Last Thursday, August 7th, the world-wide Jesuit Community and many of their friends paused to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Society of Jesus. At the Jesuit Generalate in Rome and elsewhere, prayers of gratitude were offered amidst other forms of celebration in light of this historic milestone.

Interestingly, most people are quite surprised when they learn about the suppression and restoration of the Society. They are aware that, in the midst of Luther's Protestant Reformation, St. Ignatius emerged with his nine Companions and requested that Pope Paul III confirm the establishment of this new religious community. The Pope did so on September 27, 1540.

Two-hundred-and-thirty-years later, the Capuchin Franciscan, Pope Clement XIV, suppressed the Society by way of a Papal Brief. Immediately, 22,589 Jesuits ministering in 679 colleges and universities, 176 seminaries, 62 novitiates, 273 mission stations, and in multiple churches and parishes throughout the world ceased to exist as Jesuits and a religious order. The only place where several hundred Polish Jesuits continued to survive legally under Canon Law was in White Russia under Empress Catherine the Great. She determined that the Papal Brief would not be posted in her realms in order to allow the Jesuits to continue to administer and teach in a number of their pre-eminent schools in her country. For the next 41 years this small band of Jesuits became the one remaining vital link between the original Society of Jesus and the restored Society.

What often is not told about this very tragic time of the Jesuits' suppression and their later restoration is the story of what occurred to the Jesuit General and his Jesuit staff when they received the news of the disbanding of the Society on July 21, 1773.  Father Lorenzo Ricci was the 18th General of the Society. He was born in 1703 and entered the Jesuits in 1718. A member of one of the oldest and most renowned families in Florence, he was a brilliant student. Eventually, Ricci was elected General in 1758 just a year before the Bourbon courts of Europe turned violently against the Jesuits and began to expel them from their kingdoms: Portugal (1759), France (1764) and Spain (1767). It was in these and other countries where the Jansenists, Gallicans and leaders of the Enlightenment shared with their Bourbon rulers an intense dislike for the Jesuits.

Because the Society was being protected strongly by Pope Clement XIII, a great friend of the Society, Ricci was not overly concerned about the Society's future. His policy which Clement encouraged was to follow a path of "silence, patience and prayer" in the light of the threats of the European Catholic monarchs. However, Clement's successor, Clement XIV, was to take a different approach to the immense pressure he was experiencing from the courts of the European powers. On July 21, 1773, he capitulated and signed the Papal Brief to rid the Church of the Jesuits.

Shortly thereafter, he had Father Ricci arrested with all the Jesuit staff and placed in the harsh papal dungeon of Casa Sant' Angelo where Ricci and his brothers were confined to very cramped cells and poor living conditions. Though the staff of Jesuits was eventually released, Ricci never was. He underwent interrogation and was prevented from even celebrating Mass during his years in the dungeon.  He died in Casa Sant' Angelo. At his death, the newly elected Pope, Pius VI, had his body taken to Florence where a Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated by him. Ricci's remains were then taken to the Jesuit church in Rome, the Church of Gesu.

As we commemorate the Restoration of the Society of Jesus, I point you towards some great videos and articles to help bring this amazing Anniversary and its history alive to you. Please note the two videos below, the sidebar article on the Restoration history, and the article in America entitled: A Jesuit Century.