The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-31
Adherents of Black Pope'' to Honor Jesuit
 Founder Today


 world the followers of the Black Pope will hold solemn ceremonies to-
 day in commenoration of the festival
 of St. Ignatius LoyoIa, the founder of the Society of Jesus Since the six teenth century, when Ignatius 5Loyola, "a Spanish soldier and hida1go with hot Biscayan blood" abandoned his
 worldly ways and laid the foundation of a new religious organization, the
 Jesuits have been the most powerful of Catholic orders. The general of the society, owing to his black garb, is often called the Black Pope" and in some ways his power and influence
 approach that of the White Pope"
 the sovereign pontiff of the Roman
 church. By a strange coincidence, the late General of the order, Father Wernz, a German, died within a few
 hours of the passingNp Npf Pope Plus x. The present Black Pope" is the 1 twenty sixth in order of, succession j
 The majority of the executives of the
 order have been Italians, although
 there have also been Swiss. Polish,
 Dutch, Bohemian and German Black Popes.'' In the sixteenth century the Order
 of Jesuits had 8 narrow escape from
 extinction. Pope Sixtus ", he who
 had e7lcomnunicated Henry ILL and
 Henry ". of France, proposed to
 change the name of the order and to so modify it's rules and regulations that the society of St. Ignatius of LoyoIa would virtually cease to. exist. On the very day he had appointed for
 signing, the document which would
 have been the death warrant of the
 Jesuits, the Pope died, and the pro-
 ject was abandoned by his successors. l The Company of Jesus now num- bers about 25,000, but every nennb CT
 is a picked man, who has been sub jected to the most rigid tests as to
 his mental and moral fitness for wear ing the black robe which the Jesuits of former centuries have made known
 in every land on the globe. The or
 der has been called the Conscience of the Church, because through all the
 centuries the Jesuits have never abated in the least their purpose of
 making Rome the center of spiritual authority for the whole world In
 their determination to effect this ob-
 ject the Jesuits played the role of pioneers in the wildernesses of Amer ica, North and South. and hundreds
 of them were put to torture and death by the Indians of Canada and the
 savages of the future United States. A cannon-bau was responsible for the inception of this worldwide relig- I ious order! St 1gnatius of Loyo1as was thorough wor1dling, with women, wine and war the objects of his
 adoration, until in 1521, while helping to defend Pampe1una against the
 French, both his legs were injured by
 cannon-baH. He spent several 1 weary months in the neighboring cas- tie of Loyola,, and while away the time by reading the Lives of the Saints. The soldier, who had led a wild and
 vicious life. and aspired only to mili-
 tary glory, found himself incapaoitated for further service, and determined to seek to emulate the saints. He made l a. pilgrimage to the holy land as soon
 as he was able to travel, and, clad as a beggar, he finally reached Jerusa- lem. He then returned to Spain and
 set about the task of gaining an edu- l cation, in the pursuit of which he went to Paris. At the university in the French capital he fired five fel- low students with something of his
 own pious ardor, and in an under
 ground chapel of the church of Mont martre the six young enthusiasts took solemn vows of poverty, eelibacy and
 devotion to the church. This was the
 origin of the Society of Jesus. which
 received the formal sanction of the Pope in 1540. Ignatius became the
 first president or Black Pope" of the
 order, which soon became the most
 dangerous of the antagonists of Pro testantism and the most enthusiastic of missionary societies.