The Spiritual Empire of the Society of Jesus

Abstract

The aim of this article is to throw the worldwide mission efforts of the old Society of Jesus—the order from its implementation in 1540 to its dissolution in 1773—into sharper relief by applying a new analytical frame to it. The approach taken will be to view the Society as trying to establish a form of dominion over its extra-European converts that may be described as spiritual empire-building.1To this purpose it will first sketch the theoretical framework of a spiritual empire, and then evaluate whether the old Society of Jesus may be taken to fit it either on an organizational level or in its treatment of its converts.