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In Becoming a New Self, Moshe Sluhovsky examines the diffusion of spiritual practices among lay Catholics in early modern Europe. By offering a close examination of early modern Catholic penitential and meditative techniques, Sluhovsky makes the case that these practices promoted the idea of achieving a new self through the knowing of oneself. Practices such as the examination of conscience, general confession, and spiritual exercises, which until the 1400s had been restricted to monastic elites, breached the walls of monasteries in the period that followed. Thanks in large part to Franciscans and Jesuits, lay urban elites—both men and women—gained access to spiritual practices whose goal was to enhance belief and create new selves. Using Michel Foucault’s writing on the hermeneutics of the self, and the French philosopher’s intuition that the early modern period was a moment of transition in the configurations of the self, Sluhovsky offers a broad panorama of spiritual and devotional techniques of self-formation and subjectivation.
The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World is a collection of fourteen articles focusing on debates concerning the nature of “rites” raging in intellectual circles of Europe, Asia and America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The controversy started in Jesuit Asian missions where the method of accommodation, based on translation of Christianity into Asian cultural idioms, created a distinction between civic and religious customs. Civic customs were defined as those that could be included into Christianity and permitted to the new converts. However, there was no universal consensus among the various actors in these controversies as to how to establish criteria for distinguishing civility from religion. The controversy had not been resolved, but opened the way to radical religious scepticism. Contributors are: Claudia Brosseder, Michela Catto, Gita Dharampal-Frick, Pierre Antoine Fabre, Ana Carolina Hosne, Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, Giuseppe Marcocci, Ovidiu Olar, Sabina Pavone, István Perczel, Nicholas Standaert, Margherita Trento, Guillermo Wilde and Ines G. Županov.
During the early modern period, thousands of Jesuits across Europe wrote individual applications for appointments in the “Indies” directly to the superior general of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Known today as litterae indipetae (from Indias petere, that is, applying for the missions in the Eastern and Western territories), these letters encompassed the most personal desires, hopes, and dreams of young Jesuits who sought to become missionaries. This book is the first English monograph on litterae indipetae and studies their style and structure, the background of their authors and the reasons behind their choices, as well as the network surrounding this practice (natural and spiritual families, procurators, confrères). Its purpose is also to capture the experiences of these individuals since lost to history by studying thousands of indipetae, in this case written mainly by Italian Jesuits at the turn of the eighteenth century. It focuses especially on the petitions aimed at East Asia, and offers in-depth analysis of cases of Jesuits whose missionary zeal for China and Japan was fulfilled—or not.
In the aftermath of the religious crisis triggered by the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church set out to conquer faithful in new territories. The first missionaries to arrive in Japan were the Jesuits who were forced to adopt a different type of evangelization, with a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. This volume shows that Japan turned out to be a land of experimentation and development of a global Catholicism, as well as an unprecedented laboratory of encounter between political, scientific and religious cultures in the age of the first globalization. It analyzes the different conversion strategies developed by the Jesuit fathers toward various groups, including samurai, B...
The Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, is the most successful and enduring global missionary enterprise in history. Founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1540, the Jesuit order has preached the Gospel, managed a vast educational network, and shaped the Catholic Church, society, and politics in all corners of the earth. Rather than offering a global history of the Jesuits or a linear narrative of globalization, Thomas Banchoff and Jos Casanova have assembled a multidisciplinary group of leading experts to explore what we can learn from the historical and contemporary experience of the Society of Jesus--what do the Jesuits tell us about globalization and what can globalization tell us about the Jesuits? Contributors include comparative theologian Francis X. Clooney, SJ, historian John W. O'Malley, SJ, Brazilian theologian Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, and ethicist David Hollenbach, SJ. They focus on three critical themes--global mission, education, and justice--to examine the historical legacies and contemporary challenges. Their insights contribute to a more critical and reflexive understanding of both the Jesuits' history and of our contemporary human global condition.
In Between Popes, Inquisitors and Princes Jessica Dalton re-examines the contribution of the first Jesuits in efforts to stem heresy in early modern Italy, exploring its impact on their relationship with the papacy, Roman Inquisition and secular princes.
Examines Dante's reception in the culture and criticism of Renaissance Italy, with a particular focus on Florence and Venice.
Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus quickly established itself as one of the most dynamic, influential but divisive orders within early-modern Catholicism. Yet whilst the order's role in combating Protestantism, reforming the Catholic Church and advising rulers during its first century has been well documented, much less is understood about its later years. Covering the generalate of Tirso González (1687-1705), this book offers a window onto Jesuit politics and theology during the late seventeenth century. González's generalate was dominated by two crises - one political, the other theological - both of which were to have important ramifications for the Jesuits and the wider Catholic wor...
A new history illuminates the Society of Jesus in its first century from the perspective of those who knew it best: the early Jesuits themselves. The Society of Jesus was established in 1540. In the century that followed, thousands sought to become Jesuits and pursue vocations in religious service, teaching, and missions. Drawing on scores of unpublished biographical documents housed at the Roman Jesuit Archive, Camilla Russell illuminates the lives of those who joined the Society, building together a religious and cultural presence that remains influential the world over. Tracing Jesuit life from the Italian provinces to distant missions, Russell sheds new light on the impact and inner work...
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