I Was Born in 1491 in Spain and Was the Youngest of 13 Children

Ignatius Loyola 1491 – 1556

My name is Ignatius Loyola. I am a Catholic and the founder of a Catholic group called the Society of Jesus. Members of this group are called Jesuits. When I was alive, many people were leaving the Catholic Church. I never left. I always believed. Because of people like me, today there are more Christians than any other religion. And within Christianity, there are more Catholics than Protestants. Today’s 1.1 billion Catholics can thank me for helping to save & strengthen Catholicism during the time of the Protestant Reformation.

I was born in 1491 in Spain and was the youngest of 13 children. My mom died when I was seven. My uncles and aunts got me a job with a named Antonio Manrique de Lara. (A Duke is a person who owns a lot of land and helps the king fight for that land if someone attacks it.) I did a lot of fighting for the Duke. I was a great soldier.

In 1521 my life changed forever. During a fight against the French, I was hit by a cannonball. One of my legs broke and the other was hurt very badly. I had to have many operations and my doctors didn’t give me any medicine for the pain! I had to learn how to walk again. I also read a lot. I read a book called De Vita Christi (Life of Christ) by Ludolph of Saxony. I read this book over and over. I imagined what it would have been like to talk with Jesus and his followers.

I loved this book so much that I decided to stop being a soldier and work for God. One day I saw the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus at the shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat in March 1522. I also began praying for seven hours a day. I liked to pray alone in a cave. I also wanted to write a book called Spiritual Exercises. I wanted to share my ideas with other people. My book was printed on a Gutenberg press beginning in 1524.

In 1534, with the help of six of my good friends and some others, I started a “club” called the Society of Jesus. (We are also called “Jesuits.”) We all promised to live lives of poverty (being poor), chastity (no sex), and obedience to God and to the Catholic Church. We also wanted to share our ideas with other people. I was the first superior general or leader of the Jesuits. I sent my friends as missionaries around Europe to start Catholic schools, colleges, and seminaries (a place for priest to study). The first Jesuit college in the world was opened at Messina on the Italian island of Sicily. This first school was very successful and many more would soon follow. My main principle became the Jesuit motto: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (everything "for the greater glory of God").

After Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the Catholic Church in Wittenberg Germany in 1517, many other people joined him in complaining about the Church. These protests confused me because I did not think they were right. I think that these Protestants or “protestors” were forgetting a simple but very important rule: obedience. To say bad things about the Church is wrong. Christianity isn’t about individuality, it’s about everyone listening to and looking up to God. Martin Luther, Elizabeth I, and many others, have no right to say bad things about the Church. The Church is 1,500 years older than they are! Just who do they think they are?

Fortunately, many people did not leave the Catholic Church. We made some changes to make the Church better. We called those changes the Counter-Reformation. The Church didn’t listen to Luther, but they did make some good changes that made people in the Church more honest. These changes helped the Catholic faith.

By the time I died in 1556, my book had been around for a lot of years and over 1,000 Jesuits had traveled to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas to talk about our faith with others as well as start schools. Our work still goes on today.

In the United States, there are 28 Jesuit colleges and universities and more than 50 Jesuit high schools. I’m sure you have heard of some of them: Boston College, Georgetown University, Xavier, Gonzaga, Loyola University and Santa Clara are all famous Jesuit schools. Even Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is Jesuit!

I am Ignatius Loyola. Come and follow me.