogs” into the mines, too. 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.
- ganzuul 5y agoDoes anybody have reliable information on the political influence excerted by this organization? I hear that it is significant, and that the principles of benevolence are quickly forgotten during power play. 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?
- glutamate 5y agoJesuit political influence was probably at its height with liberation theology in Latin America 1960-1989. This was effectively ended with the assassination of leading Jesuit intellectuals by a US-trained army battalion in 1989 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_murders_of_Jesuits_in_El_Salvador https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_murders_of_Jesuits_in_El_...).
- ganzuul 5y agoDo you mean influence in the sense of how often they are mentioned in media? I heard Bill Clinton is Jesuit.
- cafard 5y agoWhat a charming rumor! He did attend a Jesuit university, but somehow didn't make time for the rather extensive training the Jesuits undergo. But now I'm going to have to make an effort not to refer to him as "Bill Clinton, S.J."
- glutamate 5y agoThis is a joke, right? Jesuits are ordained (and therefore unmarried) Roman Catholics. Bill Clinton is none of those things.
- cafard 5y agoThey were extremely influential during the Counter-Reformation. By comparison, their influence in Latin America was limited.