19 FEB - TODAY IN SJ HISTORY

 The election of Fr. Claudio Acquaviva, SJ (1543-1615) as the 5th General in the 4th General Congregation. 

    He was only 37 years of age and a Jesuit for only l4 years. He was General under 8 Popes. He had been a fellow Novice with St. Stanislaus Koska. 

    Acquaviva was born in Atri, Abruzzo, from a noble family illustrious at the court of Naples for its patronage of humanist culture. 

    He had heard of the Society of Jesus through his friendship with Fr. Francis Borgia and Fr. Juan de Polanco. He was particularly impressed by the works of the 

    Early Companions during the Plague in 1566 and decided to join the Order at the age of 24. With the blessing of Pope Pius V he asked the then Superior General, 

    Fr. Francis Borgia, to be admitted to the novitiate. After completing his studies, he was very soon given positions of important responsibility, 

    his administrative gifts marking him out for the highest posts. He soon became the Provincial Superior of Naples and then of Rome; 

    Upon the death of Fr. General Everard Mercurian, the Fourth General Congregation. Acquaviva was elected the next Superior General, 

    being then only thirty-seven years old, to the great surprise of Pope Gregory XIII.

    During Acquaviva's administration, the protracted controversy on Grace, between the Dominicans and the Jesuits, took place, 

    and was carried on with some interruptions for nearly nine years. 

    It was Acquaviva who ordered the scheme of Jesuit studies, known as the "Ratio Studiorum", to be drawn up which, with some modifications, 

    has been followed to the present day. The period of his generalship was the most notable in the history of the Society for the men it produced, 

    and the work it accomplished. Royal and pontifical missions to France, Russia, Poland, Constantinople, and Japan were entrusted. 

    Houses were multiplied all over the world with an astonishing rapidity. 

    The Reductions of Paraguay were organized; the heroic work of the missions of Canada were begun; South America was being traversed in all directions; 

    China had been penetrated, and he Jesuits were the emperor's official astronomers; martyrs in great numbers were sacrificing their lives in England, 

    America, India, Japan, and elsewhere; and the great struggle organized by Canisius and Nadal to check the Reformation in Germany had been brought to a successful conclusion.




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